What is rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD)?
Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) describes the intense, long-lasting, and unbearable emotional pain resulting from real, imagined, or anticipated experiences of rejection (Bedrossian, 2021; Błaszczak, 2023; Ginapp et al., 2023). RSD feels like a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotional distress. Many people also describe physical pain as if they have been wounded.
In RSD, rejection triggers a profound sense of worthlessness and vulnerability, as though it confirms your deepest fears about yourself. Emotions associated with RSD include:
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Confusion
- Despair
- Embarrassment
- Emptiness
- Frustration
- Hurt
- Loneliness
- Numbness
- Overwhelm
- Powerlessness
- Regret
- Sadness
- Shame
- Vulnerability
- Worthlessness
Physical sensations associated with RSD include:
- Agitation
- Brain fog
- Fatigue
- Heartache
- Muscle tension
- Nausea
RSD can cause you to react in ways that may be disproportionate to what happened, such as:
- Isolating yourself from other people
- Declining invitations to social gatherings
- Staying in your room or house for extended periods
- Becoming irritable, angry, hostile, or aggressive
- Getting into arguments
- Becoming violent or destructive
- Reassurance-seeking
- Trying to keep people happy
- Agreeing to do things you don’t want to do to gain acceptance and approval
- Apologising excessively, even when you are not to blame
- Forcing yourself to fake being happy
- Tolerating mistreatment or abuse from others
- Physically harming your body
- Using substances to numb how you feel
It is possible to get stuck in RSD for a long time, but you can recover. The pathway to recovery involves making sense of what happened (as best you can), understanding your complex emotions, reaching out to safe people for support, and offering yourself compassion.
References:
Bedrossian, L. (2021). Understand and address complexities of rejection sensitive dysphoria in students with ADHD. Disability Compliance for Higher Education, 26(10), 4–4. https://doi.org/10.1002/dhe.31047
Błaszczak, A. (2023). The comorbidity of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and rejection sensitive dysphoria as an impediment in foreign language learning. Acta Humanitatis, 1(2), 93–106. https://doi.org/10.5709/ah-01.02.2023-01
Ginapp, C. M., Greenberg, N. R., MacDonald-Gagnon, G., Angarita, G. A., Bold, K. W., Potenza, M. N., & Al-Yateem, N. (2023). “Dysregulated not deficit”: A qualitative study on symptomatology of ADHD in young adults. PLOS ONE, 18(10), e0292721–e0292721. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292721