Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria {EP 230}

Robyn: If you are brand, brand new to these ideas or these concepts, or to really looking at the science of behavior, the relational neuroscience of behavior, I am so glad you're here. Please stick around. There are over 200 episodes that you can go back and review and listen to to deepen your understanding about what behavior really is, including a webinar over on my website that's called focus on the nervous system to change behavior. You can get to that at Robyn gobbel.com webinar, and I also have a 10 episode podcast called the Start Here podcast. It's my answer to the question, oh my gosh, Robyn, you have over 200 episodes. Where am I supposed to start? So I took 10 episodes from The Baffling Behavior Show, so they're not new episodes, and hand selected them, curated them, put them in the order that I think would be best to listen to, and you can opt in for that podcast and listen to those 10 episodes over at Robyn gobbel.com/starthere.   

Robyn: Rejection sensitivity dysphoria. If you have never heard of the term, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, quick little definition is that somebody with rejection sensitivity dysphoria is somebody who has a heightened, a really intense, overwhelming emotional reaction to perceived or actual rejection, including things like criticism, failure, perception of failure, and obviously nobody likes rejection, criticism or failure. Of course not. We're all going to have we're all going to interpret those experiences as accused of danger and have a momentary experience of protection mode. There's pain there, of course, of course, as a social species, feeling rejected, feeling criticized, is going to be painful because it's threatening, Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is more than experiencing rejection as uncomfortable. It is a very intense, very painful experience. It's a lot more than it just being uncomfortable or overly sensitive or taking things personally. It is intense, and at times, I think it's described as being excruciatingly painful. So we're going to look at how relational neuroscience views rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and how we can put that through the again, the lens of Owls, Watchdogs and Possums and regulation, connection, and felt safety, like all things. We're gonna look at this not through the lens of like there's something wrong with you or wrong with your child, but instead, we're gonna look at this from a framework of all behavior makes sense, and can we see this behavior and then the resulting reaction, or the resulting experience, from a place of compassion, from a place of using the nervous system to make sense of and understand what's what's going on.   

Robyn: Rejection sensitivity dysphoria, is something that is acknowledged as being common, or at least not uncommon, in folks with a diagnosis of ADHD. I also see what I would call rejectio, sensitivity dysphoria, from folks with histories of trauma, particularly attachment trauma, where so much of experiencing attachment trauma, insecure attachment, disorganized attachment, in those earliest developing months, so much of the experiences that lead to insecure attachment are experiences that certainly are kind of landing on the infant's nervous system as rejection. And when you're a teeny tiny baby, rejection isn't uncomfortable, rejection is life threatening. Rejection poses the potential of serious threat, harm or even death, right? Because rejection could lead to not being cared for in the way that that is needed, and rejection also creates a wound of this of the self, and that's painful now as we're adults listening to this podcast. But when you're an infant and you're developing yourself, developing that sense of self rejection, can have a felt sense of potential or actual like annihilation. So when there are a lot of earlier experiences, while implicit memory is developing and while mental models are developing, and while all our attachment systems are developing, and while our core sense of self is developing, rejection can be experienced as life threatening, and then that's inside our memory networks. And when something lives in our memory networks, especially in an unintegrated way that it would if it was experienced during a traumatic moment, that memory network can be awoken. Now, you know, in the future, in in older childhood and adolescence and adulthood, that memory network gets awoken, and when it's unintegrated, the memory network is experienced as a life threatening experience in the here and now, it's overwhelming, and causes us to, kind of like, lose our orientation to what's really happening, and leaves us unable to assess. Is this rejection? Is this criticism? Does this perception of or actual failure, is this really life threatening, we lose our ability to assess that it just feels life threatening, and then, therefore we have a reaction as though it was life threatening, and from a Watchdog Possum model, that means we're having like a back off or an attack Watchdog reaction.   

Robyn: Are we having a shutdown or a play dead Possum reaction, a big reaction, right? It's not just a big reaction. It's one that feels really incongruent. From the outside looking in, it feels really incongruent. And sometimes even from the individual, there's this sense of like, holy moly, like this is such a big reaction. Why am I having such a big reaction, but when I say something like incongruent or an overreaction, I want you to hold that that language that I'm using, next to our belief that all behavior makes sense, and next to my belief that there's no such thing as incongruent, there's no such thing as an overreaction, we are having the reaction to the experience that's happening in our nervous system. It might look like an overreaction based on what we can objectively observe as like the stimulus or the problem, but from a nervous system perspective, it's not an overreaction. It makes perfect sense. Now if you're a new listener, and this concept is is new to you, I have a podcast called All Behavior Makes Sense. It's episode 198 I'll make sure that gets down in the show notes, and I have a really cool I think it's one of my favorites. One Page. All behavior makes sense infographic, and so I'll make sure the link to that gets included as well. So based on either neurotype or like ADHD, or previous experiences of trauma, insecure attachment, or likely, actually a combination of those right, the experience or perception of being rejected, criticized, you know, the perception of failure leads then to this extremely intense sensation of shame, which can bring about a shame response, a shame response that we would label as shame like this, collapsed down the Possum pathway, you know, shut down or play dead Possum response, which is what shame does.   

Robyn: And again, I have a podcast series, actually about shame. If you're curious about the neurobiology of shame, I will make sure that gets in the show notes as well. That starts at episode 119 it's a three series podcast, so we'll either see this intense shame collapse reaction, or sometimes shame is a Possum pathway reaction. But sometimes, to avoid falling down the Possum pathway, we have like a protective Watchdog brain response. It's a way that we use, like energy and mobilization to keep us out of collapse, because collapsing and really falling quite far down that Possum pathway is so wildly uncomfortable, and sometimes we'll kind of protect from that reaction by having an intense Watchdog reaction. So we might actually see like a an A back off, or an even attack level Watchdog reaction in response to the perception of being rejected. And then, of course, we might also see a lot of people pleasing behavior isn't so that becomes a behavior of an attempt to avoid feeling rejected or shamed or criticized, or, you know, having some new failure that we instead of reacting to the, you know, potential failure or rejection, the person engages in a lot of people pleasing behaviors or a lot of avoidance behavior. So instead of taking risks or trying new things, there's a lot of avoidance and so that is still about protection mode, but there's more this kind of like chronicity of protection mode in an attempt to avoid an even more painful trigger and then kind of crashing even further down the protection pathway.   

Robyn: It's really, really important for us, whether we're noticing this in ourselves or in our child or in someone else we care about, so important, if possible, to see this reaction as making perfect sense. It's not about being overly dramatic. It's not about overreacting. It's about the nervous system having a reaction that exactly matches their neuroceived experience, right? That there's such a sensitivity in the stress response system, and there is potentially some unintegrated memories that are leaving the experience in the here and now of perceived rejection as so overwhelmingly intense because of the unintegrated memories and that these reactions are congruent. They make sense. They aren't an overreaction. There aren't being dramatic. Now I also want to remind you that this podcast focuses a lot on the theory, and simply because we know the theory doesn't mean we check our humanity at the door being in relationship with somebody who has a lot of rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, reactions, somebody who is so averse to criticism and in lives, either on that people pleasing place, or is just constantly on guard to criticism, is reacting to all the things you say as though you're being critical. Being in relationship with someone like that is exhausting, and that isn't criticism of them, but it is exhausting because that person's nervous system is spending a lot of time in protection mode. And it's exhausting to be with somebody in protection mode chronically, because we are so longing for connection and to be with somebody who's so frequently in protection mode, means we aren't receiving the volleys of connection that we're really, really, really longing for. It's exhausting, it's sad, it's filled with grief. It just makes for a really clunky relationship.   

Robyn: So y'all both can be true, we can work to have compassion and understanding for somebody with rejection sensitivitydysphoria, and we can acknowledge that even though we understand it neurobiologically, we still sometimes react to that person poorly. We still sometimes are wildly frustrated with them, right? We still sometimes just feel they're being like, really dramatic and overreacting. Both are true, right? We can continue to have compassion for ourselves for our reaction, so that we can continue to try to have compassion to those folks for their reaction. And if you notice yourself aligning with some of these descriptions of rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, having a lot of compassion for yourself. It's very, very, very painful. So from a polyvagal theory perspective, and we kind of just touched on this, rejection, criticism, a failure or risk of failure, these are all cues of danger. And they're cues of danger for all humans. Best I can tell, best I can tell, all humans are going to experience this as a cue of danger, somebody with such sensitivity and with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, these cues of danger are so significant, the nervous system is so sensitive that these cues of danger are creating very intense, dramatic shifts from connection mode, from the Owl pathway and into protection mode right, far down the Watchdog or the Possum pathway. So we see that Watchdog mobilization, attack, response, right? It could look like verbal aggression. It could look like physical aggression. Or we see that Possum, you know, intense shutdown, response, withdrawal, collapse, and again, often, then we see more chronic protection mode responses like perfectionism, for example. So from a polyvagal theory perspective, from a nervous system theory perspective, we're we're seeing cues of danger that are causing huge, huge, huge shifts from connection mode far down the protection mode pathway.   

Robyn: And playing into this is memory processing theory, because even if the rejection sensitivity dysphoria is a byproduct of or a symptom of some neurodivergence like ADHD, that person, and maybe you're thinking about yourself, maybe you're thinking about your child or your partner, that person with ADHD. And then these features of rejection sensitivity dysphoria not only do they have that as a core part of their neurotype, but then they have, you know, all their previous years of experiences stored in their memory networks of having so much rejection, sensitivity dysphoria to, you know, the perception of Being rejected, as well as the frustration of others for what feels like an overreaction, as well as because of their neurotype, probably feeling more experiences of rejection than other folks. Okay, so all of this like blends together. It all becomes one big pool of past and current experiences, but we're thinking a lot about memory and past experiences. So even if it is a core part of an individual's neurotype, we are still looking at how unprocessed previous experiences, right, traumatic experiences of feeling rejected are contributing to, or related to, the reaction in the few in the here and now, right, the current experience of rejection sensitivity dysphoria. So in addition to being part of the neurotype, then there's also the way that memory networks are contributing to the reaction feeling, the reaction being the result of an awakened, unprocessed, implicit memory, which then means all of those previous very painful experiences of rejection, especially ones that happened in early infancy, toddlerhood, pre-verbal experiences, where rejection meant life threat or potential annihilation.   

Robyn: Those memories are awoken in the here and now, but without the timestamp that says, This is a memory. This is awakening something from your past. The timestamps not there. So it feels like it is happening right now, and it's related to the thing that is happening right now. And that is another piece, another puzzle piece of trying to understand this reaction that feels so significant If you are needing a refresher course and understanding traumatic memory and implicit memory, and that idea of like the timestamp on the memory, if you're needing a refresher or if it's just all brand new, there's two places you can go. My I have a podcast about trauma memory and behavior, and then I have a video series and accompanying ebook that dives into those concepts even further. So the podcast about how trauma impacts memory and behavior is episode 90, and then the video series you can find at RobynGobbel.com/videoseries, or you can go just to my free resources page and easily find it there. It's a video series and accompanying ebook. So I've got all the ways to learn auditorily on a podcast, you know, in a video, or by reading it in a short little ebook that I put together. Of course, folks with early attachment trauma or early attachment experiences that have resulted in the development of insecure or disorganized attachment also will have an experience in the world that really resembles or looks like rejection sensitivity dysphoria again, because when you're experiencing miss, attuned, dangerous parenting that can be felt in the nervous system as rejection, and when you're experiencing dangerous misattuned, chronically misattuned, we're not just talking about occasionally misattuned, but like chronically misattuned parenting, your needs are regularly not being met, and you're an infant or a toddler and you can't care for your own needs, right? Those experiences aren't just as stressful, they're potentially life threatening, right?   

Robyn: So folks with insecure attachment patterns, or even disorganized attachment patterns, can have the same reaction to perceived rejection, failure, criticism, right? So insecure attachment can lead to the same kind of reaction, reaction, I'm sorry, rejection sensitivity dysphoria. It doesn't just lead to that person feeling uncomfortable in the moment. It leaves them feeling a threat to their ability to be loved, to their lovability, to their goodness, to their ability to be accepted, to their ability to be safe, and again, even just to exist. And so, tiny rejection, what we would look at as being a quote, unquote, tiny rejection, you know, tapping into all of these earliest attachment experiences and leading to this intense, intense, intense reaction. Also, you're really seeing how we can't untangle any of these things, memory networks, insecure attachment, neurotype, polyvagal theory. I mean, they all are, are intertwined, right? And connecting with one another.   

Robyn: So what do we do about this? Because, again, it is exhausting to live with somebody with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and what I often find in folks who are parenting that child or in another close relationship with that person, is that person starts to have their own protective response of trying to avoid triggering that person's sense of rejection so that can start to look like people pleasing behavior, kind of walking on eggshells behavior, that person can even kind of dampen their own valid emotional responses to things, because they know that if they, you know, demonstrate any level of up of upset or irritation or frustration, very valid ones. Because, frankly, humans are disappointing and irritating and annoying. So when we're in close relationship with somebody, we're gonna feel disappointed, annoyed, you know, frustrated by them. That's just. How it goes. And if you're in relationship with somebody with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, you might try to downplay those feelings, because you don't want to trigger that person's rejection sensitivity dysphoria and cause even more dysregulation, even more chaos. So it's important to really pay attention to ourselves and try the best that we can. It's very hard to step out of that walking on eggshells experience, and instead of working really hard to avoid triggering that person's rejection sensitivity dysphoria instead invest that energy into can I regulate through that person's reaction? Can I let that person's reaction be all about their own nervous system state and nothing to do with me? Can I stay regulated and even offer co-regulation through that, instead of doing everything in my power to avoid triggering that in them. And then if they do, you know, if I do trigger that in them, you know there's there can be such an urge to not co-regulate through it, but take away that feeling, okay. Those are not the same thing.   

Robyn: And if we really want to help somebody who's experiencing rejection sensitivity dysphoria. We actually don't want to avoid triggering it. When we notice it arising, when we notice it happening. We want to offer co-regulation through it, because that's exactly what the feeling of rejection, shame, criticism, abandonment, like that's exactly what those feelings need are co regulation, presence not to be abandoned, so that that person can start to kind of build new memories, new associations with things like I can make a mistake, I can be rejected, I can annoy somebody, and still be loved, accepted, safe, worthy, I'm still good, even if I do something that causes somebody to reject me. That both can be true, because we're never going to get to the point where I, you know, like, I don't annoy people. Nobody's going to reject me. I'll be, always be accepted, though. Like, that's not reality. We're all going to annoy people. We're all going to make them mad. We're all going to get rejected sometimes, you know, so it becomes having experiences that allow us to learn new associations. I can be rejected, I can be criticized, I can irritate somebody and be okay. I'm still good and lovable and safe, and I still exist.   

Robyn: And over time, that person will start to internalize those regulating experiences, and as we internalize the compassion of someone else, as we have enough experiences of that other person sticking with us, through our dysregulation, we begin to be able to offer ourselves self-compassion. And this is true for us, right? So if you're thinking, maybe you're thinking about yourself in this episode, or maybe you're thinking about your child, right? Even children can learn to have self-compassion for themselves that rejection is painful. We'll never get to the point where being rejected isn't painful. Rejection is painful. Don't deny your humanity. Rejection is painful, but it can be painful and I can be okay. I can shift into protection mode and come back into connection mode, right? That both are true. So here's just a little multi-step process for you to consider while you're parenting or in relationship with somebody else while you're parenting, somebody with rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Now y'all, if you've been listening to this podcast, nothing I'm about to say will feel new. Okay, so the first thing to do is just notice it. Notice that that that rejection sensitivity dysphoria has come alive. It's been activated, okay? And then get curious about it. Track it is this Watchdog or Possum experience, okay? Regulate yourself first. Stay in protection or in connection. Mode yourself first, if possible, then offer co-regulation, and then maybe immediately, maybe later, maybe in reflection on the moment, or maybe in, you know, months or years from now, you start to add this part in how the how long it takes to get to this part, it really varies. But then eventually you're going to want to start talking. About it really normalize it. Rejection is painful, right? We don't we don't want to say rejection isn't painful. We don't want to give somebody the impression that they could get to the point where the sensation of rejection isn't painful, because that's not true. But what we can do is get to the point where we can experience rejection, and we can experience it in a regulated way, and we can regulate through it, and we can be okay that rejection is painful.   

Robyn: We can experience rejection. It can be okay that you my dear child or my dear partner, or you to, you know, talking lovingly and compassionately to yourself, experience the perception of rejection so intensely and it is so painful, and we can have so much compassion for that, and we can experience that pain and be okay when we can experience that pain and not feel as though our core sense of self or our core sense of belonging or our core sense of lovability has been threatened. Y'all, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, makes a lot of sense when we understand the nervous system, polyvagal theory, memory processing theory, attachment theory, when we understand Owls and Watchdogs and Possums and regulation and connection and felt safety, like all behavior, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, makes perfect sense. We're not necessarily aiming to make it go away, and we're definitely not made aiming to make rejection not feel painful. What we're aiming to do is to bring connection, regulation, and felt safety to those overwhelming experiences of being rejected, and that starts with co-regulation and then eventually moves into, can that person internalize that co-regulation and offer regulation to themselves?   

Robyn: Now again, y'all I know, being in relationship with somebody who has intense reactions to their perception of being rejected is overwhelming, and you are never going to get to the point where you respond to that, always with regulation, connection and felt safety. But you know what we say here, right? 1% better. Can we do it 1% better tomorrow? And if we can't, can we do it 1% better the next day? Or never, never, never, never aiming for perfection. Can we do it 1% better? And I actually have a podcast about that 1% better. It's episode 166 maybe you know somebody who really experiences a lot of pain and connection to what seems like rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria, maybe you want to offer this podcast episode to them to listen to. Or maybe your child has somebody who's responsible for their care, their teacher or their babysitter or grandparent, and you want to offer this podcast to that person to help them understand what's happening in their child's nervous system a little bit more.   

Robyn: I am so so, so happy you tuned in to today's podcast. I'm so grateful that you continue to follow this podcast and you continue to share it with others. If you need more support. Head to RobynGobbel.com so many free resources. My podcast is searchable. You can find information about how to grab my book Raising Kids With Big, Baffling Behaviors. You can get on the waiting list to come and join us over in the club next time. So go check that out, and otherwise, I will be back with you again right here next week on another episode of The Baffling Behavior Show, bye!