How to deal with RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria)
“I understand rationally that my partner is not rejecting me when he doesn’t want to come to the Sunday market with me, but my emotions get easily out of hand. I feel like he doesn’t want to spend time with me, that I don’t matter, that I’m stupid for asking, that I’m uninteresting and dull, etc. It’s exhausting.”
This quote comes from a girl with rejection sensitivity anxiety.
As a patient with ADHD, I have to admit that rejection sensitivity anxiety is real and really puts me in unnecessary pain. In the following, a view of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and some of my past experience on how to recover from the state of RSD as soon as possible will be given.
About RSD
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is a condition where a person feels extreme emotional sensitivity and pain due to perceived or actual rejection, criticism, or teasing. Note the word perception: this is a perceived rejection, not an actual one.
The perception can lead to hostile, angry, or aggressive behaviors that may contribute to undermining our relationships with others.
Self-fulfilling prophecies
Individuals with RSD are more likely to interpret ambiguous social cues as rejection by others, accompanied by anxious emotional experiences.
This thought causes to hostile behaviors and triggers a vicious cycle of rejection by others by “self-fulfilling prophecies”.
Rejection-sensitive dysphoria individuals subjectively believe that others will reject them (although this is an information processing bias, which may not be the case). As a result, individuals engage in a range of relationship-damaging behaviors, such as anger, aggression, and hostility, which can trigger actual rejection by the other person.
How to deal with RSD
1. Recognize emotions
The occurrence of RSD symptoms is usually accompanied by strong and exaggerated emotions. First, recognize the psychological feelings or physical reactions such as sweating, tinnitus, and elevated blood pressure, and then take corresponding measures to reflect and soothe the emotions.
Methods: Deep breathing, meditation, walking the dog, serious cases can not look at the phone, do not speak (varies from person to person).
2. Recognize the cues and recognize Rejection correctly
When your emotions calm down, you can begin to react to the negative thoughts in your mind. First, step outside of yourself and think rationally about the reality of these negative thoughts. If you can’t actively think rationally, you can choose some methods to help you get out of the situation.
Method 1: Write it down. Sometimes when I try to write, I care about the logic of what I’m writing, so I can look at myself better.
Method two: If you have a psychiatrist or a friend who is willing to listen. You can talk to them about your feelings and thoughts and ask them to help you.
3. Cognitive Remodeling, practicing “desensitization” to rejection
With the help of writing or a friend or “other self,” you may have found the answer. Next, you reject the wrong answer in your head and choose to believe in reality. (This step is the hardest and requires constant training.)
In short, when individuals perceive “rejection”, they should keep their heads calm and objectively analyze the current social situation. Determine whether one is overly sensitive to rejection, and if so, use cognitive remodeling to replace unreasonable knowledge of rejection with reasonable knowledge of rejection. By repeating this process over and over again, you can slowly desensitized to the “rejection of feelings.”
