An innocuous ping pierces the blackness. I open my eyes to see the illuminated belly of my phone on my nightstand, alerting me to a message from my friend, Sonia. My stomach lurches. We have dinner plans. “She's cancelling,” the tiny yet overly-alert voice that narrates much of my life cries out.
I open the message. "I'm sorry," it reads. "I can't do dinner tonight now, let's def rearrange."
That’s all it takes for a sense of intense, burning shame to swallow me up. “See?” the voice hisses, its tone laced with triumph. “I told you. You’re too much. Too boring. Too… forgettable.” My mind races, trying to dissect her words. Is she really sorry, or is that just a polite dismissal? Did she forget because it didn’t matter to her enough? My rational brain clings to “let’s def rearrange,” but the voice, always louder and more convincing, sneers, “She's just trying to soften the blow. She's never going to rearrange.”
When disagreeing with you becomes someone’s entire personality.
The intellectual part of me knows Sonia will have a valid reason, but the part hijacked by Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD), refuses to acknowledge it. All it understands is the raw sting of perceived rejection and the persistent weight of believing I am fundamentally unlovable.
For me, and countless other women silently grappling with the condition, it's an emotional earthquake. RSD is a potent, often debilitating, emotional reaction to perceived rejection, criticism or failure. While not exclusively a female experience, emerging data and anecdotal evidence suggest it disproportionately affects women.
“RSD often shows up in women because of a mix of social and psychological factors,” Psychotherapist Shelly Dar tells me. “From an early age, many girls are conditioned to be agreeable, attentive to others and self-critical. For women with trauma histories or neurodivergent traits such as ADHD, this conditioning can intensify into heightened sensitivity."
Navigating life with RSD feels akin to navigating a daily minefield. In my relationships, this hyper-vigilance translates into an exhausting analysis of every text. A friend's delayed response isn't just a sign they're busy; it's immediate proof that I've been forgotten. This fear of abandonment often causes me to either withdraw completely, or to react with an intense emotional outburst that pushes people away.
At work, it manifests as a fear of feedback. A single piece of constructive criticism feels like a brutal indictment of my entire worth. I've found myself avoiding new projects for fear of failure, and at times, have even contemplated quitting jobs over a perceived slight.
Disappointing others is uncomfortable — but it’s not the same as doing something wrong.
“The emotional toll can be heavy,” Shelly explains. “Relationships often become exhausting because the person is constantly scanning for signs of disapproval. In careers, women with RSD may hesitate to speak up, avoid taking risks, or ruminate for days after receiving feedback."
Though there are similarities that knit together the experiences of many women with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, it will manifest differently for everyone. Below, four other women who struggle with the condition reveal exactly how it impacts their day-to-day life.
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I've been aware of my rejection sensitivity since my diagnosis with borderline personality disorder (BPD) in 2016. Though I must have experienced it for years prior, the first conscious discovery was when I moved to the UK. Anyone would take time adjusting to a new country and culture, but as time went on, I felt my paranoia and sensitivity to people was far more intense than it should have been. I made no effort to befriend anyone because I feared rejection, leading to severe isolation which in turn further spurred on my rejection sensitivity with thoughts of “no one wants me.”
In my case, rejection sensitivity has primarily manifested with complete withdrawal from social interactions, followed by emotional outbursts — crying, anger, and catatonic moments — and, at its worst, even suicidal ideation and tendencies. When I was 20, I had friends via the internet who I went on to meet in person. I genuinely liked their company and thought I had made friends for life. However, the physical distance meant that I soon became paranoid about my friends being closer to each other than me, or simply putting up with me. My paranoia led me to be incredibly hurtful to them, which in turn did end up pushing them away. In hindsight, even before my official diagnosis, I have lost several friends due to my fear of rejection. When I look back, the initial spark of a fallout always seemed to come from me due to my fear of being abandoned. If my closest friend spoke to someone else, I immediately found a dark cloud of insecurity descending upon me. If she was dancing at a cultural fest without me, I would tell her to go enjoy and then when she did, I would get upset that she didn’t read between the lines and stay with me. Back then, I felt justified because I was hurt and scared — feeling almost like a child who feared being left behind because I wasn’t good enough. But now, I realise that often they only left me because I pushed them to their limits because of my own fear. Similarly, several of my romantic relationships disintegrated due to my defence mechanism of violently pushing people away at the first sign of perceived rejection.
“It exposes a deeper, systemic discomfort with women taking up space.”
Rejection sensitivity has impacted almost every aspect of my life. At the age of 19, I was in India happy with my degree and my group of friends. By age 20, I’d left the university and my friends behind because I didn’t know how to deal with my friends having other friends, and I felt intensely lonely in these feelings. I also felt my professors didn’t understand the effort I put in and didn’t feel appreciated for my studies. Later, as an adult, I’ve struggled similarly at team-centric jobs. While I try to adjust to people, the slightest feeling of rejection or being overlooked often has me leaving behind my job. Leaving anything that threatens rejection has been my defence mechanism almost all my life.
Having struggled with rejection sensitivity and BPD for almost a decade, I’ve learned my rejection “tells.” If someone doesn’t text back and I find my thoughts veering towards rejection, I take a pause and think about whether it’s a logical thought or if it’s just them being busy with their own thing. Of course, it doesn’t always work. Some days I’m moodier and more prone to a sensitive response than others. I’ve worked to find things that make me happy — whether that’s taking care of animals or traveling. I seek out experiences that allow me to enjoy my own company because if I don’t reject myself, I think it’s a good place to start.
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Having lived as a perpetual people-pleaser, I’ve always been aware of my sensitivity. Growing up, I masked my true self to be the person others wanted, whether it was the "good child" at home, the ideal girlfriend, or the overachieving employee. I relate to Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride, adapting even my food preferences to avoid disappointing anyone. This exhausting lifestyle, driven by a fear of failure and an inability to say no, eventually led to burnout in my 30s.
My diagnosis with ADHD in my mid-30s finally gave a name to this overwhelming feeling: rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD). This wasn’t just sensitivity; it was a deeply ingrained fear that caused me to work extra hard to avoid any negative feedback. In my nearly 18-year marriage, we've had fewer than ten serious arguments, not because it’s a perfect marriage, but because I find it so difficult to recover from disagreements. I've often withdrawn and ruminated rather than expressing my needs.
RSD manifests in my life through a black-and-white perspective. When I receive feedback, I go to extremes to “fix” it. For example, during my PGCE course, I’d obsess over the "missions" (areas for improvement), turning one piece of feedback into a hyperfixation that would throw off my entire lesson plan. I did something similar when running INPACT, providing board members with excruciatingly detailed reports because I equated their questions with criticism. I was trying to get to a point where they had no questions, which I mistakenly believed would equate to them saying, "good job." Even with recent job hunting, I obsessed over the two rejections despite receiving four offers. My head knows it's just business, but my brain tells me it's personal. At home, a simple question from my husband about our spending can make me defensive, leading me to create detailed spreadsheets to prove I'm trustworthy.
My life has also been impacted by what I call "reverse RSD," where my fear of saying no led me to say yes to everything until I was completely burnt out. After walking away from the corporate world, I swung in the opposite direction, saying no to everything—even things that were good for me—and socially isolating myself. I became so scared of being asked for more than I could give that I would ghost friends and family. This behaviour led to real consequences, including the loss of a friend I never called back during a deep depression. Her death taught me that my RSD-driven isolation has a real impact on those I care about.
I’m now learning to manage my RSD by being kinder to myself. I've been challenging myself by posting regularly on LinkedIn, treating it like a blog and learning to keep sharing even when I get no engagement. This helps me take control back from the RSD, which tells me that no engagement equals silent rejection. I also use my teaching skills to coach myself through these moments, asking questions like, "Is this reaction proportional to what actually happened?" I’m giving myself permission to take time before responding to feedback to prevent an immediate spiral. The silver lining is that experiencing RSD has made me more thoughtful about how I give feedback to others, ensuring I don’t make them feel the way I have.
Why do some of us hate having friend groups while others thrive in them?
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I’ve been aware of the term Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria for a few years now. Retrospectively, though, I can see that I’ve been experiencing it for most of my life. For years, I thought I was just too sensitive. Too reactive. Too emotional. All those throwaway labels people use when they don’t understand what’s really going on under the surface. It wasn’t until I started learning more about ADHD and neurodivergence that I came across the term RSD – and suddenly, things began to fall into place. The descriptions were like a mirror. That feeling of spiralling because of a minor moment of perceived disapproval. The constant internal playback of conversations. The emotional hangovers. The waves of shame or panic that feel completely out of proportion. I recognised all of it.
For me, RSD can feel like an internal collapse – a sinking, hollowing out. It’s not always logical, but it’s powerful. I can end up plummeting just because someone seems a bit off with me – even if they’re not actually acting out of the ordinary at all. Over time, I’ve come to understand that my brain sometimes processes things through a distorted filter. I’ve learned to catch it before I spiral – not always, but often enough to stop it taking over. I’ve built coping mechanisms that help. These days, when I feel that familiar pang, I pause and ask myself: “Is this RSD, or is something genuinely going on?” I’ll breathe through it. I’ll look for evidence. I’ll reach for logic. Sometimes I’ll message the person and say: “Hey, my RSD’s kicking off – is everything okay, or is this just in my head?” That simple honesty helps more than you might think. The big turning point was naming it. Once I could call it what it was, I could start to create space between the feeling and the reaction. It doesn’t stop the feelings, but it stops me believing them quite so fiercely.
If the rejection is real, not imagined, it can still feel like falling off a cliff. There might be shame. Sometimes physical discomfort. I won’t necessarily shut down completely, but I’ll replay it over and over in my head, trying to find a solution – even if there isn’t one. It can sit with me for days. It can keep me up at night. Over the years, it’s impacted friendships, relationships and business. If I’m not careful, it can tip me into a state of overthinking and overanalysing everything – from one-to-one interactions to something as seemingly simple as a social media post. It’s that feeling of: Was that okay? Did I say too much? Should I delete it? Are they ignoring me? Have I done something wrong?
Exceptionally vivid mental imagery can seem like a superpower — but it can also be incredibly distracting.
In my career, I’ve built a lot of visibility and success, and I’ve learned to work with the fear that RSD brings. There’s often a background hum of what if they don’t like it… what if they don’t like me…, but I’ve learned to move through that. I’ve reframed “judgement” as “discernment”. It’s a softer, more accurate way of seeing it. We all make decisions based on what’s for us and what isn’t – and that doesn’t mean we’re being unkind. It just means we’re choosing where our energy goes. That shift has helped a lot. RSD has led me to walk away from situations I probably could have stayed in, if I hadn’t felt things so deeply. It’s brought self-doubt. But it’s also given me an edge in my work. I feel things deeply – and that can be exhausting – but it’s also what makes me good at what I do. I can spot what’s not being said. I can feel my way into people’s stories. That level of empathy and atonement is hard-won, but powerful.
