How To Overcome Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD)

1. 0:00 – 1:22

   Trailer

   1. JSJessica Summers0:00

      If you're experiencing RSD, the really important thing to remember, we cannot trust it. That is the difficult bit because it's giving us this really urgent message, "You must do something about this. This is serious. You must take action on this." But actually, it's completely disproportionate, so we have to learn to not trust that response. But it's a bit like an addiction. It's very difficult to separate the trigger from the reaction

   2. APAlex Partridge0:22

      Jessica Summers is a world-leading ADHD expert specializing in Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.

   3. JSJessica Summers0:28

      As a qualified psychotherapist

   4. APAlex Partridge0:30

      She can help you understand why you overthink

   5. JSJessica Summers0:32

      Struggle with shame

   6. APAlex Partridge0:33

      And why you're triggered by that one small comment

   7. JSJessica Summers0:36

      RSD is an experience that is a nervous system that's out of whack, but there's nothing wrong with your threat assessor. You have a working threat assessor, so it should be telling you that. It just needs recalibrating. It is a healthy response, but it needs dialing down

   8. APAlex Partridge0:50

      Can RSD sometimes manifest itself as aggressive behavior as a means of defense?

   9. JSJessica Summers0:55

      This is the saddest part about, uh, it's...

   10. APAlex Partridge1:01

       Jessica, thank you so much for joining us

   11. JSJessica Summers1:03

       Oh, I'm thrilled to be here. It's amazing

   12. APAlex Partridge1:06

       We're gonna be talking about a big topic today, RSD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, which when I ask people what the hardest part of ADHD is, time and time again now people are saying Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.

2. 1:22 – 4:18

   What is RSD (and why does it hurt)

   1. APAlex Partridge1:22

      So what is RSD, and why does it hurt so much?

   2. JSJessica Summers1:27

      Well, rather than saying what it is, um, we hear a lot about looking, um, for a text message that hasn't come and getting stressed. We hear about the little things that go to making up what RSD is, but I just really want to give you the experience of what it feels like. So I'd just like you to imagine that you are sat in a vast auditorium right now, and around you is everybody that you've ever known in your life, the people that you've looked up to, the people who have looked down on you, uh, maybe your family, maybe your children, uh, maybe teachers, maybe university lecturers. And while you are sat in this auditorium, a screen begins to play at the front of the auditorium, and on that screen is every terrible thing that you've ever done in your life, everything you're ashamed of, everything you've forgotten that you've done and that now is coming up to stare you in the face, and the worst thing is everybody can see it. Every single person in, in that auditorium can see it, and you see their eyes on you. Except that feeling can get triggered at any time of the day. You can be standing up in a meeting, and you could see somebody look at their watch while you're speaking, and that feeling is triggered in you, and the worst thing is you feel as if everybody can see those memories playing. They can't, but that is the feeling, the deepest shame you could ever imagine, and I think that explains why it hurts so much

   3. APAlex Partridge2:58

      Wow, what a visual, and I'm experiencing quite a lot of shame now just imagining that example. Such a tsunami of emotional pain in response to a perceived or real criticism. I think it's genuinely brutal. Out of the people you've spoken to regarding RSD, how have they described the feeling?

   4. JSJessica Summers3:19

      Well, some people have described it as like thousands of paper cuts all over their body, so it's very visceral, physical language. Other people have described it as like a burning prison inside their body that they can't escape from. But I would say the more worrying thing is when people don't have the words to describe it, and I think that's what we both care about, is that we want to make sure people know that it exists and they have the words to describe it. Um, so I think it's important we hear what it feels like from people who experience it, and then other people watching can say, "Oh, I recognize that."

   5. APAlex Partridge3:58

      Thousands of tiny cuts, and w- I want to talk about the potential cause of it a little later, those 20,000 tiny cuts, those extra criticisms children with ADHD experience in their early years. But when I hear someone like yourself talk so passionately about a subject such as RSD, I always wonder where their motivation comes from.

3. 4:18 – 7:38

   Jessica’s RSD mission

   1. APAlex Partridge4:18

      So what is your mission in regards to ADHD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria?

   2. JSJessica Summers4:24

      Okay, um, my mission is to make sure that as many people as possible are aware of it, to make sure that people who experience it are seen, heard, and understood. And the reason for my work is, uh, that I experience RSD triggers, and I have done all of my life. I remember being drunk in my GCSE exams because I could not bear the pain of failing. I remember nearly dropping out of university, uh, which I didn't go to till my late 20s for the same reason. I nearly dropped out because I was so afraid, uh, that my essay mark would be a fail, and I queued up to get my essay mark very reluctantly. I thought, "I'll just sneak off." And I got 92%, and I burst into tears, and I ended up getting a first, but it was a very close-run thing that I wouldn't. And as time has gone on, I've developed in my work. I've become a hypnotherapist. I've worked with clients for 10 years, but the RSD triggers still did not stop. And my supervisor would have conversations with me like, "But when are you gonna realize the work you do?" And I didn't know, and I've been on a journey of discovery-

   3. APAlex Partridge5:30

      Mm-hmm

   4. JSJessica Summers5:30

      ... really for the past four or five years solely focusing on this

   5. APAlex Partridge5:34

      When you s- mention ADHD to someone, you often hear people assume it means hyperactive child or someone who interrupts a lot or can't keep still. They don't automatically jump to this horrible thing called RSD. Why do you think people are shocked to hear that this emotional sensitivity is part of ADHD?

   6. JSJessica Summers5:59

      I think there's a real lack of understanding of what ADHD is, and I think just, again, to go back to a personal note, if I tell people that I have ADHD, what I'm met with is disbelief becausePeople assume that these are the characteristics that you're going to have. But in actual fact, there is a whole spectrum of symptoms and unwanted and difficult behaviors that we experience. And I think the key here is that people need to listen to each other more, because there's an assumption that we are talking about these troublesome symptoms of ADHD, such as RSD and the emotional dysregulation, because we want someone to listen to us. We want someone to understand us, and sometimes that can be the case. But what we really want is just to be acknowledged, for that person to say, "I hear that you're having these difficult symptoms, that you're in pain." We're not doing it for recognition. We're doing it because we want to understand ourselves, and we want other people to understand us.

   7. APAlex Partridge7:01

      I think the worst thing is if you experience this horrible crippling shame, this intense emotional reaction to criticism or rejection, and then you tell someone about it and they just brush you off as crazy. And I don't use that word lightly. I've heard people report going to their doctors and explaining this, this manifestation, this intense shame that, that gets triggered in the face of a tiny, sometimes, criticism and, and the doctors brush them off as, as crazy or simply too sensitive. Do you think some people, because RSD potentially is a, a bit of a left field trait of

4. 7:38 – 8:54

   ‘RSD isn’t real’

   1. APAlex Partridge7:38

      ADHD and still relatively unknown, do you think there's a risk that people will tell somebody who is suffering with it that they're just making it up?

   2. JSJessica Summers7:46

      Yeah, I definitely think that's a risk because everybody that you come across assumes that their experience is everybody's experience, and that's not the case. And I think attached to RSD, and we are the worst ones, those of us who suffer with it, there is this intense shame that we're weak or that we're failing in some way for responding the way we do and so sensitively, but we're all different. We all experience things differently, and I think over the past few years, we're seeing a lot more of that being acknowledged, that we all have a different spectrum of experience. And I hope that people will see that this particular experience of RSD is horrendous, and in no way should it be normalized or brushed off.

   3. APAlex Partridge8:28

      RSD, for me, it feels like everyone is continuously mad at you, or you're al- you're always on the edge of letting someone down and you're about to find out about it. It's, it's the tiniest triggers sometimes, like I think you mentioned earlier, a reply to a text message with a full stop or a thumbs up emoji. The tiniest little thing like that can have such a drastic trigger and emotional response from me.

5. 8:54 – 11:09

   The tinniest comment can trigger you

   1. APAlex Partridge8:55

      Why do you think such small triggers can have such a big impact on someone with ADHD?

   2. JSJessica Summers9:03

      Well, the important thing to remember is that language is a code, and when somebody puts a thumbs up on a message, quite often it does mean passive-aggressive.

   3. APAlex Partridge9:12

      Right. [laughs]

   4. JSJessica Summers9:12

      You know, we're not always imagining it.

   5. APAlex Partridge9:14

      Mm.

   6. JSJessica Summers9:14

      But I think the important thing to realize here, it's the uncertainty that we cannot tolerate. We just, we can't cope with not knowing. We can't cope with knowing that we may have upset someone. We can't cope with not knowing how they may feel about us, or that they're upset with us. And there's a really clear reason for this. RSD has come about to protect us, which, hey ho, I know sounds absolutely insane, but it is attempting to protect us. And so that thumbs up or the little full stop instead of a heart at the end that you're used to getting is your nervous system telling you, "There is something to worry about here. Hey, you may be at risk of being ostracized." And although it's incredibly maladapted, in order to react like a physical emergency to a full stop or a thumbs up, that is what's happening.

   7. APAlex Partridge10:02

      I guess in the absence of absolute clear positivity and approval, we can jump to the negative very quickly. We can catastrophize. Like, if you don't explicitly invite someone with ADHD to a social event, if you say, "Oh, you can come if you like," that's not explicitly saying they want you there. So you could easily take that uncertainty that you were saying and assume that, "Well, if I go to this social event, they haven't explicitly invite, invited me, so I'm just gonna be a nuisance, and I'm p- probably gonna annoy people." Um, where does it come from? Because we, we've spo- spoken a lot on this podcast about ADHD children are exposed to so many more horrendous, nasty little comments in their early years, 20,000 extra little micro criticisms. "Stop fidgeting. Why are you so weird? Why are you so lazy? Can't you just start the task? Be normal. Why are you so loud? It's not that loud in here." And they're not, not sound that damaging in their isolated form, but if you add them all together over a childhood, they could compound to create someone who truly believes that they're different and broken.

6. 11:09 – 13:20

   20,000 extra criticisms

   1. APAlex Partridge11:09

      Do you think the theory of the 20,000 comments is, is accurate? And w- if so, why do you think ADHD children are more susceptible to criticisms?

   2. JSJessica Summers11:20

      Okay, and I can't give a definitive answer here. I think it's definitely a theory that's worth considering. But I think you've said it when you said although the criticisms may be small, they go in very deeply, and I can remember similar situations. And I often wonder whether ADHD children are just born more sensitive. They're more highly sensitive, because I know that I've heard people who would not necessarily feel that they've been overly criticized, but they still have RSD. And what I think is those voices are inside a lot of the time, and particularly with women, that you'll find they're not speaking out about it, and they internalize a lot of it. And I think we have so many internal voices all performing the same function. So I think whether it's out loud, which I know lots of ADHD young people have experienced, because we're more intense-And it can be unsettling for people, let's put it that way. But also let's not forget, it's an internal experience as well, and every little comment, we've internalized it and saved it for later. Our brain's a pattern recognition tool, and it recognizes that pattern of negativity and looks for more of it. It's a bit addicted to it, actually.

   3. APAlex Partridge12:33

      So what are some examples of some nasty things that women will internalize and tell themselves?

   4. JSJessica Summers12:39

      Well, I've, I've seen some really startling examples of very high-powered women, uh, who inside are waiting to be fired. They are waiting to hear that every time when they get a message to, uh, go see somebody who's superior to them in the company, that they're gonna get the sack. Um, they also tell themselves that they're a failure and there's no point trying and that it's no good. So I would say with women who come to me, what I see more than, than with guys, is that they experience pre-failure. So they just are unable to try because they already feel that whatever they do, they're just gonna fail. I'd say that's

7. 13:20 – 14:08

   RSD in women vs in men

   1. JSJessica Summers13:20

      the most common.

   2. APAlex Partridge13:21

      Do you think generally men and women experience RSD differently?

   3. JSJessica Summers13:27

      Yes, I would. Uh, I, I was really interested to hear that a lot of guys will experience a short episode of RSD, um, and it will be quite explosive and then move on. Um, with women, I find there is no... I do have women who have outbursts, but I would say they're the healthy ones. Um, although you might get criticized for having an outburst of sensitivity, I would say the really damaging cases that I've seen amongst women are that they don't explode, they internalize everything, and they swallow it all, and I think this is very damaging for your health, um, and the nervous system.

   4. APAlex Partridge14:07

      And if you internalize

8. 14:08 – 15:16

   RSD in romantic relationships

   1. APAlex Partridge14:08

      that intense emotions, can that cause problems in romantic relationships?

   2. JSJessica Summers14:13

      I think definitely, and I think romantic relationships can be difficult for men and women with RSD. The thing that you have to remember about RSD is that it's essentially a protector. It is a part of you, and not a conscious part of you, that has to be said, that's trying to protect you from harm, and the way it can show up is that we become defensive. So there might be a, a question from a partner, "Oh, did you get the bread?" "Oh, I'm always messing up, aren't I? You're always telling that I'm messing up." Because we just cannot take to be any more wrong. The pain is too great, and I'm not excusing it. It's very, very difficult to live with RSD. I think partners feel that they're walking on eggshells, and that it doesn't matter what they say or do, they're not gonna be able to get it right. So it's difficult all ways round.

   3. APAlex Partridge15:05

      I think it could be devastating, not necessarily just the pain of RSD. We're very acutely aware of just how painful it feels to be criticized, but because

9. 15:16 – 17:36

   The RSD blockades

   1. APAlex Partridge15:16

      of that pain, do you notice that people put up blockades around themselves sometimes, certain behaviors as a defense against, to protect themselves from that pain?

   2. JSJessica Summers15:26

      I think it's really important to remember that RSD, what we're talking about, might initially look like a trigger, and maybe someone observing what's happening inside them at the trigger or someone outside of them observing how they behave at the trigger, but that really is the tip of the iceberg. As far as I can see it, that pain of RSD and avoiding it can completely warp a life. It can warp us from true. You could start off as a beautiful sapling, as a tree, and then by the time you've been through enough of this stuff and enough of the pain of RSD, you're warped completely out of your natural shape in order to avoid feeling this way. So we don't apply for the jobs that we should be applying to. We do work that maybe is not as satisfying to us, but that we're not gonna be criticized for. Maybe we don't end up with the right people as well. Even worse, maybe we end up with the people who are matching those voices in our heads that say that we're no good. It's a serious issue.

   3. APAlex Partridge16:26

      Could it go as far as somebody, they're so scared of being criticized or rejected by their partner that they actually take the drastic step of ending the relationship first as a defensive mechanism?

   4. JSJessica Summers16:37

      Absolutely. That can happen. Um, but I wanna say, even the way you're talking about it, um, as if it's some conscious event, there's very little that's direct about RSD. I always like to describe RSD as like a sheepdog that's nipping at your heels, and you'll see the sheep moving hither and thither, but none of it looks very direct. And I think what I see more often is that people repeatedly choose partners who they have no chance of success with and who are gonna hurt them. So it's like a, a terrible self-fulfilling prophecy. But also infidelities, because that intimacy and the uncertainty that happens after the chemistry's worn off, we just don't know, will we be rejected? We don't know what's expected of us, and that is the time when we can back away and finish a relationship, but not consciously.

   5. APAlex Partridge17:26

      It can cause perfectionism as well, right? Like this, this blockade, this defensive, you don't wanna be criticized, so how can I possibly be rejected if everything is done to such a high standard? But

10. 17:36 – 19:37

    The costs of perfectionism

    1. APAlex Partridge17:36

       what are the costs of perfectionism?

    2. JSJessica Summers17:39

       I, I was smiling then because that's my particular forte.

    3. APAlex Partridge17:42

       [laughs]

    4. JSJessica Summers17:43

       Yeah, this podcast was perfect in my head.

    5. APAlex Partridge17:45

       [laughs]

    6. JSJessica Summers17:45

       You know, but this is the thing. We have these ideas in our heads, and they're always perfect when they're in our heads. They're always perfect until they've been done, and I think this is the real danger. I think this is a big part of my mission, that there are people out there who have something really valuable to offer the world that we need to hear from, and we're not hearing from them because it has to be perfect or they will not come out and speak and they won't do it.

    7. APAlex Partridge18:11

       I recently spoke to somebody on the podcast called Pete Wharmby, and he had a... He, he was sharing new evidence that suggests that actually neurodivergent people... are innately different, and because of that, we can be quite unlikable to neurotypicals. Certain behaviors we put out in the world are met with an unlikability because people don't know how to react to us, and therefore, sometimes the perception of being criticized or not liked isn't imagined. It is true, because we are picking up on genuine metrics and markers of unlikability from our neurotypical peers. Can you see that being true?

    8. JSJessica Summers18:55

       I think I want to come at this from a nervous system angle. I think that neurodivergent people are really very often at war with their own nervous systems, because we don't live in a world that's designed for us. We repeatedly have to put ourselves under stress, and if you are highly stressed, it can come out in different ways. It can come out as a certain level of intensity, but also, our laughter is louder. We'll laugh for longer, for example, and I think that that underlying stress can, possibly through mirror neurons, trigger other people around us to feel stressed also. Um, so that's maybe an angle with that.

    9. APAlex Partridge19:36

       Mm.

11. 19:37 – 20:32

    The importance of the word ‘Dysphoria’

    1. APAlex Partridge19:37

       And in the acronym RSD, rejection sensitive dysphoria, how important is that word, dysphoria?

    2. JSJessica Summers19:44

       I think it's incredibly important for anyone who suffers from it, and so it should be. The minute I say to clients, "Dysphoria literally means unbearable," they relax. Some people have cried on a call with me, because just to have that pain recognized is incredibly important. But also, it's been a source of controversy, because many people feel that it medicalizes what is a normal human range of emotions. For me, I see the dysphoria as absolutely vital, because this is what gives us an indication that this is a nervous system event. Yeah, basically, our nervous system is being set off to such a degree, like a maladapted stress response, that what is an emotional pain is being flagged as a serious physical emergency by our nervous

12. 20:32 – 21:54

    Tiimo advert

    1. JSJessica Summers20:32

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    2. APAlex Partridge20:33

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13. 21:54 – 24:57

    How to manage RSD

    1. APAlex Partridge21:54

       How does someone start to ease the pain that comes with RSD?

    2. JSJessica Summers21:59

       So the most important thing for easing the pain with RSD is something that's been sadly lacking in a lot of our lives, is installing a sense of safety. Because until you begin to feel safe in yourself, you can't take any new learning on. You can't challenge old patterns. It's just too difficult, so that's the very first place that we begin. I use different hypnotic tools. I love personification, so that basically I give different areas of the psyche a persona, which makes it much more easy to handle, rather than doing inner child work.

    3. APAlex Partridge22:32

       Do you think if you are triggered, your nervous system has been snapped back to those 20,000 horrible comments you had as a child, and therefore, if you respond in the moment now to something someone said today, it probably isn't gonna be a proportionate response to the comment that has triggered you?

    4. JSJessica Summers22:54

       Yeah, I think that's true to say that our brain, as I've said, is a pattern recognition tool. It's always looking for... Our nervous system in particular is always looking for previous events to match whatever's happening to. But the really important thing to remember if you're experiencing RSD is that we cannot trust it. So that is the difficult bit, because it's giving us this really urgent message, "You must do something about this. This is serious. You must take action on this." But actually, as you say, it's completely disproportionate, so we have to learn to not trust that response. But it's a bit like an addiction, and it's very difficult to separate the trigger from the reaction, but that's what we must do.

    5. APAlex Partridge23:35

       So if someone says something, you find out there's a social event and you haven't been invited, or your boss says, "Can we have a quick chat?" Or your partner wants to talk to you later, and you feel that intense fear, like the world's about to end.

    6. JSJessica Summers23:50

       Mm-hmm.

    7. APAlex Partridge23:50

       How do you pull yourself out of that? 'Cause that can be really derailing towards someone's day.

    8. JSJessica Summers23:55

       Yeah, and I, I, I just have to hold my hands up and say that until recently, I found that almost impossible myself. I could certainly surrender a lot more easily to the sensation, but I didn't have any way of dealing with the sensation. It was only when I became ill with a post-viral syndrome and I began to retrain my brain to overcome this terrible illness that kept me in bed for months that I realized my RSD began to get better, and that comes from when the trigger arises, you experience it fully-Okay? And that's really difficult. You experience the trigger fully, and then you do a series of different steps that are different from what we've done before. They're completely counterintuitive. But unfortunately, that's really difficult if you don't have a sense of safety first.

    9. APAlex Partridge24:44

       When you say experience the trigger, do you mean you let the big emotions happen?

    10. JSJessica Summers24:48

        Yes, and I couldn't do that before, and lots of people with RSD will realize that, that it's very, very difficult to do that.

    11. APAlex Partridge24:54

        Mm.

    12. JSJessica Summers24:55

        Um, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.

14. 24:57 – 27:18

    RSD and aggression

    1. APAlex Partridge24:57

       Can RSD sometimes manifest itself as aggressive behavior or impulsive actions as a means of defense?

    2. JSJessica Summers25:05

       Absolutely, yeah, and I think this is the saddest part about it. It's, it's not conscious, um, but it, it can just happen, and I think this leaves us feeling ashamed, you know? A lot of the people who find me around RSD, it's because they've worked on themselves so much, they've developed through their lives, and this is the thing that remains, and it's so shaming to snap at your partner or snap at people at work, um, in situations where it's really not acceptable to do that. So yeah, it does happen.

    3. APAlex Partridge25:37

       I've heard examples of people rage-quitting jobs sometimes. Like, someone has said something to them, their boss has corrected a piece of work that they've done, and they've taken it completely personal, and they've stormed out, and then they've had so much shame that they've never been able to go back. Like, if you are in your home or your workplace and someone says something to you, and your knee-jerk reaction is to impulsively rage, start an argument, or storm out, which will have real-world consequences. You could lose your job. You could do serious damage to your relationship 'cause you might say something that is really nasty and not proportionate to what's just happened. In those moments, are you meant to ride out that rage and, and, and embrace it, or can you put something there to stop that from happening?

    4. JSJessica Summers26:27

       Yeah. Well, the thing is, it's not easy to fix RSD. I'm just gonna have to hold my hands up. Um, the thing that we need to work on is doing physical things in that moment, which is to breathe, take deep breaths, and to know absolutely that the longer we leave between a trigger and the action that we take and the more relaxed we make sure we are in that window, the better the consequences are going to be. It doesn't help that we live in a permanent now when you have ADHD.

    5. APAlex Partridge26:56

       [laughs]

    6. JSJessica Summers26:57

       There isn't any other time but now, is there? So that doesn't help us, right? But we have to have a very strong part of us that is willing to stand by us and say, "Okay, look, you don't wanna do this now. Yeah? Just take a breath. Even if you wait five minutes, it's better than nothing." We have to really manufacture that voice for ourselves 'cause it's not

15. 27:18 – 28:20

    How RSD affects masking

    1. JSJessica Summers27:18

       naturally there.

    2. APAlex Partridge27:18

       Do you think masking is a direct consequence of RSD? I- if people are... It's almost like you wanna put a perfect version of yourself out into the world to minimize the chance of you facing a criticism.

    3. JSJessica Summers27:32

       I'm not sure whether it's direct, and I think this is the thing that I'm saying about RSD. It's very difficult to look at anything as a direct consequence because it just spreads its fingers into every area of your life. But I think it's probable that people mask in order to be accepted as they are and to avoid getting a response that they don't like. So it's all about controlling everything, and, and it feels... I feel almost disloyal to myself, my earlier self saying this, but that, that is true. We want to control our environment, so we want to make people happy in that moment, um, in order not to get a nasty face back, uh, even if we're cutting off our own arms and legs in the process, as long as we get that smiley face. So I think people pleasing may be the words that I'd use, but that, that's also masking.

16. 28:20 – 29:54

    How to stop people pleasing

    1. APAlex Partridge28:20

       Have you got any tips for the people pleasers who are listening? Because I feel like it can be so damaging. You might say yes to that piece of work, yes to a social event, yes to something that you really don't wanna do, and it's gonna potentially perpetuate the cycle of burnout because obviously our energy is finite, finite. Um, and it can't be good for your self-esteem, right? Continuously saying yes and yes to, to things you don't wanna do, putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. In that very acute moment where you've been asked to do something, you've been asked to go to an event, you've been asked to take on this new project at work, and really you don't wanna do it, how do you stop yourself saying yes in that moment?

    2. JSJessica Summers28:58

       Okay, so I'm all about the long game. I'll say that again. What I would say is start practicing now on things that don't matter because even the things that don't matter are gonna cause you to feel, uh, that same RSD feeling. It just won't be as intense. So we wanna choose things that you know are not the end of the world if you say no to, um, but you're gonna practice saying no, experiencing the feelings that come up w- as they inevitably will when you say no, and keep doing that repeatedly on things that don't matter as much. Then when something comes along that's really important to you and you think, "No, I can't do this, it wouldn't be right," you know what it feels like. You're used to it. Most of us have no experience having difficult conversations. We've avoided them.

    3. APAlex Partridge29:41

       Mm. Yes, fascinating. It's easy, isn't it? It's quite, it's soothing to be the people pleaser in the moment 'cause it protects you from that pain. But yeah, it's a great tip to hopefully avoid some of the longer term consequences.

17. 29:54 – 30:40

    How to reframe RSD

    1. APAlex Partridge29:54

       Is there a way we can reframe the way we think about RSD to help us deal with it better?

    2. JSJessica Summers30:01

       100% there is. I can tell you one thing right away that will change things for you, for everybody who has RSD. It's not your fault. It is not your fault, and everything that you've been trying to do to make it better and trying and probably failing to have an impact on it, that's not your fault either, either.That's not your fault either. The reason why you can't change it yourself in that way is 'cause it's not psychological. It's a nervous system that after years and years of being forced through things as we do, it's now tired. It's not springing back to a rest state. So you're never gonna fix it by working on your thought processes alone.

18. 30:40 – 31:41

    Can RSD be useful

    1. APAlex Partridge30:40

       Can RSD ever be useful in some ways?

    2. JSJessica Summers30:42

       The really interesting thing that I've found through working with clients is that when they start to recover from RSD, the RSD feeling, or what feels like it, begins to come up in response to when they're doing things that are not in line with their greater good. So it's their nervous system letting them know, "Uh-uh, if you go down this route, it's not for your greater happiness. Have a boundary here." So it can be good. Remember, RSD is an experience that is a nervous system that's out of whack, but there's nothing wrong with your threat assessor. You have a working threat assessor, so it should be telling you that. It just needs recalibrating, retraining a bit. So I think it's important to hang onto that. It is a healthy response, but it needs dialing down.

    3. APAlex Partridge31:28

       So interesting. I feel like having an awareness of RSD and having that validation that these strong feelings and emotions that you experience are valid and have an explanation. Aside from

19. 31:41 – 32:16

    Closing RSD tips

    1. APAlex Partridge31:41

       that, do you have any closing tips, closing advice for the many listeners, viewers who do struggle with RSD probably on the daily?

    2. JSJessica Summers31:51

       I think the most important thing we can do for ourselves... I, I talked about safety, yeah? You don't need an expert to make you safe. You need a decision. You need to make that decision that you're gonna put yourself first, that you're gonna do what it takes to understand what it's like to have ADHD, what your limitations are, what your strengths are, and to say kind things to yourself, and to begin today, and that is the beginning of the road to

20. 32:16 – 34:04

    Jessica’s ADHD item

    1. JSJessica Summers32:16

       recovery.

    2. APAlex Partridge32:17

       Jessica, I want to move on to my favorite part of the show, which is the ADHD item section. All of the guests bring in an item that most represent ADHD. They all end up on the shelves behind us, but yours has been patiently waiting underneath the cloth, a very thin item. [laughs]

    3. JSJessica Summers32:33

       [laughs]

    4. APAlex Partridge32:33

       You wouldn't know when there was anything under there this week. [laughs]

    5. JSJessica Summers32:34

       I'm excited. [laughs]

    6. APAlex Partridge32:35

       I'm gonna reveal it now. Right, that is a picture of a sailing boat.

    7. JSJessica Summers32:40

       Wow. Great.

    8. APAlex Partridge32:40

       We did order a real sailing boat, but we couldn't get it through the door.

    9. JSJessica Summers32:44

       [laughs]

    10. APAlex Partridge32:44

        Why does a sailing boat represent ADHD?

    11. JSJessica Summers32:47

        Well, it represents myself and all the people that I work with. Usually, when they come to me, they very much want to change the weather. "Please can I have better weather? Please can I have sunshine? Please can this person be nicer to me? Uh, please can I have a job, you know, where I get to be myself?" But there's a really great African proverb, and it is, "Smooth seas do not make for skillful sailors." And I just really wanna leave people with this feeling that although we feel like we're broken, we have so many different times in our lives where we've overcome things, and when we've learned better to sail the seas of life. And the thing is, when we decide to choose to live our lives that way, I'm gonna choose to be a better sailor of life. I'm gonna choose to pay attention to all the different things that happen in my life, however challenging, and learn from them. That's when we start to grow. That's when we become skillful sailors, and I think we could be a lot more skillful than a lot of other people when we decide to make that choice. [laughs]

    12. APAlex Partridge33:48

        I mean, it's amazing. So I suppose like neurotypical people, perhaps they're swimming in calm swimming pools, and ADHD people are perhaps swimming in, in their choppy, rough seas. But because of that, we're much more resilient and much-

    13. JSJessica Summers34:01

        Yeah, I totally agree.

    14. APAlex Partridge34:03

        So interesting, Jessica.

21. 34:04 – 38:10

    Audience questions

    1. APAlex Partridge34:04

       I wanna move on to the audience questions, which is called the washing machine of woes, because my ADHD item is a washing machine because it represents memory loss. And for me-

    2. JSJessica Summers34:15

       Yeah

    3. APAlex Partridge34:15

       ... that's because I always forget to empty the washing machine after the cycle has ended, and I ask to make myself feel less, less broken. [laughs] Do you do the same?

    4. JSJessica Summers34:26

       I just... I, I smiled when you said that because, uh, my biggest source of shame actually-

    5. APAlex Partridge34:31

       Mm-hmm

    6. JSJessica Summers34:31

       ... which I'm still working on, is that my memory loss, um, that I, um... My memory is terrible, and I lost a load when I got ill, so I'm just really happy to, uh, be in the room with you, Alex, at this moment. [laughs]

    7. APAlex Partridge34:41

       Oh, good. Yeah. It, it's very therapeutic actually to share to the listeners that I need the smell of damp to remind myself to empty the machine. [laughs] But I've been using the Tiimo app, which has been helping me to remember. Um-

    8. JSJessica Summers34:52

       Oh, great

    9. APAlex Partridge34:53

       ... this week, Jessica, someone has written in and asked, "My RSD gets triggered really easily and quickly, but I can also move on from it really quickly too. Does this make me a psychopath, being able to forget something so fast that was so painful for a short while?"

    10. JSJessica Summers35:10

        Uh, okay, no is the short answer.

    11. APAlex Partridge35:12

        Oh. [laughs]

    12. JSJessica Summers35:12

        It doesn't, it doesn't make the listener a psychopath because that's actually showing that your nervous system is still able to recover. It can return to a resting state, and RSD is state-dependent. Like, one of the steps that I use in recovering from a trigger is to distract yourself, but in a certain way. You put yourself into an altered state. Think of another time when you felt happy, and the RSD will go away if you can think about it for long enough. So it's a good sign, but also a sign to say that I do believe RSD is damaging for the health. I think it knocks years off the life just from the repeated bursts of cortisol, so we need to take it seriously.

    13. APAlex Partridge35:52

        Do you think, on the flip side of the conversation, we've spoken a lot about RSD, and being sensitive, and having emotional pain, tsunamis when criticized. If someone's able to take a criticism and it doesn't affect them whatsoever, it, it just bounces off them, has that person got a personality disorder?

    14. JSJessica Summers36:13

        So the thing is, it's an internal experience. Letting things bounce off them, that's healthy. Um, I'm sure many of us would like to be able to do that more easily. Not caring at all what anybody thinks, yeah, you may be sort of verging into narcissistic qualities. What we want is to feel that although people may disagree with us, our sense of self is more important to us and remains intact, and you see that's a slightly different thing.

    15. APAlex Partridge36:42

        That's interesting. So you- y- you're potentially saying that narcissists are immune from RSD?

    16. JSJessica Summers36:48

        Oh, I wouldn't go so far as to say that. So I said narcissistic tendencies. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that necessarily-

    17. APAlex Partridge36:54

        [laughs]

    18. JSJessica Summers36:54

        ... about narcissists. But what I'm saying is that if you don't have any care about what the people around you think, then you may have a problem, okay? But, but the important thing to remember here is that if you care about what people think, but you don't let it upset or unbalance your sense of self and what's really important to you, that's healthy.

    19. APAlex Partridge37:16

        Could someone be so good at masking and internalizing their RSD triggers? Like, they, they, that rage just doesn't come out, that sadness doesn't come out, at least not from the perception of other people, that somebody might think somebody doesn't have RSD. Like, they might think they are totally resilient, when in fact they're just so good at hiding it?

    20. JSJessica Summers37:34

        Absolutely. I think there's tons of people like that, and, and that's why it's so important to remember it's an internal experience, and you can't judge from the outside how terrible somebody is feeling. Most people think I'm fine most of the time. It'll be an eye-opener. [laughs]

    21. APAlex Partridge37:49

        [laughs] I guess lots of people with ADHD are experts at pretending that they're happy and fine.

    22. JSJessica Summers37:55

        Absolutely. It's how we get on in the world. I always talk about RSD, and I say it in the book, about something you'd rather hide under the bed. It's not very sexy to talk about it, but we're changing that, right? [laughs]

    23. APAlex Partridge38:05

        Yeah. It's one step at a time, one episode at a time. We'll have to have you back again-

    24. JSJessica Summers38:08

        [laughs]

    25. APAlex Partridge38:08

        ... for one more too.

    26. JSJessica Summers38:09

        I'd love

22. 38:10 – 39:58

    A letter to my younger self

    1. JSJessica Summers38:10

       to.

    2. APAlex Partridge38:10

       Jessica, just finally, I'm gonna deliver you a letter that was written by the previous guest, and they wrote a letter to their younger self. There we go, Jessica.

    3. JSJessica Summers38:20

       "Dear younger self, I just wanted you to know something very cool about your future. Right now, you are, you are very passionate about being a peacemaker. It's important for you to live in a world that promotes peaceful interactions between people so that every person can find their place and a sense of belonging. You'll be excited to know that when you grow up, you will actually turn around one day and realize that you have become a peacemaker, perhaps, perhaps not in the way that you imagined. You'll become a passionate advocate for the neurodivergent, particularly those amazing people you lovingly refer to as ADHDers. And with each moment of advocacy, you will be empowering individuals to become self-aware, self-sufficient, and connected in meaningful relationships, bringing them peace of mind about their abilities and their place in the world. Along the way, you'll meet incredible people who either live with this diagnosis or who are working to advocate for them. Psychologists, psychiatrists, medical professionals, even social media influencers and podcasters will be among the warriors you will fight along in the trenches on your quest to create a world where everybody belongs. You go, girl."

    4. APAlex Partridge39:38

       Amazing.

    5. JSJessica Summers39:38

       That's wonderful. What a wonderful letter.

    6. APAlex Partridge39:41

       Feels more like a novel-

    7. JSJessica Summers39:42

       [laughs]

    8. APAlex Partridge39:42

       ... but it was very nice. [laughs]

    9. JSJessica Summers39:43

       Been on a journey. [laughs]

    10. APAlex Partridge39:45

        Yeah. [laughs] Incredible. Um, Jessica, and we'll kindly ask you to write your letter after this, which the next guest will read out. Thank you so much.

    11. JSJessica Summers39:53

        Thank you, Alex. [outro music]

Episode duration: 39:58