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.”
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.
“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.
Courtesy of Malvika
Malvika
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.
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.