Some notes on Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

[sorcyress]

A relative stranger to this journal left me a comment expressing intrigue over Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and I...got excited and infodumped. I figure if I'ma write comments long enough to be posts, maybe I should also just make them posts. Here is my understanding of RSD!

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Oh man. Oh _man_. Like, learning there was a name for Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria changed my life. It is generally an ADHD symptom (so if you definitely don't have ADHD it's much less likely that you have RSD specifically, but if you might have ADHD and do have this, then maybe that's a sign you should check out more other ADHD stuff (esp. beyond the stereotypes of "oo shiny!")).

It refers to being dysphorically scared of/upset by/sensitive about rejection -or, and this is critical, perceived rejection.

Dysphorically here refers to sorta "way outside normal bounds". Like, no one enjoys being rejected or having their ideas shot down, but I think most people can recognize that if you say "let's go have Chinese for lunch" and your roommate says "naw, not into it" they're not secretly saying "how dare you suggest such a thing you utter terrible fool, I will hate you forever for your insolence". (The "best" part is that it's not actually predictable when the RSD will be really bad, so nine times out of ten, the response would be "yeah, cool, Mexican then?" and only occasionally will your brain decide that you have Ruined Everything Irrevocably.)

The "also sensitive to perceived rejection" also includes the *potential* of being rejected, which ties a lot into Perfection Bullshit (not a clinical term) and things like "if I can't do this project right the first time I will be in big trouble with my boss and everything will be ruined so I can't work on it until I'm ready to do it right oh no it was due a week ago and now everything is worse how did this happen".

The running away is...not necessarily a part of it, except that certain events (common link: where I am not "perfect enough" by some sort of arcane bullshit standards unknown to common man) make me feel so disproportionately awful about myself that I can't face those feelings amongst other people. In the past couple years, I've been able to name that specific pattern...which unfortunately doesn't make it go away, and I still don't know how to solve the little voice in my head that screams in endless loop "you are not good enough".

Or rather, the way I "solve" it is by running away (going somewhere else) and crying dramatically by myself in an empty hallway/bathroom/classroom/closet/hideyhole for a bit, and maybe writing. I can't actually cry forever, and so after a bit I start distracting myself and maybe playing dumb phone games (don't have to think about how awful I am if my active brain cycles are solving this sudoku!) or reaching out to people, and then after...5-10-15 minutes I can go back to the rest of the group and pretend I'm totally normal and I wasn't just completely over-the-top devastated by making one wrong strike out of 1200 while ringing bells or whatever.

((Sometimes it gets a lot stronger and sharper and takes *much* longer than that, but usually I can recognize and just cut my losses and go home. I've never had an RSD bout that lasted past "sleep", unless it was part of a legitimately non-dysphoric seriously bad thing (like getting fired from a job I love).))

Anyways, hi! welcome to my journal! My name is Kat (or Sor) and I am absolutely stereotypical ADHD (oo shiny!) and I write way too much and you are always welcome to leave comments and I'm following your journal too now!

~Sor
MOOP!

Comments

[metahacker]

That's a thing? (thinks)

[harena]

Omg Omg, i got so excited reading this because OMG BOTH WOOZLE AND I HAVE RSD SOOOOOOO BAAAAAD & i just had to share & agree that just finding out that it existed as a Thing made a huge difference!! Hasn't made it go away but when it hits, we can say "Augh RSD" and together we can (sometimes) work through to feeling better.

Okay, now i'm going to go back & read the rest of your post brb....

....back! Andyar, same, same, same, & I'm really sorry you haven't an irl person to help you (like W&I) have.. i don't think i could handle it at all if i were on my own so i guess that makes you AMAZING & i am full of AWE of your Amazingnesses! <3 <3 <3

. o O (once again, the ferret is so much help, yepyep >.>)

. o O (whoops, RSD please ignore)

RSD (the well-known Ridiculous School of Design)

[woozle]

Just a quick note that I only discovered myself it a year or two ago, and eventually put together eine kleine wiki page about it. ^.^

Now, on to actually read Tha Post...

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(added -- hope this doesn't create Information Overload)

I feel like my experience of RSD has altered significantly since I first started homing in on it as a thing, which was itself some weeks or months before I came across the term "rejection sensitive dysphoria". It's like... being aware of it, I can sorta "catch" the badfeels when they come in -- and although that doesn't stop them from happening, it does seem to stop them from creating this huge feedback loop of unworthiness and self-loathing, and keeps it down to the level of a single large dollop of unworthiness and self-loathing¹ which (since it can't so easily feed back on itself) tends to go in other directions, especially regret and fear of meaninglessness.

The fact that I can do this, though, seems like another bit of evidence that my ADHD maybe isn't as strong as all that. When I finally got tested last year, the results were kind of inconclusive (I rated as high as you can go without being "likely to have ADHD", but part of why I didn't rate higher was that I reflexively used coping techniques to be able to do "better" on the distraction test, which meant that I didn't look as distractible as I actually am...), and then there's also the fact that while methylphenidate does help me focus, it mainly seems to do so by making me feel better and more motivated in general... although it also seems to increase my ability to pull up words and concepts when I need them, and I guess [not being able to do] that is an ADHD thing? ...and I don't need it every day. (...though the goodfeels are strong enough that I feel like taking it when I don't need it is a temptation -- so I always write down when I take it, with a one-line explanation of why.)

I also relate to the running-away/hiding thing, though it was more often about anger or fear -- which I think may be explained by differences in our childhoods. My peers made it clear in grades 3-8 or so that they thought I was weird and stupid, and in 4th I was actively chased around the playground all recess most of the time -- so if I felt rejected, there was usually a good reason for it. On the other hand, I think I tended to react badly to teasing, which (in retrospect) was possibly part of the social bonding process at my rather elitist private school (like a mild form of hazing, maybe?) -- so that seems more like classic RSD.

Later on, as a married thirtysomething, I would disappear when I was angry/resentful about spousal disputes and didn't feel comfortable expressing those feelings. So maybe that's different.

...and I've probably babbled too much now, but maybe this makes up for months of not responding to your posts? It's life-overwhelm, and definitely not disinterest, for whatever that may be worth.

Footnote

1. Harena says, as I'm reading this out loud, that that's what she was trying to say in her response.

[sisceal]

Thank you for wordsing this and sharing it; I find it very hard to describe to others.