RSD, Shame, and the Long Echo of Being "Too Much"
I wrote an article on toxic shame the other week, but I’ve been thinking more about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)—and the more I reflect, the more curious I get. So I thought I’d write again, not to offer answers, but to invite reflection. Especially with those of you who, like me, have lived a lifetime feeling somehow other—too intense, too honest, too much.
Let’s start with the basics:
RSD is most commonly associated with ADHD, and sometimes autism. It's described as an intense emotional reaction to perceived or actual rejection, criticism, or failure. The reaction can feel out of proportion, even debilitating. And yet for many of us, it’s not an overreaction—it’s a deeply familiar response. One we've lived in, sometimes for decades.
When you grow up feeling like you're the odd one out, something happens. It's a quiet erosion of safety, a slow shaping of self. Maybe you speak up and people flinch. Maybe you notice things others don’t seem to see. Maybe you say the true thing in the wrong room. Over time, you don’t just fear rejection—you expect it. You brace for it. And when it comes, you tell yourself: Of course. What did you expect?
That’s what I want to talk about:
What if, for some of us, RSD isn’t just a neurological feature of ADHD, but a deeply embodied response to a lifetime of subtle (and not-so-subtle) exclusions? What if the way we react isn't only because our brains are wired differently, but because we've learned—over and over—that being ourselves is risky? Sometimes even in the generations before us.
It might even start to feel like a kind of trauma—a response to being different, yet desperate to belong.
For those of us with ADHD, or who are neurodivergent in other ways, there’s this ongoing narrative: that we’re not enough. That we miss cues, forget things, speak out of turn, feel too much. But these aren’t just deficits. They’re also experiences. Repeated ones. And they shape how we relate, how we perceive others, and how we hear “no”—or even silence.
Think about the moments when someone’s words say one thing but their body says another. Maybe you notice that. Maybe you always notice that. The tiny hesitation. The forced smile. The flicker of distance. You pick up on it because you’ve had to. You’ve trained yourself to catch it before it lands too hard.
That’s not just sensitivity. That’s survival.
I’ve been wondering: how much of our so-called “dysphoria” is actually our body’s way of keeping us safe? Of scanning for the cues we know mean we’re too much again. Too intense. Too emotional. Too weird. Too honest. And beneath all that—the raw nerve that gets struck—is shame. Not just in the moment of rejection, but the deep, ongoing sense that maybe we deserve it.
We don’t talk enough about the emotional cost of difference. Especially when that difference is invisible, or not immediately understood. And while it’s tempting to explain RSD purely through brain chemistry, I think it’s also worth asking: what if our emotional dysregulation is a story our nervous system has been trying to tell for years?
To be clear, I’m not saying all RSD is trauma. I’m not suggesting everyone diagnosed with it has this history. But I do think we need to leave space for the stories from those who have lived this way for so long that our brain and body no longer separate past from present. It’s not just about being rejected. It’s about how afraid we become of our own spontaneity—how quickly we’ll abandon our truth just to avoid the risk of being ‘too much.
If any of this resonates with you—if you’ve lived this quiet pattern, this bracing for rejection—I’d love to hear from you. What have you learned? What are you still trying to understand?
Let’s think about it together.