Let’s start with a quick refresh in the simplest terms on what RSD is.
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is when someone else says or does something, and it fuels a super-big negative emotional overload that feels like rejection, even if it wasn’t meant to be rejection at all.
It can feel like you can’t focus on anything else and it is all your self-talk is focused on. The emotions are powerful and make you feel a lot all at once, like sad, frustration, invaluable, dumb, angry, or anxious. Then it starts to feel like the whole world is against you, and it can be hard to understand why you feel so bad, because no one said or did anything mean that you can identify. It sends your whole brain and body on a dramatic chemical ride that can be very exhausting.
Now let’s jump into the story.
Last week I had a meeting with the psychiatrist that did my ADHD testing to find out what they learned (I will share those details in another article), and at no fault of the doctor my RSD got triggered.
I want so badly to tell you that I have cured myself of this and I have the miracle cure for everyone else. I’m human and I don’t have the cure.
What I have managed to do over the years is learn from each time it happens and educate the people around me so they can help me identify the early indicators and I can cut the recovery time down to hours, from days or weeks. If I am really lucky, I can gain some personal insight, wisdom, and healing from the process.
Let’s break this down in the way it unfolded. If I am going to share my ugly truth, I want you the reader to be able to see yourself in the story and get the whole picture, from my perspective. I’ve never written about one of these episodes before, because I have never been so aware of what was happening as it was happening.
I have the one hour zoom meeting with the psychiatrist and when I am done, I am all tense. I just want to yell to release some of the tension. (This was clue #1.)
I was with some friends, so I went and sat with the three of them at a table and worked on a jigsaw puzzle, but I was getting anger by the minute. I know I needed to get some physical exercise, so I took myself for a walk outdoors. That brought things down a little. When I got back to the house, I wanted to eat something sweet and salty. (This was clue #2. I know that I use food to self sooth, so if I was craving that kind of food, there was a reason.)
I couldn’t find any of the junk food I was craving, and it was my turn to cook dinner, so I just kept myself busy by cooking the meal. (This is clue #3, I needed to keep myself busy because my mind was starting to find words for my feelings and they were about how I am not good enough. My internal talk was becoming my worst bully, and it knows where all the bodies are buried.)
That night when I went to go to bed, I had a hard time turning down the bully volume and I had to leave a TV on all night to offset the negative chatter. (This is clue #4. The chatter is so loud that I have to use music, audio books, or the TV to be able to sit still or focus.)
The next day I was able to keep myself busy, but I could tell I had a short fuse with my friends and so I kind of isolated for fear I might say something mean and have to apologize. (This is clue #5. That feeling is the feeling of wanting to be in control, which is a hint that I was feeling out of control in some manner.)
At this point I did ask a friend, who is also a coach and neurodiverse, if they would be able to help me figure out what exactly the psychiatrist said, because I was clear that I was confused and feeling overwhelmed by some part of it. I still didn’t realize I was in the middle of an RSD episode. I clearly was catching on, but not quickly.
I got home and used all that got-to-keep-moving energy to get a lot of things done and ready for the next week. Again, if I slowed down the negative chatter got meaner and meaner, so I just kept moving. And by bedtime that night I was so exhausted from the day physically and mentally that I just slept fine with a little TV to put me to sleep.
There was a family gathering the next day and I was a little stressed, but it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary for a family gathering. Then we got in the car to drive the hour and a half home and I fell asleep in the first ten minutes, and I slept the whole drive home. I barely woke up to get into the house, where I curled up on a couch and kept on sleeping. I slept until the next day around 10:00am. (This is clue #6. Wanting to sleep like you have a cold and need to recover. Because I did need to recover physically and mentally from all the chemicals circulating around my body and being trapped in a fight or flight pattern.)
When Monday comes around, I have clients to support. I sleep between meetings and get up 15 minutes before to prep for the meeting and clear my mind, which I was able to do. Monday night I sleep on another couch because I need the TV on all night again. Now I am starting to categorize what is happening as being a depression. My thoughts have started to turn against me, and I am starting to think I have no value and why hang around this life. (This is a loud clue #7.) I am sharing these thoughts and feelings with my husband and a friend I trust, and it helps to just call it out, but the thoughts are coming faster and faster and it is hard to keep any positive thoughts within reach. I am finding it almost impossible to focus.
By Tuesday the TV is no longer able to drown out the chatter and I have started to cry from time to time, from being frustrated that this is happening so fast, and I don’t know what to do. (This is clue #8.) I luckily do not have clients this day, so I stay in bed, sleep, cry, and avoid the world. I keep that up for 24 hours. At this point my husband is worried and we agree if something doesn’t shift on Wednesday, I will need to call in reinforcements, my counselor. He notes that he hasn’t seen me emotionally struggling at this level before. I agree, I have not either.
Wednesday morning, I force myself out of bed and into some clothing. It is a total slog to do anything. I fight my avoider the whole time. (This is clue #9, the fact that it is now feeling like a major depression in just days.) By 10:00 am I decide that this is definitely connected to the talk with the psychiatrist and that I should look over my notes and see if I can find anything. As I look over the notes and reorganize them, I realize that a lot of the stuff my internal dialog is throwing at me is complete BS.
There is no proof in my notes of the doctor saying the things that I am telling myself they said. They never said I was dumb, stupid, worthless. They said I have some executive function deficiencies, well I knew that before the test. They said I have an average short-term memory. I know that. (This is clue #10, when I am able to fact check what my internal dialog is saying and disprove it. That is a clear sign that I have been highjacked by fear at a deep level.)
The cloud of heavy emotions and fear fog are starting to lift a little by Wednesday afternoon and I get myself to work out, which helps sweat out some of the fear chemicals running around my brain and then in the evening I sit down with my computer and start to journal the whole experience, adding in some appropriate AI tools to find language for the things I can’t find the words for. It takes two hours, but I am able to find the root of the problem. (What the psychiatrist said at the beginning of our conversation, that my testing was inconclusive and complex, was not what I heard. I translated that to mean that it proved I was defective, don’t fit in, and don’t belong.
I didn’t know it was in there anymore, but there was my six-year-old self’s stack of fears, right in the present moment.)
Once I had the words, I could do the healing work I needed to though medication, inner child work, journaling, a little self-hypnosis, and a good cry. I went to bed that night and had a decent night’s rest and got up Thursday refreshed and looking forward to the clients and the say ahead.
I talked to my friend on Friday about it and got their insight which gave me a chance to learn from sharing the story and reflecting on the experience. Later that day it was pointed out to me that the whole experience sounded like RSD and snap, the whole experience fell into place. That was exactly what had happened and it was the worst case of it I had ever experienced and been able to recall the process as it was happening.
THE END of the story. Now we move into the learning.
Learnings
What I learned from this experience is that I need to have a plan and I need to share that plan. Because, just like a person that has seizers, I need external supports as a person who has trauma in my past and a different thinker brain. It’s not an IF this will happen again, it’s a WHEN this happens again. I have the ability to make it easier and process through it quickly.
This is what is called taking ownership. Taking ownership means that I take responsibility for my actions and of what I can control and where I can grow.
What I can control
- I can control how quickly we identify that I am being highjacked by RSD’s rejection fear-based reality.
- Implement The RSD Attack Plan
- Have a post event debriefing: Journal and take the learnings from the experience and update the system
The RSD Attack Plan:
Use any and all of the following in any order. There are no rules, just do the things, don’t think about it, toss out all opinions and do the things.
- PQ Meditation
- EFT Tapping
- TRE process
- Walk outside in nature
- Zumba for 15 minutes
- Tell a friend what is happening
- Ask someone to review the facts with you
- They have to be able to say, “Can you prove that?” and argue with you if you can’t
- If it lasts more than 3 days I have to tell my counselor via email
- Use one of the AI Apps designed to parse this out
- Sauna
- Hard workout
- Practice acceptance. This will not last forever and I am safe.
- Do any of the mind shift games from Feelings Cards
- Sort out the feelings cards to find the words for what I am feeling – name it to release it
- Use timeline therapy
- Do some energy work with a professional
- Get a massage
- Drink LOTS of water
- Eat healthy food – even if it is only healthy tv dinners. No meal skipping. That adds stress to the brain and body.
Being a different thinker with sensitivity traits that connect to RSD isn’t a deal breaker for success, unless you allow it to run wild on your life with no language around it. If you don’t take the time to understand it, it can be harmful to your life and the people you love. It is known to be connected to the ADHD or autistic brain. I have witnessed it in people without ADHD or Autism who have complex trauma in their background too.
Use your big beautiful brain to set yourself up for success.
Let’s review the process.
- Know how your brain works when highjacked by RSD
- Build a plan
- Tell people you trust about the plan and how to best help you
- Live an amazing life and run from people that tell you you can’t. Their small vision doesn’t have to be yours.
Thanks for listening to my journey with RSD and if this connected with you and your story, I would love to hear it.
Many thanks,
Coach JoyGenea
Video transcription:
Hey, so this week, what I wanna talk about, while I wanna come across as always positive and coaching is really incredible, I also wanna make sure that I don’t cover up for myself. That I don’t cover up the realities of when I talk about being neurodiverse, being just wired a little unconventional, what some of the parts of that can be.
And one thing in particular for me is I can be, um, very emotionally sensitive at times. I’ve worked for years to lessen that, the volume on that sensitivity, um, and to have better and different coping skills.
And a couple weeks ago I—oh, stop—I got really, really, um, hijacked. And really, looking back now, it was very clear that it was probably one of the worst episodes of RSD, which is rejection sensitivity dysphoria, is how they describe it. I’d call it the world’s worst name, but it’s basically when, um—and I’ll walk you through it—it was when I perceived that, um, actually a psychiatrist who was doing my ADHD testing, that the test results came back as being—they came back actually very inconclusive is what the results were.
And I translated that, my sensitive system translated that, into “Oh look, here’s some more validation that you aren’t smart. You’re not good. You’re not enough.” Really, it all boiled down to I translated that very quickly, within seconds, my body translated that into “You’re not enough.”
And what happened after that was that I walked around with that belief. And as soon as you have that belief going on, it’s like when you think you’re gonna buy a red car and everything looks red. I went and supported that belief, ’cause I brought that belief forward. I then supported it, and that’s typically how an RSD episode happens. Like you—something creates an immense emotional sensitivity, and you start to have, I think, it’s a combination of a panic attack, some anxiety, some depression.
It’s this lovely dance and flare of a bunch of things. And it’s not fully based in an existing trauma, like that’s happening in this moment. Once I was able to wrap my head around what was happening and apply a variety of the tools that I teach a lot of my clients, but I also have in my toolbox for myself, and I reached out and got some additional help—like, asked some friends that also deal with this and got their insight—once we got it, this sensitivity, once we got this perspective that I was not enough, and once we got what was said back into reality and what was said, which was the fact that my IQ test came out very high, that I’m immensely high visual—like once we assessed all the positives and then embraced the fact that I continue to not actually check… I’m not an in-the-box person, period.
I’ve done a variety of tests over the years. I am not going to fit into any of the current testing boxes—and that’s another whole video. But I wanted to talk about that.
As a leader, we can get hijacked by past things that we don’t even realize. I watch it in a variety of my clients all the time. And when you don’t understand that that’s happening, when you don’t take the time to do a retrospective on something—which is what I did—this week’s article is, I broke it down. There were actually ten clues. I’d show my other hand but I can’t at the moment. There were ten clues that came across in that process, as I was being kind of eaten by those feelings.
That would be a great way to put it—as I was being eaten by those feelings, there were ten clues that I actually received that, at any time, I could be like, “Oh, that’s a clue. Okay, I’ve got three clues now. I should apply my toolkit, right? I should pull out my emotional hijack toolkit and get myself back on solid ground, get myself re-grounded.”
And so, because I didn’t do that and didn’t notice the signs—I noticed them quicker than I would have normally, considering the level of hijack—I did really well. This was about a three-day type of thing, and I did not completely, um, shut down. That has actually happened to me years ago. I used to completely, unfortunately, shut down—meaning getting out of bed became complicated within a matter of hours type of thing.
And then just like, digging myself out of that. Instead, this was like, “Well, I can see these things are happening, but I know this is BS. I can’t quite—I don’t have the bandwidth right now to clean it all up, but I have the bandwidth to challenge these truths that my brain is throwing out at me, that I’m 100% sure are not.”
And it was great. I’m actually really proud of the experience.
But as leaders, we need to be able to do that. Do not—I laugh when people are like, “Oh, I never get hijacked.” I’m like, “Let me hang out with you for about three weeks, and then let me push you outside your comfort zone. And then have your team push you outside your comfort zone. I will see and get to see those things.”
And then we just need some tools to wrap around that so that when those things happen—and each time they happen—like this being such a big experience, I know I’m probably not gonna have another situation for years because I’ve now got so many tools and balances to it, and I understand what this looks like.
I’m excited, honestly. Like, it added in a new layer of grounding. I’m so glad that it happened. But I wanted to share that with you.
So, as a coach, I am incredibly skilled, I have a lot of tools, and I’m human. And there are moments that my human gets caught up in the world too—and my past. Because I do have trauma in my past. That past, mixed in with my neurodiversity, it can create some situations at times that I have to take a breath, get re-grounded, and take care of myself. And the sooner I do that, the shorter that whole moment lasts, and the more I don’t harm anybody else, as far as with being angry and needing to protect myself.
It’s just incredible. So, leadership starts from within. It starts with knowing how to take care of yourself and maintain yourself. That is not anybody else’s job—that is my job. That was my job, to communicate that with my significant other while it was happening, which I did. And he was listening and, like, super curious. He’s like, “Where are these thoughts coming from?”
I’m like, “Oh no, they’re not based in reality. I’m like, these are thoughts based in fear. And I’m like, so just let me say them out loud, because then they become way less fearful when they’re outside of my head.”
Like, those were some of the clues that I was having through that process. So, it’s also part of why I did—and I mentioned it last week—I did create that Unconventional Leaders Blueprint, ’cause these are the kind of things, ’cause we are just human.
And there are parts of our past that will all of a sudden become present. And do you know how to manage them so that they do not affect your future? And if anything, they actually improve your future—because now you get to learn something from that and apply it and have more compassion and understanding for the people around you.
‘Cause guess what? We all get hijacked emotionally. My experience isn’t—they call it RSD because we use a lot of labels in the neurodiverse sphere, because we’re always trying to understand why or how something is happening.
It is definitely part of our group and our neurology. So we apply a lot of labels so we can make sense of things. That doesn’t mean these labels don’t apply to the whole rest of the world.
So do your absolute best. Know that if you have an extreme sensitivity, hijacking, and emotional hijacking, there are incredible tools that can help you out—meditation, breathing, just talking, having a trusted advisor. By advisor I mean someone you can just speak freely with about, “Oh my gosh, this is happening. I’m not saying nice things to myself today. Like, this is not okay.”
Just simple things like that honestly take all the air out of that balloon. ‘Cause fear and anxiety, they just want to fill up a helium balloon and float it off into the… like they just want to fill that thing so full of hot air, so full of BS. And when you are able to let the air out of that balloon—which that’s what it is when you get grounded—all the air comes out of the balloon, the balloon drops to the ground, and you’re done. You don’t experience it anymore. You’ve moved on. That’s all that is.
But boy, if they keep you in your head, they’re just filling that. Like, you are just expanding into their sphere. And I’m not living there. I’m not feeding that crap—and neither are you. And I believe that.
So, thank you for joining me. I’m JoyGenea, International Neurodiversity Coach and Leadership Coach, helping the unconventional thinker build an incredible playbook and do amazing things for this world.
Thanks for tuning in. If you like this video, don’t forget to mention that. You should share this with somebody, ’cause boy, if they have experiences like this, pass it on. This knowledge isn’t meant for you to just watch and hold on to—keep sharing it. And I wanna hear your stories. Please feel free to share if you’ve had moments like that and what you use as your tools.
Thank you, and goodbye.