Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Richard (00:02):
And hello to you, and
welcome to the Richard Nicholls
Podcast, the personaldevelopment podcast series
that's here to help inspire,educate and motivate you to be
the best you can be.
I'm psychotherapist RichardNicholls, and this episode is
all about rejection sensitivity.
(00:23):
And if you're ready, We'll startthe show! Alright there?
How are you?
Have you been up to much since Ispoke to you last?
Oh, what have I been doing?
Oh, thanks for asking.
Podcasts! And that's about it,really.
Me and Fiona are recordingseason two of Therapy Natters
(00:46):
now, so that'll be out soon.
We want to get half a dozen orso recorded in advance so we
don't have to rush them out.
Season one, we recorded them onthe Friday and I edited them
over the weekend and then putthem out on the Wednesday, so it
was a bit of a rush.
Made having a week off hard, sowe're getting a few in the bag
(01:06):
ready this time in advance.
We were unsure whether it wouldtake off, but we've had loads of
positive feedback about TherapyNatters, so we're definitely
going to continue it for as longas we can.
It doesn't get as many listenersas this one does, but then this
show I've been doing now fornearly 15 years, so comparing
the two just wouldn't be fair.
(01:28):
But then aren't all comparisonsunfair?
Really?
This week I was catching up onthe five minute podcasts that I
make for Fridays, little bonusones.
People seem to like those, soalthough it's a bit of a hassle
because I video them as well andstick them on YouTube, I think
it's worth it.
(01:48):
Subscribe to me on YouTube ifyou like and you get to see my
cheesy face, not just listen tomy cheesy voice.
Link is in the show notes alongwith all the other different
things that I get up to in thesocial media world.
But, despite having thousands oflistens to my audio podcast, my
demographic isn't YouTube.
(02:09):
Not really.
So I hardly get any views onthere.
Because you've already heard thepodcast in your car or whatever.
So you're not going to listen toit again.
And I get it.
So the numbers, they aren'treally relevant.
And I know it shouldn't matter.
I know it doesn't matter.
It doesn't.
I make audio podcasts, so nothaving as many YouTube views is
(02:32):
how it should be.
But there is a slight feeling ofrejection, which is totally
normal.
Like I often say, nothing's aproblem unless it causes
problems.
When clients talk to me aboutthis, though, I do hear a
different side because to a lotof people opening yourself up to
(02:53):
the possibility of rejection isnot just outside of their
comfort zone, you might as wellbe asking them to Skydive
without a parachute.
It's terrifying.
Now the extremes of it can be apersonality disorder.
And I get that having labels canhelp people to see that they're
not alone in feeling the waythat they feel.
(03:16):
But labelling people as havingborderline personality disorder,
or emotionally unstablepersonality disorder, sounds
awful.
And to me, the idea of Makingthese labels is to help people
to realise that they're notbroken, that their issue is so
common, it's got a name.
(03:37):
And I like that there's been apush in the UK and Ireland to
stop calling it borderline,because obviously anyone
diagnosed with it is going toask, Why is it called
borderline?
And the answer is because thesymptoms border on a diagnosis
of psychosis, as if the patientis borderline delusional.
(03:57):
But emotionally unstablepersonality disorder?
That isn't much better, is it,really?
It still makes people soundbroken.
And I think it's becauselabelling anyone with a
personality disorder, whetherthat's me, Obsessive Compulsive
Personality Disorder orAntisocial Personality Disorder
(04:19):
is different to a balancedisorder, a thyroid disorder, a
hearing disorder.
Because a diagnosis of somethingwrong with our body seems to
have far less of an impact thana diagnosis of something wrong
with who we are as a person.
Imagine meeting someone and youlearn that there's something
(04:42):
disorderly about their hearing,their balance, or their thyroid.
How easy is it to accept that,and them?
You just accept them.
I'm not sure it's as easy toaccept someone with a label of
something disorderly about theirpersonality, because people
think that their personality isset in stone, written in the
(05:04):
stars.
Spoiler! No, it's not.
Only half of our personalitytraits are genetic traits.
That's been seen in multiplestudies over the years.
And even then, our environmentcan switch these genes on and
off.
But what's the alternative?
If we don't call thempersonality disorders, what do
(05:25):
we call them?
Maybe it's not the name thatneeds to change, though.
Maybe it's people's attitudes.
Maybe it's the stigma of havingsomething disorderly about the
way that we think and feel thatneeds to change.
That way, more people can bediagnosed if they have a
problem, rather than think thatthey're going crazy and hide
(05:48):
away from everybody.
Would it help to call EUPD andBPD something else?
I don't know.
But if it was to change, I thinka more accurate title would be
something to do with rejectionsensitivity because that's the
foundations to a lot of theseissues.
(06:08):
I don't want to see theseexperiments done, but you can
imagine the effects ofassociating pain with a
stimulus.
Think about a young dog with asqueaky toy.
It loves that squeaky toy.
Squeak, squeak! Instinctivelyreminds them of finding food in
the wild.
They associate that squeak,squeak, squeak, with a feeling
(06:29):
that everything's gonna be okaynow.
How lovely! How safe! What ahappy little puppy! Now imagine
every time it squeaks The doggets kicked in the head, and it
ain't gonna be long before whatwas once associated with
something with safety attachedto it becomes something it feels
(06:50):
it has to avoid.
Just the sound of the squeak,it's gonna make it hide in the
corner.
Because, like a, like a phobicresponse, the neurons of the
brain have been wired to fireoff on demand, like turning on a
light switch.
Well, what do you know?
The light comes on.
And we're no different to thatdog at a neurological level.
(07:13):
But we have frontal lobes tothink with.
and a society to live in, we aredifferent.
But our reactivity is going tobe the same.
Something that we instinctivelydesire.
Friendship, belongingness,companionship, can easily become
something we also fear.
(07:33):
If throughout our life there'sbeen the equivalent of the dog
getting kicked every time ithears a squeaky noise.
Many anxious clients over theyears have told me that they
wouldn't have an anxiety problemif they lived on a desert island
and didn't have to deal withother people.
Because for a lot of folk, theiranxiety is all about being
(07:55):
vulnerable to the possibility ofrejection.
Now, it's normal for our brainto seek out the things that we
fear, to notice dangerouspossibilities.
That's natural selection foryou.
But for those that have beenprimed from an early age to
expect rejection, because theywere emotionally neglected,
(08:17):
ignored, overlooked, then theirbrain is going to start
perceiving rejection everywhere,whether it's there or not.
Someone doesn't have toexplicitly reject us for us to
perceive that they are.
Rejection can simply be impliedby not getting a text message
(08:39):
reply quick enough.
And then when they do, it's gotno substance to it.
It's just an emoji, a thumbs upmaybe.
Is that rejection?
Does that mean that the otherperson can't be trusted?
Now, most people would say, no,of course not.
But for many, someone glancingat their phone whilst you're
trying to talk to them, that canfeel like they're in danger.
(09:03):
It's a potential threat to theirsafety.
It's the exact opposite ofacceptance.
And this is why when John Bowlbywas promoting his attachment
theory ideas back in the 50s,and he wasn't being taken
seriously by the psychoanalystsback then, the evolutionary
(09:23):
psychologists and the animalbehaviourists were the only ones
that said, Yep, this has got astrong base, this matches up
with what we see as well.
Because being accepted by ourgroup was really important for
our prehistoric ancestors.
To be rejected was pretty much adeath sentence.
(09:44):
And we do see it in otheranimals as well.
Not just mammals, but birds.
They'll kick out one or more oftheir offspring or siblings.
So that the group can do betteras a whole.
And chances are, this probablyhappened to us too.
Millions of years ago.
And our brain has learned tofear it.
And we also know from plenty ofother studies that the brain is
(10:06):
going to react in exactly thesame way for physical pain as it
does for rejection.
We might not feel it as pain inour body, but we feel it in our
brain and it hurts.
Rejection hurts.
We even use the word burn inEnglish, don't we, to mean
dismissing someone to theirface.
(10:27):
And burns hurt.
Real burns do.
I burnt my hand once because Itook a casserole dish out of the
oven and stupidly touched themetal handle on it when I was
scraping around with a spoon tokeep it steady.
I felt the burn and pulled myhand straight off it so that I
wouldn't get hurt further.
And to someone with apersonality disorder when
(10:49):
everything they do is abouttrying to be accepted by others.
That burn doesn't just hurt likea little burn from a casserole
dish handle.
It will feel as if they're onfire.
So would borderline personalitydisorder be better off as being
grouped under rejectionsensitivity disorder?
(11:12):
Maybe.
Preoccupied acceptance disorder?
Maybe we should call it that.
I don't know.
We can call it what we like, Iguess.
As long as it gives us a betterunderstanding of ourselves and
how we think we fit in withpeople, so that we can challenge
ourselves, and look forhealthier meanings behind other
people's behaviour other than Iam unlovable, I am unlikable, I
(11:37):
am worthless.
Just because somebody lookedover our shoulder at something
else in the room, or when wespoke they rolled their eyes,
when we told a bad joke, or Godforbid they disagreed with us
about something, or gavesomebody else more attention
than they did to us, or didn'tsubscribe to their YouTube
(11:57):
channel.
None of those are a rejection ofwho we are, but this rejection
sensitivity feeds itself.
If you see rejection everywhere,we mostly go one of two ways.
We either become preoccupiedwith being accepted and lean
into relationships, or we becomeavoidant of closeness in case
(12:21):
they reject us and we put upbarriers.
So we're likely to be emotional.
We might be angry, we might bewithdrawn, we might be
defensive, we might be tense.
We might not be the relaxed andcarefree character that people
probably want to hang aroundwith.
And so we might get ever soslightly, occasionally,
(12:44):
rejected, overlooked, ignored,which confirms all along that
rejection exists and should befeared.
Making us even more sensitive toit.
For some, it can turn them intoa controlling, manipulative
person, maybe even violent.
For others, they become paranoidand anxious and that paranoia of
(13:09):
everyone judges me, everyone'sthinking about how stupid I am,
was the reason Borderline wascalled Borderline, because the
psychologists of the time couldsee that what was going on
inside someone's head didn'tmatch reality.
But could also see that theyweren't actually psychotic.
They were neurotic.
(13:31):
As with many things, folks, thekey to overcoming these things
is to understand it.
Be aware of it in your life.
And accept that it's real.
Acceptance of a problem doesn'tmean giving in to it, though.
I don't want you to think thataccepting a mental health
disorder means you can'tovercome it.
That's not what we mean byacceptance.
(13:54):
By accepting it What I mean isyou're not denying it, because
denial is a defense mechanismthat stops us moving forwards,
stops us getting better, becauseyou can't improve your
sensitivity to rejection if youdon't accept that you are
sensitive to rejection.
So, understand it.
(14:16):
Accept it, and then you canchallenge it.
Then, you can look for othermeanings behind people's
behaviour.
Because your gut instincts arebroken.
Your instincts might say theydon't want you around.
You bore them.
They hate you.
And in the extremes of apersonality disorder, that can
give you a feeling that you needto strike down upon them with
(14:39):
great vengeance and furiousanger.
When actually all they did isjust go out for a drink with
another friend and they didn'tinvite you.
Nor did they not invite theeight billion other people.
But that's not the point.
Am I not their friend too?
Clearly not.
(15:00):
So here have my great vengeanceand furious anger.
That's what tends to happen ifwe don't accept that the problem
exists.
It's a bit of hard work,overriding it, but combining all
the different things that Iwaffle on about in these podcast
episodes.
Learning more about yourself,being more mindful, tuning into
(15:21):
the present moment, not dwellingon the past or worrying about
the future.
All of this sort of therapynonsense, it helps us to move on
from these sorts of issues.
But it takes practice, and withmany things in life, the cure is
actually part of the problem,because you actually have to put
(15:43):
yourself into those socialsituations in order to learn how
to cope with those socialsituations, which then triggers
the rejection reaction.
But hopefully, less and lesseach time.
Now then, time's up for today.
If you want to hear more abouthow to handle all of this, then
subscribe to me on Patreon.
(16:04):
And, I'm hardly exaggeratinghere.
There's at least a billion yearsworth of content.
Alright, maybe I'm exaggeratinga little bit, but there's a lot
of helpful content.
Hours and hours and hours andhours of it.
But I won't feel too rejected ifyou don't join me on there.
But it will mean, if you do,that the free stuff I put out to
the world will always carry on.
(16:24):
Either way, go forth and makeyour week amazing and I'll speak
to you next time, folks.
Take care.