November 12, 2024 • 41 mins
RSD... Yeah you know me... Well at the end of this episode, you will know a lot more about me! In this episode of Everything you Wanted to Know about Russ and I talk about RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Understanding RSD has been key to me understanding how deeply my late diagnosis impacted my sense of self. I've heard countless times in my life how I am "too sensitive" and understanding RSD really helped me understand where some of that sensitivity comes from.
And honestly... I think I experienced a fair amount of RSD just about publishing this episode. I've mentioned before that the interviewees for this podcast share such vulnerable stories. We don't often talk about invisible disabilities and talking about the ways RSD impacts my life is deeply vulnerable.
So please listen and share. And let me know on Instagram @DivergentPathsConsulting if you've experienced RSD.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
That sense of conforming or connection that is driven through wearing the right clothes
(00:08):
or looking the right way or dancing the right way, whatever it was, those kinds of critiques
would have really hit me hard in terms of like, oh, they told me that my socks were
ugly or my shoes are ugly or whatever. And now, I'm the worst person on the planet.
(00:40):
Hello and welcome to Divergent Paths. I'm your host, Dr. Regina McMenemy. I am a doctor,
but not that kind of doctor. And this is a podcast, not medical advice. Have you always felt a little
different but didn't know why? Have you struggled with tasks that some people seem to handle with
ease? Are you mystified by social norms and interactions? Divergent Paths is a podcast for
(01:03):
late diagnosed neurodivergent people to discuss their journeys, discovering the joys and frustrations
of having a spicy brain. Our Everything You Need to Know series will take a deep dive into some of
the common characteristics neuro-spicy individuals experience. Rejection-sensitive dysphoria, or RSD,
was one of the key concepts that helped me truly understand my spicy brain. RSD is a hypersensitivity
(01:27):
to criticism and failure. Someone who experiences RSD might take any kind of correction to their
behavior or work to have deeper meaning than it really does. In this episode, I'll teach Russ about
RSD and share some examples of how it manifests in my life. So stay tuned and thanks for listening to
Divergent Paths. You just recorded the whole open thing and you got a new mic. Right. I gave you a
(01:56):
bunch of feedback and then I listened to what you're talking about on this episode and now I feel
sort of bad. Because you had to give me feedback on how to get my microphone to work, right? Yeah,
well, I mean, that's sort of like, you know, rejecting what you were doing, right? Kind of.
Sort of kind of. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Like it was definitely, well, actually your suggestion was a
(02:21):
failure, not mine. That's true. That's true. Mine was the big fail. But if you put the clip on,
then we're good. Right. Yes. I'm saying, you know. We will modify. We will modify the equipment.
Open the whole box, Regina. Come on. She left out the little mic clip, but you know, that's okay.
I didn't leave out the little mic clip. I used what I already had and it's just not as good
(02:42):
as what came with the microphone. Right. Right. So now see, now that made me feel a little bad.
That flared a little bit more than.
Okay. Well, now I'm understanding the triggers, I guess.
Yeah. Now you got a better idea what the triggers are.
(03:05):
Okay. So we can joke about this, which is great. I mean,
I think it is even that's a difficult topic. It's a serious topic. It's fun to have a little
fun with things. But let's talk science here. What is RSD? So RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,
(03:26):
is a condition that causes people to experience extreme emotional responses to rejection,
criticism, or failure. So someone who takes it really hard when somebody tells them that they
did something wrong or that they need to fix something, or it could be anything can trigger it.
(03:50):
So does RSD, is that always. ADHD. It is not always associated with ADHD.
Okay. No, I mean, you and fidgeting and the things that manifest from neuro-spicy brains
are not well received in a lot of environments like school. So people who have a high hyperactivity,
(04:14):
like physically manifested hyperactivity, people who need to tap, who need to move,
who need to, you know, we have more accommodated school spaces and classrooms now than we did,
you know, when you and I were kids. But those behaviors are not behaviors that those institutions
tend to favor. So kids who are undiagnosed, who are in these types of environments, are open to
(04:41):
more criticism just based on behaviors that they can't always control, right? Because we can't,
not going to change your spicy brain by not tapping your foot. Right. You know? So I think one of the
reasons why we see this with people, and this is just my speculation, and this is not something
necessarily that is research-backed, although I did find some interesting articles that I wrote,
(05:06):
that I read about this. And some of the things that people are said, people,
things that are said to people about this definitely lean to that if you're not fitting in
and you're not conforming in a way that is acceptable. And that's one of the reasons why
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we're exposed to more criticism because we are outside of what the normal and desired behaviors
are just inherently in who we are, because I would not have considered myself impulsive, really,
until I realized that my impulsivity is largely verbal. I will just blurt out what I am thinking,
(05:50):
whether or not is an appropriate response or an appropriate place or an appropriate person to say
that thing to. Right. Right. In thinking about what you just said, it's sort of like you're not
fitting in, not being in the quote unquote norm, right? Right.
(06:14):
Does, and this might be just a larger question about ADHD, not just RSD, but self-esteem issues.
Absolutely. Like, is that coming into play more with the RSD or is that like, I've heard it with
ADHD, but with the RSD, does that complicate the self-esteem issues? Absolutely. If your outlook
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is that everybody who's critiquing you is doing it because they're not doing it because they're
not doing it because you have this, you know, people who have spicy brains have high emotions,
have a high emotional, they have big emotions and big feelings. And so when you're critiqued and
(06:58):
you get sad or angry, you have a big response to that. And often in situations where you're
behaving in a way that you're not in the norm, like in school, if you're, you know, I was,
a hyperactive child in that I didn't run around the classroom, but I did not pay attention to
what my teachers were teaching the majority of the time, half the time, because I already learned it.
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Like if I had read something, I already knew. So I didn't really need to pay attention a lot
of the time because I already knew what they were talking about without, you know, being there for
what they were teaching to maybe the other children. But when you're not paying attention
and you get caught not paying attention, you're ashamed, right? And so it creates this feeling of
you are bad. And I definitely knew that I was outside the norm. I definitely knew I wasn't,
(07:47):
you know, I won't say I wasn't right, but I definitely knew I wasn't typical. And that
left me feeling like I wasn't good enough or I wasn't, you know, I wasn't, I couldn't fit in
because I just couldn't fit in. And so that definitely hit my self-esteem.
(08:07):
But there's other things too, because like being late or time management or that kind of stuff too.
Right. Right. And then, and then I would think, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is
the difference between sensitivity to criticism and RSD. Is there, I mean, is it the same thing
or is it different?
(08:29):
It's definitely different. I mean, this is why it's, you know, it's dysphoria, right?
Dysphoria is when you see something and it isn't, it isn't the way you see it. So when we talk about
body dysmorphia as a thing that people who have eating disorders or disordered eating experience,
(08:49):
they look at themselves in the mirror and they see a version of themselves that is not
reality, right? They see a distorted version of themselves when they look in the mirror.
So with resection, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, the emotion is the emotion experienced is bigger
(09:11):
than the cause of it. Right. So let's say, let's say Russ's wife says something to you, like,
we need to talk. Like, what are, what are the first things that go through your mind?
No other context, no other anything. Maybe, maybe things have been like, not great between you two
(09:35):
lately. And she says, we need to talk. What are your first thoughts?
I don't really have like, there's not really like a fear coming out of that or, or is that what
you're, is that what somebody said that to you? Is that what you would experience?
If someone I was in a romantic relationship with said that to me, I would think that something was
(09:56):
wrong and potentially start to think about all of the potentially bad outcomes that could be
coming from whatever kind of conversation we need to have. So like my brain would immediately jump
to, Oh, this is a breakup conversation. Or if someone says that to me at work, like, okay, you
know, you need to come into my office, you know, because I need to talk with you. Or if someone
(10:17):
scheduled a meeting with me that I wasn't anticipating a boss or something, I would
immediately go on alert and like, okay, what's going on? Like something wrong, that kind of thing.
So I almost always head toward, toward that thinking and that, and it can be, it could be
pretty much anything, anybody. Right. Those are some of the worst words ever. We need to talk.
(10:42):
Now I know when I need to get you. Right. If you want to set me on edge, this is how you do it.
Okay. Okay. Well, okay. So I guess, you know, where, um, in, in leading there into,
you know, I feel like I always ask about work. So, um, I'll, I'll skip that for now. We'll,
we'll do that one after let's, let's first ask about in, in the romance relationships. Is that
(11:04):
where maybe sometimes this might like be, um, even more extreme. Definitely. Definitely. And, and
along with like, you know, the low self-esteem ideas that, uh, you know, questioning my value and my
worth and in relationships is definitely something like, Oh, you know, they're getting ready to leave
(11:25):
me or I'm not doing, you know, as much as I should be, or, you know, Oh, you know, all of the different
possibilities I could come up with. Um, there's definitely sensitivity to that. So I think that
I would say in, it pops up as well in like friendships too, like where, um, especially if
(11:46):
it's somebody, you, somebody that I wanted to have like a close relationship with, if something,
you know, I felt like I was falling short somehow, or if they said something about
like, you know, like, I'm not sure what I'm saying, but I'm sure that I'm not sure what I'm
saying. I'm not sure. And, so, you know, does anyone mind if I have a rough moment in my life
(12:12):
where, you know, they're gorgeous, dry hair, don't you, you're doing and I feel like it's
funny to myself, and I can then feel like how, uh, how, how do I, I own my own manner when,
maybe I have what I want and, and then I could use that with a new, uh,
new approach and it's worth it. Um, I, it's just only the two of us that, um,
(12:34):
would have really hit me hard in terms of like,
oh, they told me that my socks were ugly
or my shoes are ugly or whatever,
and now I'm the worst person on the planet.
Goes to that extreme.
Well, yeah, I laugh at what you wear,
(12:54):
because not what you wear,
but what caring about other people wear right now,
because all I wear is black t-shirts now.
Right.
I've been a little bit changing.
Like, why just so much easier?
Just wear a black t-shirt.
I think I've brought that up.
Yeah, we've actually talked about that
when I was talking about the process that you go through
when you get dressed in the morning,
like the things you consider.
But that's another thing that might also,
(13:17):
this is just dawning on me now,
this is something that might add into that decision paralysis
if you are at that stage where you're worried
about what your friends wear,
and you're worried about fitting in
when you get up to get dressed in the morning
to go to school.
How much harder is it if you are experiencing
rejection-sensitive dysphoria?
Let's say your friends didn't like
(13:38):
the jacket you wore the day before.
I have a very vivid memory in junior high,
because junior high,
that's called middle school now, right?
It's not junior high anymore.
But I still fall back into it.
It was junior high.
So somewhere in,
I can't remember if it was,
I think it was eighth grade.
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I had a lot of,
my dad died when I was in eighth grade.
So eighth grade was an awful year for me
for a lot of reasons.
But I remember having done this project with my mom
where I had bought a denim jacket,
and then we had gone to secondhand stores,
and we had thrifted a bunch of really cool pins and stuff,
(14:19):
and decorated the jacket with a bunch of really cool pins
and really neat stuff.
And I was so proud,
and I was so excited to wear it.
And I got on the bus to go to school,
and my best friend was already on the bus,
and she looked at me like I had three heads.
And I was absolutely embarrassed for the rest of the day
because of her reaction to it,
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to the point where I went into the bathroom
and stripped a bunch of the buttons off,
pretty much when I got to school,
because I couldn't handle her rejection in that moment.
And upon reflection, she was not a great friend.
Yeah, when I found my middle school friends,
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it's a tough time for lots of different reasons.
But when I found my yearbooks from that school,
she had done this thing, she had said,
oh, let's write these funny, mean comments to each other
all over our yearbooks.
And she had written things in my yearbook like,
everybody hates you, Regina, and you suck,
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and all this stuff.
And then, like on reflection,
25 years later when I came across the yearbook,
I was like, oh, this wasn't a joke.
She meant all these things.
Right.
She was doing this because she didn't like me,
and she wanted to make sure I knew,
but she wanted to do it
in some sort of socially acceptable way,
so for making fun of each other, that's appropriate.
(15:53):
Not cool.
Not cool.
Not cool.
Yeah, the whole, okay, so that also, I would think,
I mean, having that experience
where you have these external people judging you
and saying negative things to you,
that also builds up into you
like sort of a self-criticism, right?
And so now you're dealing with that,
which also, is that coming with this,
(16:15):
or is that complicating this?
I think it's a combination of things.
I think that a lot of people,
especially people who are late diagnosed or self-diagnosed,
who don't have systems in place
and don't have paperwork or assessment
to help them understand themselves
or a network of people to help them understand,
(16:37):
I think that negative self-talk
ends up being really pronounced
because you know you don't fit in.
Like there's a TikTok video about how
people who are neuro-spicy are zebras in a pack of horses.
(16:59):
Right?
And so you look like a horse.
Kind of, you have the same body shape
and you have the same, you know,
you're running on four legs and you know, similar.
You're similar enough, but you have stripes
and they don't have stripes
and they don't understand why you have stripes.
(17:19):
And probably if you're an animal,
you smell a little weird and you act a little weird
and like, you're not, you're not.
You're not a horse, you're a zebra.
Right?
So if you're a zebra and you're surrounded by horses
or you're surrounded by people who are also zebras,
but who have horse costumes on
and they're masking, right?
And they're fighting.
(17:39):
Then, and you're not able to mask as much
or you're not able to hide as much
and you look more like a zebra than they do.
Then that self doubt, that negative self talk,
what's wrong with me?
What, you know, how come I can't do this?
Why am I like this?
You know?
Right.
Couple that with some big emotions and.
(18:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Heightened emotions and heightened impulsivity, you know.
You were a teacher for a long time.
I was a teacher for a long time.
And you actually, if you look online,
if you Google you on some of these professor websites,
you get some amazing reviews.
I do get amazing reviews.
And some people say some really great things about you.
(18:25):
Yeah.
Okay.
So we talked about some of the bad things
that have been said to you.
Now, when you hear those good things,
are you also very sensitive to those?
And do you feel better about those?
Or are you less sensitive to those than others you think?
Oh, that's a great question.
Do you get that little hit of like, oh, I'm pretty cool.
That is a really good question.
(18:46):
I think it's a combination.
So I'll use an example from teaching.
This is really good.
Every year as a teacher,
your students do student evaluations of your teaching, right?
Where they give you feedback.
And what you saw are essentially a loose example of that
(19:08):
are websites where people can go like rate my professor
or whatever and can comment on your teaching.
Usually the students who end up doing that
either have really good things to say
or really bad things to say.
Of course.
Like that one, right.
That is very much.
But the evaluations that I got from my students
(19:30):
that were things that I had like hand into them,
to fill out,
I overwhelmingly got positive evaluations
through the years.
I can count maybe in, I don't know how many classes I taught
(19:52):
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students.
I would get of 24 to 30 students,
sometimes one or two negative comments.
And the negative comments weren't always like awful.
There were a couple of times
where students who I caught cheating.
(20:14):
When that was your fault, right?
Oh yes.
Who said awful things about me in the student evaluations.
But like if it was something like, I don't know,
even remotely negative,
I would only remember that negative comment.
I could have 23 positive student evaluations
(20:37):
and I would remember the negative student evaluation.
And that I would say is the dysphoria.
Like I can't always see that it's this huge number of good
and this small subset of negative.
And my brain just goes straight to that, your trash,
(20:59):
because this one student didn't like
this one assignment you did.
Yeah, in business, I did that with some reviews.
Generally, my company had all five stars and it was great.
And then on occasion we would get somebody.
But for me, I guess I sort of looked at that as,
(21:25):
that person wasn't a great client.
So I think I was able to look past that.
So I guess that's the...
Yeah, there's a difference with that too.
I mean, these were anonymous.
So I didn't always know who the students were.
I mean, I can guess a lot of the times,
like when they were the cheaters and they're like,
she gives me a plagiarism and I didn't steal anything.
And it's like, I knew who that was, right?
(21:47):
Like, sometimes it was pretty cut and dry,
but like I didn't always know.
So I couldn't always be like, well,
this student was getting a D and this is why,
or this student got a D on that assignment
that they didn't like.
And it wasn't that it was a bad assignment.
Like 23 other students did great on that assignment
and this one student didn't.
That's not a failure on my part.
If the majority of the students have succeeded,
(22:10):
that's one person, that's a failure for them.
But because they're anonymous and you don't know it,
that makes it harder,
because then you're guessing a little bit more.
Right, right.
But I'm sure by that point,
I mean, you're teaching English,
you know their writing styles.
You know which one's which.
Yeah, I could differentiate by the end of a semester,
my students wrote enough that I could,
(22:32):
a lot of the times know who wrote what.
Yeah, there was a lot of times I could do that.
But yeah, I mean, in a workplace,
when I moved into like admin work
and I was doing admin work,
my boss knew, like I never kind of explained to her
(22:54):
the sensitivity, but she knew that I was working really hard
and I was doing a lot of work that was outside my scope
and I had to learn a lot in my job.
And even when, you know,
I had a lot of things that I was juggling
and if I dropped something that she needed,
(23:16):
she was very careful to not come to me and be like,
where is this and why haven't you gotten this done?
She would always come and ask something like,
what's the status of this?
And hey, have you had time to look at this?
And that approach where it wasn't,
why isn't this on my desk?
(23:38):
To, hey, where are you with this?
You know, do you need more information?
What's the status?
And I'd be like, oh, I dropped off
because I was dealing with these other fires.
You know, I can pick it up and make sure I get to it
in the next couple of days.
And she'd be like, great, that'd be fantastic, thank you.
You know, that kind of thing.
She was really good about how she approached me with things
and that made a really big difference.
(23:59):
And that's what I've tried to teach my friends
and my romantic partners is like,
if you're clear with me, if, you know, like I said,
we need to have a talk is something
that's just gonna send me.
Right.
In a hundred different directions all at once
and they're all, almost all of them are bad.
(24:23):
Right.
So, okay, so how, we've asked, you know,
like in other episodes like this, we've asked, you know,
if you're the parent or, you know, you're the boss
or you're the coworker or you're, you know, the friend,
whatever it is or the romantic partner,
how do you best handle this?
(24:45):
Like, okay, we know the words not to say to you, you know,
we need to have a talk.
So, you know.
You're still gonna text me that later.
It's been 40 years and you've never said that to me.
So, I'm saying, okay, 35 years.
We'll shrink that a little bit.
But we've never said that and I didn't know that.
How do you, like when you're, I guess, when,
(25:08):
if you have this and you recognize that you have this
and this is a thing for you,
what conversations do you need to have with people?
Like, what are the conversations that you've had with people
so that they're making you feel more comfortable
and they're still, you know, we're not putting up walls
against them, you know, things, you know,
rules set up for them,
but they're understanding what you need in the relationship.
(25:31):
I mean, like you said, the first step is starting
to recognize which is, you know, one of the reasons why
I wanted to do this topic at this point in the podcast
was because Rachel, our photographer that I interviewed,
brought up RSD and brought up the sensitivity.
(25:51):
And I don't think we talked much in that article,
in that interview about her RSD,
but she's a creative and I think I talked a little bit then
about like what it's like to be creative
and put like your creative work out there
and see what other people have to say about it, right?
(26:12):
That's a risk.
So yeah, being able to understand,
it takes some reflection, it takes some time.
Something that's helping me is to,
well, it's probably the number one would be being medicated.
(26:35):
Because that calms down the tendency that my brain has
to run off in a hundred directions
and to run off into all of those like bad outcomes, right?
So that helps.
But to try to take a breath and, you know,
take a moment before I react to things
(26:55):
and before I react to something that someone has said.
And so my daughter's dad one time said something to me
along the lines of, I never let him forget this
because it made me so mad.
He said, I wasn't the kind of person who got things done.
(27:17):
And I got, when I'm really, really mad, I don't react.
I go absolutely silent and I went absolutely silent
because I was furious.
Was this just with the two of you? Was this in a group?
Like what's the?
It was just the two of us.
Yeah, we were sitting and he was upset
(27:40):
because I hadn't taken some clothes
to the secondhand store.
They were in the back of my car and I just hadn't,
this is long before I had any idea at ADHD.
I had gotten them from the collect them up,
get them to the car, get them in the car.
I just hadn't gotten them to,
I hadn't gotten them to,
the secondhand store, I hadn't made the drop off yet.
(28:02):
And he was essentially criticizing me
because I hadn't done that when he thought
I should have already have completed it.
And to make such a broad sweeping statement
to someone who has a PhD,
who at the time was teaching six classes
at three different schools and keeping up with 200 students
(28:26):
all the while, I was just so mad.
All the while parenting at that time, a toddler.
And she was alive and thriving and...
It's a big enough job as it is just right there.
I mean, it really was.
(28:46):
It was really a lot.
And to have him say,
you're not the kind of person that gets things done
was just, it still hurts.
I turned red, like Russ can see me.
I have completely flashed talking about this story
because apparently I still have a lot of anger
about that.
Apparently you do.
You're gonna call and yell at him later.
(29:07):
I will.
Just a little flashback anger.
So, I mean, one thing I think about,
so you're talking about the creatives
putting stuff out there.
And we have the photographer
(29:27):
putting her artwork out there,
putting you putting this podcast out there.
I've been doing YouTube videos and podcasts
and all this stuff and I put it out there.
I've only had one really like comment
that kind of annoyed me on YouTube.
It was somebody that said,
(29:49):
I was telling a story in this,
it was a YouTube short and I was telling a story.
And they said,
nobody cares about you or your story.
And I was like, it kind of annoyed me.
Right?
Yeah.
Just what a jerk.
Why be a jerk about it?
Why do you have to comment on this?
(30:09):
I just replied back, dad?
Question mark.
And I felt good about it.
I felt like that either made him feel bad
or he got a laugh out of it.
Right?
Right.
Well, trolls are gonna troll.
Exactly.
Well, that's the thing.
There's so many out there,
especially like Reddit, YouTube,
(30:30):
they can get pretty vicious.
Although Reddit can be totally super supportive as well.
I love some of that about Reddit.
But with that, with the YouTube comments
and these kind of bad things coming in,
how, if you're a creator
or if you're somebody that's putting stuff out there,
(30:52):
what advice do you have for that person
when they're hearing potential negative feedback
from these anonymous sources,
much like your anonymous stuff that you've heard before?
Right.
Yeah.
And I've gone through that too
with other content that I put online
and getting feedback.
(31:15):
In that case, I love what you did with that troll
because that's what that was.
That was somebody making a comment to,
first, the sole purpose of hurting.
Of causing pain and upset.
So then you can turn that on their head.
That's great.
(31:35):
It takes a fair amount of self-confidence
to be able to do that.
And if you are overwhelmed with negative comments,
like let's say you mildly go viral or something like that
and you have some something
and you get an onslaught of those.
My best thing, especially in an online environment,
(31:56):
is just to turn it off, stop looking
and know that it can get really loud
and feedback can get really loud,
but not all feedback needs to be taken to heart.
Like I said, when I was teaching
and I had one student who hated an assignment
(32:17):
and then they probably didn't get a very good grade
on that assignment.
But a whole class worth of other students
that got value out of it.
You don't know that that one voice
that said that awful thing,
or even if it's a hundred voices that said the awful thing,
you didn't have a bunch of other people
who got a lot out of it that was positive.
(32:39):
Well, like we mentioned earlier,
like I threw out Yelp when you were talking about
either people love it or hate it.
And unfortunately, a lot of people that love it
don't actually get on there and comment.
It'd be nice if more people actually made
the positive comments.
Like you think, oh, I had this horrible experience,
so now I'm gonna go to Yelp and complain.
(32:59):
Well, I had a great dinner last night.
I'm gonna go and review the restaurant that I went to
because it was fantastic.
And it's like, that helps the business, helps you.
And I think, I mean, I don't know,
I guess now I'm turning this into a be kind commenters,
but it's like, if you're kind and constructive,
that's fantastic.
And that might be the biggest thing,
(33:21):
like along with the emotion that comes with rejection
sensitive dysphoria, right?
That emotion, that gut punch you feel,
if you do have this heightened sense of,
oh my God, this is awful, I failed
because this person said this leaf in my painting
wasn't quite the right color, whatever it is that they said.
(33:42):
So being able to understand that there is criticism
that you can grow from, right?
And a comment on your YouTube video that says,
nobody cares about your story,
isn't a comment that you can grow from.
And you being able to step away and step back
(34:02):
and like let the feeling go through you,
which is something that I'm still learning,
like let those feelings pass and then recognize
that that person's intention wasn't to help you,
that that person's intention was just to be a jerk,
but that somebody who's telling you,
if they can communicate to it, let's say you're late
(34:24):
and it's bothered some to them that you run late.
If they were to couch it and say something like,
it's really hard for me to make plans with you
because you cancel more often than you don't.
And I need to have a little bit more stability.
What ways can we make plans in a way that will support you
(34:46):
or something like that rather than,
oh my God, you're late again.
And why are you always late?
And how come you can't get out the door on time?
Because these are things that people
with invisible disabilities struggle with.
There are some days when I'm looking at my closet
and I'm like, there's nothing in here I wanna wear.
And I have to convince myself
(35:06):
that closer thing I need to do, so that I can function
in the world.
Okay, so you casually threw in there medication
for help with this.
You slipped that one in there.
We also have talked about some ways of handling this
(35:27):
as you're going through and ways to think it through
and staying away from comments.
I like that.
And then the whole flip side of that being constructive
and those dang comments.
But let's talk about other ways like therapy, treatment,
things that have maybe are out there
(35:49):
that could help somebody that is recognizing
these symptoms in themselves.
That's a great point.
I mean, I think finding if you have the capacity
and the ability to do counseling,
finding someone who is a counselor who understands
neurodivergence and can help you with these things.
If you are experiencing RSD, do some reading.
(36:10):
I can put some links up to some articles
so you can see things that other people said,
things, experiences that people, similar people,
similar experiences people have to this.
So that you know you're not alone.
I mean, that's like, if I were to say
what the overarching theme of Divergent Paths is,
(36:31):
it's like, I want people to know you might feel like
you're on a divergent path,
but you're not the only person there.
Like we're all there in this.
So finding someone that you can talk to,
learning strategies that help you deal with
the big emotions, that help you deal with
that heightened emotions, deal with the impulsivity
(36:53):
and some of the other things you have
that you just have to deal with with neurodiversity.
I am finding that being physically active
is really important to me.
And this is not something that I really understood
at any other time in my life.
(37:15):
But I have to get in at least a walk a day.
I need to get out and be active
and preferably exercising outside is really,
really helps and really helps sort of helps me not react
as much to all of these things, to all of it.
Like, had I been in better health
(37:37):
and been in a better emotional space
when Chris said, you're not a person who gets things done,
maybe I wouldn't have had such a heated response to it.
Although I can't imagine not responding to that that way.
But like I said, maybe I need to work on that
(37:58):
in another counseling session.
We hit pause on the recording for 20 minutes
so she could go yell at him again.
That's why you heard the little edit there.
I heard that.
That's where that came from.
I feel like one other thing,
I was sort of getting towards the treatment
and the clothes, let's say.
(38:19):
But I feel like as the marketing guy
that that's what I do by day, right?
Like, I feel like not saying I do this
because I'm B2B too.
So, but there's a lot of marketers, companies out there
that are basically using tactics
to prey on insecurities like this, right?
(38:41):
Subtly suggesting that you're not good enough
or that you're not cool enough
because you're not doing that
or you don't fit in because of this.
I feel like there's also the algorithms of social media
that are just pulling that into you
so that you're not having to go look outward for it.
It's just coming into your feed as well.
(39:02):
Right.
There's so many different,
I mean, that's one of the hardest things
about this modern existence
is there's so many different systems
and things that are trying to pull us in one direction
or another in large part to get us to spend money.
So.
Right, right.
The more that you can recognize that,
you know, I don't know that money would fix,
(39:25):
you know, rejection, sensitive dysphoria.
If you got those cool shoes,
if I had worn a different jacket that day on the bus,
would I have felt differently?
Would it, you know,
I don't think it really would have mattered.
I think in that example,
like the example of my friend making, you know,
cringing essentially at what I was wearing,
I don't think it would have mattered what I had on
(39:46):
if it wasn't exactly the same thing that she had.
And then it would have been,
why do you look like me?
Why are you so kind?
Right, then it would have been, exactly.
It would have been something, yeah.
Bullies gotta bully.
Yeah, it wouldn't have mattered.
So, like, you know, it doesn't, those quick fixes,
there are no quick fixes to this.
Like the only way I think really to come to terms
(40:08):
with rejection, sensitive dysphoria
or rejection sensitivity,
you don't always have to have dysphoria.
You don't have to go that far.
You can just be sensitive to rejection too.
But the only way to really address this
is to be able to get into your emotions
and see where some of that stuff comes from.
Like, you know, where, you know,
(40:28):
dealing with the anger, dealing with the shame,
dealing with all the other feelings
that would come along with it.
I can't wait to talk about our next topic,
whatever that's gonna be.
I know, we'll see.
We'll see what our next path is
for everything you need to know about.
(40:48):
Thank you so much for listening.
Is RSD something you experience?
Does it help knowing that it's a common experience
of people with ADHD?
Let us know on Instagram
at Divergent Paths Consulting No Spaces.
Make sure to subscribe to this podcast
wherever you listen, like and leave a review
and share with your spicy brain friends.
And until next time, stay spicy.
That sense of conforming or connection that is driven through wearing the right clothes
(00:08):
or looking the right way or dancing the right way, whatever it was, those kinds of critiques
would have really hit me hard in terms of like, oh, they told me that my socks were
ugly or my shoes are ugly or whatever. And now, I'm the worst person on the planet.
(00:40):
Hello and welcome to Divergent Paths. I'm your host, Dr. Regina McMenemy. I am a doctor,
but not that kind of doctor. And this is a podcast, not medical advice. Have you always felt a little
different but didn't know why? Have you struggled with tasks that some people seem to handle with
ease? Are you mystified by social norms and interactions? Divergent Paths is a podcast for
(01:03):
late diagnosed neurodivergent people to discuss their journeys, discovering the joys and frustrations
of having a spicy brain. Our Everything You Need to Know series will take a deep dive into some of
the common characteristics neuro-spicy individuals experience. Rejection-sensitive dysphoria, or RSD,
was one of the key concepts that helped me truly understand my spicy brain. RSD is a hypersensitivity
(01:27):
to criticism and failure. Someone who experiences RSD might take any kind of correction to their
behavior or work to have deeper meaning than it really does. In this episode, I'll teach Russ about
RSD and share some examples of how it manifests in my life. So stay tuned and thanks for listening to
Divergent Paths. You just recorded the whole open thing and you got a new mic. Right. I gave you a
(01:56):
bunch of feedback and then I listened to what you're talking about on this episode and now I feel
sort of bad. Because you had to give me feedback on how to get my microphone to work, right? Yeah,
well, I mean, that's sort of like, you know, rejecting what you were doing, right? Kind of.
Sort of kind of. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Like it was definitely, well, actually your suggestion was a
(02:21):
failure, not mine. That's true. That's true. Mine was the big fail. But if you put the clip on,
then we're good. Right. Yes. I'm saying, you know. We will modify. We will modify the equipment.
Open the whole box, Regina. Come on. She left out the little mic clip, but you know, that's okay.
I didn't leave out the little mic clip. I used what I already had and it's just not as good
(02:42):
as what came with the microphone. Right. Right. So now see, now that made me feel a little bad.
That flared a little bit more than.
Okay. Well, now I'm understanding the triggers, I guess.
Yeah. Now you got a better idea what the triggers are.
(03:05):
Okay. So we can joke about this, which is great. I mean,
I think it is even that's a difficult topic. It's a serious topic. It's fun to have a little
fun with things. But let's talk science here. What is RSD? So RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,
(03:26):
is a condition that causes people to experience extreme emotional responses to rejection,
criticism, or failure. So someone who takes it really hard when somebody tells them that they
did something wrong or that they need to fix something, or it could be anything can trigger it.
(03:50):
So does RSD, is that always. ADHD. It is not always associated with ADHD.
Okay. No, I mean, you and fidgeting and the things that manifest from neuro-spicy brains
are not well received in a lot of environments like school. So people who have a high hyperactivity,
(04:14):
like physically manifested hyperactivity, people who need to tap, who need to move,
who need to, you know, we have more accommodated school spaces and classrooms now than we did,
you know, when you and I were kids. But those behaviors are not behaviors that those institutions
tend to favor. So kids who are undiagnosed, who are in these types of environments, are open to
(04:41):
more criticism just based on behaviors that they can't always control, right? Because we can't,
not going to change your spicy brain by not tapping your foot. Right. You know? So I think one of the
reasons why we see this with people, and this is just my speculation, and this is not something
necessarily that is research-backed, although I did find some interesting articles that I wrote,
(05:06):
that I read about this. And some of the things that people are said, people,
things that are said to people about this definitely lean to that if you're not fitting in
and you're not conforming in a way that is acceptable. And that's one of the reasons why
(05:27):
we're exposed to more criticism because we are outside of what the normal and desired behaviors
are just inherently in who we are, because I would not have considered myself impulsive, really,
until I realized that my impulsivity is largely verbal. I will just blurt out what I am thinking,
(05:50):
whether or not is an appropriate response or an appropriate place or an appropriate person to say
that thing to. Right. Right. In thinking about what you just said, it's sort of like you're not
fitting in, not being in the quote unquote norm, right? Right.
(06:14):
Does, and this might be just a larger question about ADHD, not just RSD, but self-esteem issues.
Absolutely. Like, is that coming into play more with the RSD or is that like, I've heard it with
ADHD, but with the RSD, does that complicate the self-esteem issues? Absolutely. If your outlook
(06:36):
is that everybody who's critiquing you is doing it because they're not doing it because they're
not doing it because you have this, you know, people who have spicy brains have high emotions,
have a high emotional, they have big emotions and big feelings. And so when you're critiqued and
(06:58):
you get sad or angry, you have a big response to that. And often in situations where you're
behaving in a way that you're not in the norm, like in school, if you're, you know, I was,
a hyperactive child in that I didn't run around the classroom, but I did not pay attention to
what my teachers were teaching the majority of the time, half the time, because I already learned it.
(07:22):
Like if I had read something, I already knew. So I didn't really need to pay attention a lot
of the time because I already knew what they were talking about without, you know, being there for
what they were teaching to maybe the other children. But when you're not paying attention
and you get caught not paying attention, you're ashamed, right? And so it creates this feeling of
you are bad. And I definitely knew that I was outside the norm. I definitely knew I wasn't,
(07:47):
you know, I won't say I wasn't right, but I definitely knew I wasn't typical. And that
left me feeling like I wasn't good enough or I wasn't, you know, I wasn't, I couldn't fit in
because I just couldn't fit in. And so that definitely hit my self-esteem.
(08:07):
But there's other things too, because like being late or time management or that kind of stuff too.
Right. Right. And then, and then I would think, I mean, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is
the difference between sensitivity to criticism and RSD. Is there, I mean, is it the same thing
or is it different?
(08:29):
It's definitely different. I mean, this is why it's, you know, it's dysphoria, right?
Dysphoria is when you see something and it isn't, it isn't the way you see it. So when we talk about
body dysmorphia as a thing that people who have eating disorders or disordered eating experience,
(08:49):
they look at themselves in the mirror and they see a version of themselves that is not
reality, right? They see a distorted version of themselves when they look in the mirror.
So with resection, rejection, sensitive dysphoria, the emotion is the emotion experienced is bigger
(09:11):
than the cause of it. Right. So let's say, let's say Russ's wife says something to you, like,
we need to talk. Like, what are, what are the first things that go through your mind?
No other context, no other anything. Maybe, maybe things have been like, not great between you two
(09:35):
lately. And she says, we need to talk. What are your first thoughts?
I don't really have like, there's not really like a fear coming out of that or, or is that what
you're, is that what somebody said that to you? Is that what you would experience?
If someone I was in a romantic relationship with said that to me, I would think that something was
(09:56):
wrong and potentially start to think about all of the potentially bad outcomes that could be
coming from whatever kind of conversation we need to have. So like my brain would immediately jump
to, Oh, this is a breakup conversation. Or if someone says that to me at work, like, okay, you
know, you need to come into my office, you know, because I need to talk with you. Or if someone
(10:17):
scheduled a meeting with me that I wasn't anticipating a boss or something, I would
immediately go on alert and like, okay, what's going on? Like something wrong, that kind of thing.
So I almost always head toward, toward that thinking and that, and it can be, it could be
pretty much anything, anybody. Right. Those are some of the worst words ever. We need to talk.
(10:42):
Now I know when I need to get you. Right. If you want to set me on edge, this is how you do it.
Okay. Okay. Well, okay. So I guess, you know, where, um, in, in leading there into,
you know, I feel like I always ask about work. So, um, I'll, I'll skip that for now. We'll,
we'll do that one after let's, let's first ask about in, in the romance relationships. Is that
(11:04):
where maybe sometimes this might like be, um, even more extreme. Definitely. Definitely. And, and
along with like, you know, the low self-esteem ideas that, uh, you know, questioning my value and my
worth and in relationships is definitely something like, Oh, you know, they're getting ready to leave
(11:25):
me or I'm not doing, you know, as much as I should be, or, you know, Oh, you know, all of the different
possibilities I could come up with. Um, there's definitely sensitivity to that. So I think that
I would say in, it pops up as well in like friendships too, like where, um, especially if
(11:46):
it's somebody, you, somebody that I wanted to have like a close relationship with, if something,
you know, I felt like I was falling short somehow, or if they said something about
like, you know, like, I'm not sure what I'm saying, but I'm sure that I'm not sure what I'm
saying. I'm not sure. And, so, you know, does anyone mind if I have a rough moment in my life
(12:12):
where, you know, they're gorgeous, dry hair, don't you, you're doing and I feel like it's
funny to myself, and I can then feel like how, uh, how, how do I, I own my own manner when,
maybe I have what I want and, and then I could use that with a new, uh,
new approach and it's worth it. Um, I, it's just only the two of us that, um,
(12:34):
would have really hit me hard in terms of like,
oh, they told me that my socks were ugly
or my shoes are ugly or whatever,
and now I'm the worst person on the planet.
Goes to that extreme.
Well, yeah, I laugh at what you wear,
(12:54):
because not what you wear,
but what caring about other people wear right now,
because all I wear is black t-shirts now.
Right.
I've been a little bit changing.
Like, why just so much easier?
Just wear a black t-shirt.
I think I've brought that up.
Yeah, we've actually talked about that
when I was talking about the process that you go through
when you get dressed in the morning,
like the things you consider.
But that's another thing that might also,
(13:17):
this is just dawning on me now,
this is something that might add into that decision paralysis
if you are at that stage where you're worried
about what your friends wear,
and you're worried about fitting in
when you get up to get dressed in the morning
to go to school.
How much harder is it if you are experiencing
rejection-sensitive dysphoria?
Let's say your friends didn't like
(13:38):
the jacket you wore the day before.
I have a very vivid memory in junior high,
because junior high,
that's called middle school now, right?
It's not junior high anymore.
But I still fall back into it.
It was junior high.
So somewhere in,
I can't remember if it was,
I think it was eighth grade.
(13:58):
I had a lot of,
my dad died when I was in eighth grade.
So eighth grade was an awful year for me
for a lot of reasons.
But I remember having done this project with my mom
where I had bought a denim jacket,
and then we had gone to secondhand stores,
and we had thrifted a bunch of really cool pins and stuff,
(14:19):
and decorated the jacket with a bunch of really cool pins
and really neat stuff.
And I was so proud,
and I was so excited to wear it.
And I got on the bus to go to school,
and my best friend was already on the bus,
and she looked at me like I had three heads.
And I was absolutely embarrassed for the rest of the day
because of her reaction to it,
(14:42):
to the point where I went into the bathroom
and stripped a bunch of the buttons off,
pretty much when I got to school,
because I couldn't handle her rejection in that moment.
And upon reflection, she was not a great friend.
Yeah, when I found my middle school friends,
(15:09):
it's a tough time for lots of different reasons.
But when I found my yearbooks from that school,
she had done this thing, she had said,
oh, let's write these funny, mean comments to each other
all over our yearbooks.
And she had written things in my yearbook like,
everybody hates you, Regina, and you suck,
(15:30):
and all this stuff.
And then, like on reflection,
25 years later when I came across the yearbook,
I was like, oh, this wasn't a joke.
She meant all these things.
Right.
She was doing this because she didn't like me,
and she wanted to make sure I knew,
but she wanted to do it
in some sort of socially acceptable way,
so for making fun of each other, that's appropriate.
(15:53):
Not cool.
Not cool.
Not cool.
Yeah, the whole, okay, so that also, I would think,
I mean, having that experience
where you have these external people judging you
and saying negative things to you,
that also builds up into you
like sort of a self-criticism, right?
And so now you're dealing with that,
which also, is that coming with this,
(16:15):
or is that complicating this?
I think it's a combination of things.
I think that a lot of people,
especially people who are late diagnosed or self-diagnosed,
who don't have systems in place
and don't have paperwork or assessment
to help them understand themselves
or a network of people to help them understand,
(16:37):
I think that negative self-talk
ends up being really pronounced
because you know you don't fit in.
Like there's a TikTok video about how
people who are neuro-spicy are zebras in a pack of horses.
(16:59):
Right?
And so you look like a horse.
Kind of, you have the same body shape
and you have the same, you know,
you're running on four legs and you know, similar.
You're similar enough, but you have stripes
and they don't have stripes
and they don't understand why you have stripes.
(17:19):
And probably if you're an animal,
you smell a little weird and you act a little weird
and like, you're not, you're not.
You're not a horse, you're a zebra.
Right?
So if you're a zebra and you're surrounded by horses
or you're surrounded by people who are also zebras,
but who have horse costumes on
and they're masking, right?
And they're fighting.
(17:39):
Then, and you're not able to mask as much
or you're not able to hide as much
and you look more like a zebra than they do.
Then that self doubt, that negative self talk,
what's wrong with me?
What, you know, how come I can't do this?
Why am I like this?
You know?
Right.
Couple that with some big emotions and.
(18:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Heightened emotions and heightened impulsivity, you know.
You were a teacher for a long time.
I was a teacher for a long time.
And you actually, if you look online,
if you Google you on some of these professor websites,
you get some amazing reviews.
I do get amazing reviews.
And some people say some really great things about you.
(18:25):
Yeah.
Okay.
So we talked about some of the bad things
that have been said to you.
Now, when you hear those good things,
are you also very sensitive to those?
And do you feel better about those?
Or are you less sensitive to those than others you think?
Oh, that's a great question.
Do you get that little hit of like, oh, I'm pretty cool.
That is a really good question.
(18:46):
I think it's a combination.
So I'll use an example from teaching.
This is really good.
Every year as a teacher,
your students do student evaluations of your teaching, right?
Where they give you feedback.
And what you saw are essentially a loose example of that
(19:08):
are websites where people can go like rate my professor
or whatever and can comment on your teaching.
Usually the students who end up doing that
either have really good things to say
or really bad things to say.
Of course.
Like that one, right.
That is very much.
But the evaluations that I got from my students
(19:30):
that were things that I had like hand into them,
to fill out,
I overwhelmingly got positive evaluations
through the years.
I can count maybe in, I don't know how many classes I taught
(19:52):
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students.
I would get of 24 to 30 students,
sometimes one or two negative comments.
And the negative comments weren't always like awful.
There were a couple of times
where students who I caught cheating.
(20:14):
When that was your fault, right?
Oh yes.
Who said awful things about me in the student evaluations.
But like if it was something like, I don't know,
even remotely negative,
I would only remember that negative comment.
I could have 23 positive student evaluations
(20:37):
and I would remember the negative student evaluation.
And that I would say is the dysphoria.
Like I can't always see that it's this huge number of good
and this small subset of negative.
And my brain just goes straight to that, your trash,
(20:59):
because this one student didn't like
this one assignment you did.
Yeah, in business, I did that with some reviews.
Generally, my company had all five stars and it was great.
And then on occasion we would get somebody.
But for me, I guess I sort of looked at that as,
(21:25):
that person wasn't a great client.
So I think I was able to look past that.
So I guess that's the...
Yeah, there's a difference with that too.
I mean, these were anonymous.
So I didn't always know who the students were.
I mean, I can guess a lot of the times,
like when they were the cheaters and they're like,
she gives me a plagiarism and I didn't steal anything.
And it's like, I knew who that was, right?
(21:47):
Like, sometimes it was pretty cut and dry,
but like I didn't always know.
So I couldn't always be like, well,
this student was getting a D and this is why,
or this student got a D on that assignment
that they didn't like.
And it wasn't that it was a bad assignment.
Like 23 other students did great on that assignment
and this one student didn't.
That's not a failure on my part.
If the majority of the students have succeeded,
(22:10):
that's one person, that's a failure for them.
But because they're anonymous and you don't know it,
that makes it harder,
because then you're guessing a little bit more.
Right, right.
But I'm sure by that point,
I mean, you're teaching English,
you know their writing styles.
You know which one's which.
Yeah, I could differentiate by the end of a semester,
my students wrote enough that I could,
(22:32):
a lot of the times know who wrote what.
Yeah, there was a lot of times I could do that.
But yeah, I mean, in a workplace,
when I moved into like admin work
and I was doing admin work,
my boss knew, like I never kind of explained to her
(22:54):
the sensitivity, but she knew that I was working really hard
and I was doing a lot of work that was outside my scope
and I had to learn a lot in my job.
And even when, you know,
I had a lot of things that I was juggling
and if I dropped something that she needed,
(23:16):
she was very careful to not come to me and be like,
where is this and why haven't you gotten this done?
She would always come and ask something like,
what's the status of this?
And hey, have you had time to look at this?
And that approach where it wasn't,
why isn't this on my desk?
(23:38):
To, hey, where are you with this?
You know, do you need more information?
What's the status?
And I'd be like, oh, I dropped off
because I was dealing with these other fires.
You know, I can pick it up and make sure I get to it
in the next couple of days.
And she'd be like, great, that'd be fantastic, thank you.
You know, that kind of thing.
She was really good about how she approached me with things
and that made a really big difference.
(23:59):
And that's what I've tried to teach my friends
and my romantic partners is like,
if you're clear with me, if, you know, like I said,
we need to have a talk is something
that's just gonna send me.
Right.
In a hundred different directions all at once
and they're all, almost all of them are bad.
(24:23):
Right.
So, okay, so how, we've asked, you know,
like in other episodes like this, we've asked, you know,
if you're the parent or, you know, you're the boss
or you're the coworker or you're, you know, the friend,
whatever it is or the romantic partner,
how do you best handle this?
(24:45):
Like, okay, we know the words not to say to you, you know,
we need to have a talk.
So, you know.
You're still gonna text me that later.
It's been 40 years and you've never said that to me.
So, I'm saying, okay, 35 years.
We'll shrink that a little bit.
But we've never said that and I didn't know that.
How do you, like when you're, I guess, when,
(25:08):
if you have this and you recognize that you have this
and this is a thing for you,
what conversations do you need to have with people?
Like, what are the conversations that you've had with people
so that they're making you feel more comfortable
and they're still, you know, we're not putting up walls
against them, you know, things, you know,
rules set up for them,
but they're understanding what you need in the relationship.
(25:31):
I mean, like you said, the first step is starting
to recognize which is, you know, one of the reasons why
I wanted to do this topic at this point in the podcast
was because Rachel, our photographer that I interviewed,
brought up RSD and brought up the sensitivity.
(25:51):
And I don't think we talked much in that article,
in that interview about her RSD,
but she's a creative and I think I talked a little bit then
about like what it's like to be creative
and put like your creative work out there
and see what other people have to say about it, right?
(26:12):
That's a risk.
So yeah, being able to understand,
it takes some reflection, it takes some time.
Something that's helping me is to,
well, it's probably the number one would be being medicated.
(26:35):
Because that calms down the tendency that my brain has
to run off in a hundred directions
and to run off into all of those like bad outcomes, right?
So that helps.
But to try to take a breath and, you know,
take a moment before I react to things
(26:55):
and before I react to something that someone has said.
And so my daughter's dad one time said something to me
along the lines of, I never let him forget this
because it made me so mad.
He said, I wasn't the kind of person who got things done.
(27:17):
And I got, when I'm really, really mad, I don't react.
I go absolutely silent and I went absolutely silent
because I was furious.
Was this just with the two of you? Was this in a group?
Like what's the?
It was just the two of us.
Yeah, we were sitting and he was upset
(27:40):
because I hadn't taken some clothes
to the secondhand store.
They were in the back of my car and I just hadn't,
this is long before I had any idea at ADHD.
I had gotten them from the collect them up,
get them to the car, get them in the car.
I just hadn't gotten them to,
I hadn't gotten them to,
the secondhand store, I hadn't made the drop off yet.
(28:02):
And he was essentially criticizing me
because I hadn't done that when he thought
I should have already have completed it.
And to make such a broad sweeping statement
to someone who has a PhD,
who at the time was teaching six classes
at three different schools and keeping up with 200 students
(28:26):
all the while, I was just so mad.
All the while parenting at that time, a toddler.
And she was alive and thriving and...
It's a big enough job as it is just right there.
I mean, it really was.
(28:46):
It was really a lot.
And to have him say,
you're not the kind of person that gets things done
was just, it still hurts.
I turned red, like Russ can see me.
I have completely flashed talking about this story
because apparently I still have a lot of anger
about that.
Apparently you do.
You're gonna call and yell at him later.
(29:07):
I will.
Just a little flashback anger.
So, I mean, one thing I think about,
so you're talking about the creatives
putting stuff out there.
And we have the photographer
(29:27):
putting her artwork out there,
putting you putting this podcast out there.
I've been doing YouTube videos and podcasts
and all this stuff and I put it out there.
I've only had one really like comment
that kind of annoyed me on YouTube.
It was somebody that said,
(29:49):
I was telling a story in this,
it was a YouTube short and I was telling a story.
And they said,
nobody cares about you or your story.
And I was like, it kind of annoyed me.
Right?
Yeah.
Just what a jerk.
Why be a jerk about it?
Why do you have to comment on this?
(30:09):
I just replied back, dad?
Question mark.
And I felt good about it.
I felt like that either made him feel bad
or he got a laugh out of it.
Right?
Right.
Well, trolls are gonna troll.
Exactly.
Well, that's the thing.
There's so many out there,
especially like Reddit, YouTube,
(30:30):
they can get pretty vicious.
Although Reddit can be totally super supportive as well.
I love some of that about Reddit.
But with that, with the YouTube comments
and these kind of bad things coming in,
how, if you're a creator
or if you're somebody that's putting stuff out there,
(30:52):
what advice do you have for that person
when they're hearing potential negative feedback
from these anonymous sources,
much like your anonymous stuff that you've heard before?
Right.
Yeah.
And I've gone through that too
with other content that I put online
and getting feedback.
(31:15):
In that case, I love what you did with that troll
because that's what that was.
That was somebody making a comment to,
first, the sole purpose of hurting.
Of causing pain and upset.
So then you can turn that on their head.
That's great.
(31:35):
It takes a fair amount of self-confidence
to be able to do that.
And if you are overwhelmed with negative comments,
like let's say you mildly go viral or something like that
and you have some something
and you get an onslaught of those.
My best thing, especially in an online environment,
(31:56):
is just to turn it off, stop looking
and know that it can get really loud
and feedback can get really loud,
but not all feedback needs to be taken to heart.
Like I said, when I was teaching
and I had one student who hated an assignment
(32:17):
and then they probably didn't get a very good grade
on that assignment.
But a whole class worth of other students
that got value out of it.
You don't know that that one voice
that said that awful thing,
or even if it's a hundred voices that said the awful thing,
you didn't have a bunch of other people
who got a lot out of it that was positive.
(32:39):
Well, like we mentioned earlier,
like I threw out Yelp when you were talking about
either people love it or hate it.
And unfortunately, a lot of people that love it
don't actually get on there and comment.
It'd be nice if more people actually made
the positive comments.
Like you think, oh, I had this horrible experience,
so now I'm gonna go to Yelp and complain.
(32:59):
Well, I had a great dinner last night.
I'm gonna go and review the restaurant that I went to
because it was fantastic.
And it's like, that helps the business, helps you.
And I think, I mean, I don't know,
I guess now I'm turning this into a be kind commenters,
but it's like, if you're kind and constructive,
that's fantastic.
And that might be the biggest thing,
(33:21):
like along with the emotion that comes with rejection
sensitive dysphoria, right?
That emotion, that gut punch you feel,
if you do have this heightened sense of,
oh my God, this is awful, I failed
because this person said this leaf in my painting
wasn't quite the right color, whatever it is that they said.
(33:42):
So being able to understand that there is criticism
that you can grow from, right?
And a comment on your YouTube video that says,
nobody cares about your story,
isn't a comment that you can grow from.
And you being able to step away and step back
(34:02):
and like let the feeling go through you,
which is something that I'm still learning,
like let those feelings pass and then recognize
that that person's intention wasn't to help you,
that that person's intention was just to be a jerk,
but that somebody who's telling you,
if they can communicate to it, let's say you're late
(34:24):
and it's bothered some to them that you run late.
If they were to couch it and say something like,
it's really hard for me to make plans with you
because you cancel more often than you don't.
And I need to have a little bit more stability.
What ways can we make plans in a way that will support you
(34:46):
or something like that rather than,
oh my God, you're late again.
And why are you always late?
And how come you can't get out the door on time?
Because these are things that people
with invisible disabilities struggle with.
There are some days when I'm looking at my closet
and I'm like, there's nothing in here I wanna wear.
And I have to convince myself
(35:06):
that closer thing I need to do, so that I can function
in the world.
Okay, so you casually threw in there medication
for help with this.
You slipped that one in there.
We also have talked about some ways of handling this
(35:27):
as you're going through and ways to think it through
and staying away from comments.
I like that.
And then the whole flip side of that being constructive
and those dang comments.
But let's talk about other ways like therapy, treatment,
things that have maybe are out there
(35:49):
that could help somebody that is recognizing
these symptoms in themselves.
That's a great point.
I mean, I think finding if you have the capacity
and the ability to do counseling,
finding someone who is a counselor who understands
neurodivergence and can help you with these things.
If you are experiencing RSD, do some reading.
(36:10):
I can put some links up to some articles
so you can see things that other people said,
things, experiences that people, similar people,
similar experiences people have to this.
So that you know you're not alone.
I mean, that's like, if I were to say
what the overarching theme of Divergent Paths is,
(36:31):
it's like, I want people to know you might feel like
you're on a divergent path,
but you're not the only person there.
Like we're all there in this.
So finding someone that you can talk to,
learning strategies that help you deal with
the big emotions, that help you deal with
that heightened emotions, deal with the impulsivity
(36:53):
and some of the other things you have
that you just have to deal with with neurodiversity.
I am finding that being physically active
is really important to me.
And this is not something that I really understood
at any other time in my life.
(37:15):
But I have to get in at least a walk a day.
I need to get out and be active
and preferably exercising outside is really,
really helps and really helps sort of helps me not react
as much to all of these things, to all of it.
Like, had I been in better health
(37:37):
and been in a better emotional space
when Chris said, you're not a person who gets things done,
maybe I wouldn't have had such a heated response to it.
Although I can't imagine not responding to that that way.
But like I said, maybe I need to work on that
(37:58):
in another counseling session.
We hit pause on the recording for 20 minutes
so she could go yell at him again.
That's why you heard the little edit there.
I heard that.
That's where that came from.
I feel like one other thing,
I was sort of getting towards the treatment
and the clothes, let's say.
(38:19):
But I feel like as the marketing guy
that that's what I do by day, right?
Like, I feel like not saying I do this
because I'm B2B too.
So, but there's a lot of marketers, companies out there
that are basically using tactics
to prey on insecurities like this, right?
(38:41):
Subtly suggesting that you're not good enough
or that you're not cool enough
because you're not doing that
or you don't fit in because of this.
I feel like there's also the algorithms of social media
that are just pulling that into you
so that you're not having to go look outward for it.
It's just coming into your feed as well.
(39:02):
Right.
There's so many different,
I mean, that's one of the hardest things
about this modern existence
is there's so many different systems
and things that are trying to pull us in one direction
or another in large part to get us to spend money.
So.
Right, right.
The more that you can recognize that,
you know, I don't know that money would fix,
(39:25):
you know, rejection, sensitive dysphoria.
If you got those cool shoes,
if I had worn a different jacket that day on the bus,
would I have felt differently?
Would it, you know,
I don't think it really would have mattered.
I think in that example,
like the example of my friend making, you know,
cringing essentially at what I was wearing,
I don't think it would have mattered what I had on
(39:46):
if it wasn't exactly the same thing that she had.
And then it would have been,
why do you look like me?
Why are you so kind?
Right, then it would have been, exactly.
It would have been something, yeah.
Bullies gotta bully.
Yeah, it wouldn't have mattered.
So, like, you know, it doesn't, those quick fixes,
there are no quick fixes to this.
Like the only way I think really to come to terms
(40:08):
with rejection, sensitive dysphoria
or rejection sensitivity,
you don't always have to have dysphoria.
You don't have to go that far.
You can just be sensitive to rejection too.
But the only way to really address this
is to be able to get into your emotions
and see where some of that stuff comes from.
Like, you know, where, you know,
(40:28):
dealing with the anger, dealing with the shame,
dealing with all the other feelings
that would come along with it.
I can't wait to talk about our next topic,
whatever that's gonna be.
I know, we'll see.
We'll see what our next path is
for everything you need to know about.
(40:48):
Thank you so much for listening.
Is RSD something you experience?
Does it help knowing that it's a common experience
of people with ADHD?
Let us know on Instagram
at Divergent Paths Consulting No Spaces.
Make sure to subscribe to this podcast
wherever you listen, like and leave a review
and share with your spicy brain friends.
And until next time, stay spicy.
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