I Grew Up With Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria. Parents Can Learn From My Story
I’ve always felt extremely vulnerable to criticism and rejection – as if I could be totally crushed at any moment, like an orange whose flesh is exposed without its peel.
A tiny negative touch from the outside world and I can implode into a sticky mess, dripping with sadness and rage.
As someone with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, I certainly attracted a lot of criticism growing up.
This is very common: it’s estimated a child with ADHD experiences 20,000 extra criticisms compared with a neurotypical child, because of the different ways they process and respond to the world.
Comments such as ‘Stop being so sensitive’. ‘Stop fidgeting’ and ‘You’re so lazy’ were commonplace throughout my childhood.
These extra criticisms made me feel as though I wasn’t accepted as I was, that I didn’t belong and, ultimately, that I was broken.
These are even harder to deal with because I, like many people with ADHD, have rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD).
A symptom of the emotional dysregulation and different brain chemistry that comes with ADHD, RSD manifests as severe emotional pain because of a failure or feeling rejected.
What RSD feels like
While a neurotypical person is able to recognise rejection, rationalise it, feel bad then move on fairly quickly, RSD is physically painful, all-consuming and disproportionate to the event that triggered it.
For example, when someone told me they were too busy to attend my birthday party it felt like they’d swung a bag of bricks into my chest. The pain was instant and nothing could distract me from it.
In my experience, both personally and from interviewing thousands of people with ADHD, RSD is the hardest part of ADHD.
Left unchecked, it can cause more damage to someone’s life than any of the other executive functioning challenges linked to ADHD.
My advice for parents
If you’re parenting a child with RSD, the first step is being transparent with them about how their brain perceives criticism from others. Tell them that their emotional responses to these criticisms will be intense, but there’s nothing wrong with this.
When your child experiences an RSD episode, remain calm and grounded. This provides a clear message that their big emotions aren’t a problem for you, and you understand where they’re coming from.
Shower them with praise and reassurance, and remind them of their strengths.
RSD children can stress about making things perfect. So, as well as praising the final result, praise the process. This ensures they assign value to their effort, not just their output.
Teach them to separate objective from subjective feedback – what’s fact, versus personal opinion. It’s easy for those with low self-esteem to have difficulty doing this, but it’s a really important distinction to learn.
Remind them, too, that every opinion or criticism is a reflection of what’s going on in that person’s head. Your child can’t control people’s thoughts, but neither should they assume these are a signal they’re in any way ‘less than’.
Ultimately, teach your child to accept and be open to the sensitivities that come with ADHD and RSD, rather than feeling shameful.
Tell them they’re not broken, just different, and that they will always be enough exactly as they are.
Alex Partridge is the host of the ADHD Chatter podcast and a Sunday Times bestselling author. His new book Why Does Everybody Hate Me?: Living and Loving with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, is available to pre-order now (Sheldon Press, 24 March, £16.99).