Do you consider yourself a sensitive person?
Maybe you have been called too sensitive by others - loved ones, family, friends, coworkers, acquaintances.
Every person in some way experiences pain from rejection.
However, with you, it seems as though the smallest thing can make you feel rejected even when people insist that it was not their intention to reject you.
Someone smirks at you and you wonder if they're mocking you for something you're not aware of.
You step into a room and two people look at each other silently before looking back at you, and you immediately feel ashamed.
The person who was friendly to you yesterday suddenly is very short with you today and you instantly feel ill while silently wondering what you've done to offend them between yesterday and today.
On a Friday evening, your boss asks you to see him on Monday and you spend the whole weekend in an anxious state, wondering what you'll do for a new job as you're sure you're going to get sacked.
Your friend tells you your new hair wig is bad and you think they hate you.
Your partner tells you that you fried the eggs badly and you think they're tired of you already. Maybe you should just break up with them now since the relationship is more or less over.
And so on and so forth.
Whenever you've expressed your feelings to others, you've been dismissed as dramatic or paranoid.
Yet, this does not change the fact that the pain you feel from the rejection or criticism of others is real and it is intense beyond what can be put into words.
It is not all in your head.
You may be experiencing something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD).
Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is something that is not commonly talked about, possibly because it affects a small percentage of the general population; particularly those who are neurodivergent (neurodivergent people are people whose brains are wired differently so that they process information differently, express themselves differently and are particularly sensitive. For instance, autistic people, people with ADHD/ADD, OCD, etc).
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria is an extreme sensitivity to real or perceived rejection from others.
RSD is a form of excruciating pain/disturbance felt when you think you've lost the respect, approval or love of people who matter to you.
Once you've been triggered, you may suddenly feel ill/weak. You may experience anxiety, depression, to mention a few while it lasts.
It especially leads to avoidance behaviours in many sufferers.
Take note that RSD is not a psychological disorder or condition in and of itself. Rather, it is a symptom.
It simply means that you were exposed to an extremely high amount of criticism in your early years, compared to your peers who could be ‘normal’ while you could not.
So many of those criticisms were over things you could not change, cannot change and probably should not change.
This has given you the message that you are defective, and that no matter how much you try to fix yourself, there will always be something wrong with you.
Over time, your nervous system has registered criticism as a threat. You have become hypersensitive to criticism or anything remotely resembling criticism or rejection.
Therefore, it does not matter whether or not you've actually been criticized or rejected. As long as you feel as though you've been rejected, you experience the pain of RSD.
This is to let you know that you are not crazy; it is not all in your head, and you are not alone.
RSD does not mean your nervous system is broken.
RSD is the normal response of a very sensitive brain to an abnormally high amount of criticism in its formative years.
Like many things, knowing about RSD gives you a sense of control over it rather than being controlled by it.
It helps to recognize it and acknowledge it.
Remind yourself the next time you get triggered and feel that intense, indescribable pain, that it might be RSD making you think your partner wants to leave you, or that your boss is disappointed in you.
Maybe your neighbour is not angry with you when he does not return your greeting, maybe he just did not hear you.
Work on your self esteem and unconditional self acceptance so that the automatic belief that you are defective can lessen gradually, and with it, the control RSD has over you.
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