Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

slyrider:

labelleizzy:

imperatorsapphiosa:

adhd-is:

thatadhdfeel:

“WOW IM SO GLAD MY DOCTOR TOLD ME ABOUT THIS” SAID NONE OF US EVER

I’d never heard of this but this is like my entire life.

Because it’s not just fear of rejection or feeling inadequate or disappointed in yourself.

It is an intense, rushing panic, or a fast downward spiral of depression, where I can go from “Today is great, I’m doing a great job!” to “I’m stupid, she hates me, why did I say that, I’m going to just kill myself” in literally seconds. Especially important is that it does not need to even be real rejection–perceived rejection (and related cognitive distortions) feel exactly the same.

This here? Is why I will cry my eyes out when some random person I’m talking to online doesn’t message me for a day, because I feel rejected. Why being told I didn’t clean something right at work makes me go home feeling like I’m going to be fired the next day. Why I procrastinate on projects or confrontation, because the very idea of possibly being rejected is terrifying, because I unconsciously associate it with a feeling comparable to flying off a roller-coaster.

There’s no way to describe how important this is. It was literally the entire missing link in therapy for me.

Despite my parents being, mostly, good parents with a few issues, I had enough fear about them and enough defense mechanisms that I sounded like I had a neglectful or even emotionally abusive childhood.

The truth is, I didn’t understand how I responded to people emotionally. My parents having to spend a day working felt like they didn’t give a damn about me. Very small concerns and worries sounded like a passive-aggressive criticism. I’d spend literally a half hour just working myself up, thinking and tearing at and over analyzing some minor comment made towards me. Knowing that rejection-sensitive dysphoria even exists made me completely reevaluate every mood problem I’ve had and my entire outlook on my mental health.

This comment makes so much sense to me. My childhood was like this.

@words-writ-in-starlight