ADHD and Rejection Sensitivity in the Workplace

No one can avoid criticism, rejection, and failure in life. The workplace is a common place where most people have to face these things. This is bad news for people with ADHD in the workplace, most of whom experience Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria daily.

Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is an aspect of emotional dysregulation in ADHD that causes people to react with heightened and uncontrollable emotions whenever they perceive they have been criticized or rejected.

Not only is it frustrating, exhausting, and embarrassing to have to deal with in the workplace, but it can also severely impair your career and work relationships. However, understanding rejection sensitivity is the first step in dealing with it. The more you know about yourself, the more patience you can show yourself as you grow.

A History of Rejection

The average person with ADHD has faced criticism and rejection from the time they were children. At school, you might have been constantly criticized by teachers for being tardy, lacking focus, or having study methods different from everyone else. Students might have mocked you for being different, and even parents might have been exasperated by your peculiarities.

Whether you were diagnosed with ADHD at a young age or not, you have likely been made to feel sensitive about your differences for decades. People with ADHD have legitimate reasons for being defensive and sensitive, even without rejection sensitivity.

Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria is difficult to deal with because it is part of the emotional dysregulation that is caused by ADHD. That means that it is emotional turmoil that takes place at the level of your brain.

You might have had a history of being criticized and feeling rejected, but that is an emotional layer of pain. Rejection sensitivity goes deeper and affects your brain chemistry in a similar way that a depressive disorder would. To put it plainly, rejection sensitivity is one of the many bugs of the ADHD system.

Inside Out

People experience and express RSD in unique ways, but there are common characteristics that everyone with ADHD experiences. You might have become familiar with the unpredictability of your emotions. You may not be able to control or anticipate your emotional reactions. You might be caught off guard at just how intense they can be when you perceive that you are being criticized or rejected.

This might lead you to replay interactions in your head, leading to an overall sinking feeling of disappointment in yourself. You might find yourself going to great lengths to gain approval from others, or you might begin avoiding people altogether, convinced that you could never impress them. Many people with ADHD end up with dreadfully low self-esteem, despite whatever other actions their rejection sensitivity has caused them to feel.

RSD has an internalized response and an externalized one. Most of the time, it is only the feeling that you have disappointed someone, or that your efforts have been mercilessly criticized and rejected. It doesn’t take much to trigger feelings of shame, sadness, and disappointment in yourself. The majority of rejection sensitivity happens deep within, and you might spend a lot of effort trying to mask these feelings, usually in an attempt to remain professional in the workplace.

On the other hand, you might externalize your sensitivity, lashing out and even raging at the source of your perceived criticism. One piece of emotional dysregulation is impulsivity. Even those who hate confrontation often find themselves externalizing their anguish even when they never intended to. The person you have confronted often meant no harm.

You are left feeling even more ashamed of yourself as you realize that you have escalated a harmless situation in the workplace. In this way, rejection sensitivity can be a serious impairment on your career, even when it is not something you can control or avoid.

Facing Rejection Sensitivity in the Workplace

It’s important not to minimize or underplay the struggle of rejection sensitivity. You might have suffered for years in ways that no one else could see, and that you couldn’t understand. Your issues were not hormonal, nor were they even strictly related to trauma; they were part of a disorder that you have to deal with.

One of the most liberating and affirming things to do is to realize that even when you feel you overreacted, it is normal behavior for someone with rejection sensitivity and ADHD. Here are some subtle ways that RSD manifests in the workplace:

Even gentle feedback hurts

Feedback in the workplace is inevitable, but this doesn’t stop it from feeling devastating. Even when you know that it was constructive, you can’t help but emotionally flinch or try to avoid it. As far as performance reviews and evaluations go, well, you would likely rather avoid those entirely.

People with RSD are often triggered by small things, such as a throwaway comment from a supervisor or a neutral reaction from a colleague. To an extent, you might be able to intellectualize what has been said and know in your head that it wasn’t intended to sound cruel. Even so, you can’t help emotions that are triggered.

Opportunities for workplace advancement are avoided

Even the most ambitious person with ADHD is sometimes hampered by their rejection sensitivity. To advance in your career, you must often take risks and prove your worth. When you have RSD, though, you are generally terrified of failing or disappointing people. This means that you stay in your corner, take no risks, and generally try to get on with what you’ve been doing, even if it’s unfulfilling.

You take on more than you can manage

On the other hand, you might feel so afraid of people in your workplace disapproving of you that you are overcommitted to work. With RSD, “No” can often feel like a dangerous word, and so you take on more than you can manage.

You go over and above your duties to gain respect, approval, and appreciation from others. To you, bosses entrusting you with more tasks feels like the opposite of rejection, even when they don’t verbalize their appreciation of you.

You tend to withdraw when overwhelmed

In a professional environment, it is relatively easy to emotionally shut down and focus on the task at hand, especially when feeling overwhelmed by confrontations, tension, and conflict. In meetings, you might not participate or even make eye contact.

When pushed to give your opinion on something, you might rather abstain than have to contribute. These are all symptoms of a central nervous system that is overwhelmed by emotion and trying to cope.

You experience impostor syndrome

What happens if you get that promotion or receive positive feedback from a boss? To your mind, critique often feels valid, but encouragement feels unwarranted. You might be achieving everything you’re supposed to, but you still feel undeserving of praise or promotion, even when you get it. Sometimes you might even be working twice as hard to make up for feeling like a failure.

Be kind and remind

It takes effort and practice to overcome some of the more debilitating aspects of rejection sensitivity. No one can help themselves alone, either. Your loved ones and work colleagues will need to have some idea of how rejection sensitivity affects you, and they need to pitch in and help.

They can do this by avoiding neutral language when giving feedback, being kind to you as you work. You need to be regularly reminded that they are there to support you. It might take some time to accept help, and their compliments might ring false, but you can make progress despite your struggles when you have help on your side.

Next Steps: Christian Counseling in Los Angeles

There are times when you want to express yourself, but it feels awkward doing so, even with friends or family. There is a solution, however. You could try speaking to a Christian counselor in Los Angeles who understands the unique struggles of ADHD. If you are ready to get started on a journey to face your RSD, call us today at LA Christian Counseling in California to schedule an appointment with a Christian counselor in Los Angeles.