RSD – When Sensitivity becomes Dysphoria

2026. Sep. 24.

The more I learn about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), the more I realise how easily it can be misunderstood, particularly in the workplace. From the outside, an RSD response can look like overreacting to criticism, taking things too personally, becoming defensive, losing motivation after a setback, or simply finding it difficult to cope with feedback. From the inside, however, something quite different may be happening.

RSD is often described in connection with rejection, but the reaction can be triggered by much more than actual rejection. Criticism, disapproval, disappointment, being misunderstood, feeling excluded, making a mistake, or even sensing that someone might be unhappy with you can be enough to activate a very strong emotional and physical response.

One of the particularly difficult situations can be criticism that feels unfaire. Imagine someone who has put a huge amount of effort into their work, solved problems, helped other people, organised things, taken responsibility and perhaps gone far beyond what was expected of them. If all of that goes unnoticed, but one small mistake is immediately highlighted, the feedback may not simply be received as information about that mistake. It can feel as though everything that was done well has suddenly disappeared and the mistake has become the definition of the person.

There may have been no intention to communicate this at all. The manager may simply be doing their job and pointing out something that needs correcting. But the RSD response does not necessarily follow the intention of the other person; it follows the meaning the nervous system attaches to the interaction.

This is also why telling someone to “not take it personally” can be much easier said than done. For some people, criticism remains information: This part needs improving. For someone experiencing an RSD response, the emotional interpretation can become much bigger: I have disappointed them. They think I am not good enough. I have failed. Everything I have done well doesn’t matter anymore.

And this can happen even when the person knows, rationally, that the criticism was not intended to mean any of those things. That contradiction is important. An RSD response does not necessarily mean that a person believes their emotional interpretation is objectively true. They may know perfectly well that their reaction is stronger than the situation appears to justify, while still being unable to stop the reaction from happening.

The body can react before the rational part of the brain has had time to put the situation into perspective.

This is particularly noticeable when communication becomes aggressive. Being shouted at, spoken to harshly or publicly criticised can make it extremely difficult for an RSD-sensitive person to continue thinking clearly. But interestingly, it does not always require shouting. Even a calm and well-intentioned correction can sometimes trigger the same underlying response if it touches the person’s expectation of being judged or rejected.

Afterwards, the person may replay the conversation repeatedly, analyse every word, think about what they should have said differently, and continue feeling the emotional impact long after the other person has forgotten the conversation.

RSD can also affect attention and motivation

Another part of this can be misunderstood as laziness, poor organisation or lack of discipline.

Many people with ADHD-related difficulties describe being able to focus intensely on something that feels interesting, meaningful or urgent, while finding it extremely difficult to maintain attention on tasks that feel repetitive, disconnected from a larger purpose or emotionally unrewarding.

For example, someone may be excellent at seeing the big picture, solving problems, organising people, generating ideas or finding creative ways to make other people’s lives easier, while struggling with administration, data entry, paperwork or repetitive processes.

This does not necessarily mean that they are incapable of doing those tasks. The difference may be in what the brain finds sufficiently engaging to maintain attention. A person might happily spend hours developing a new idea, taking a course, researching something they find fascinating or creating a solution to a problem, but find it surprisingly difficult to sit down and complete a spreadsheet that seems to have no meaningful connection to the bigger goal.

I recognise this pattern in myself, for example. I can become involved in several different courses, ideas and projects because I am genuinely interested in learning and creating, and because I naturally think in terms of possibilities and the bigger picture. At the same time, administrative tasks can become much harder to sustain when I cannot see their immediate meaning.

This becomes particularly challenging when the person is already under pressure. Imagine putting enormous energy into learning, developing skills, creating ideas and trying to build a business, while the outcome you need — such as enough paying clients — is still not happening. The difficulty is no longer simply, I don’t have enough clients yet.

For someone with strong RSD responses, the brain can quickly turn the situation into something much more personal: Maybe I am not good enough. Maybe nobody wants what I offer. Maybe I am doing everything wrong. Maybe all this effort is pointless. One disappointing result can become evidence for an entire negative story about the future.

This is where RSD can become particularly exhausting, because the person is not only dealing with the original problem. They are also dealing with the emotional meaning their brain has attached to it.

The same sensitivity can be both a strength and a difficulty

There is another important part of this conversation. The sensitivity that makes criticism painful can also be connected to qualities that are extremely valuable in the workplace.

A person who notices subtle changes in another person’s tone may also notice when a client is uncomfortable before anyone else does. Someone who thinks deeply about how their words will affect others may also be particularly thoughtful in communication. Someone who constantly anticipates what could go wrong may produce work that has already considered many possible problems.

The difficulty is that the same sensitivity can be directed towards threat. Instead of using that awareness to understand a client, solve a problem or anticipate a project’s needs, the person can end up using enormous amounts of mental energy analysing whether someone is disappointed in them. That energy is real, even when nobody else can see it. And this is why the workplace environment matters.

Clear communication, context, predictable feedback and recognition of what is working do not remove the need for accountability. They simply reduce unnecessary ambiguity and give people better information from which to interpret situations.

There is a significant difference between saying: “This needs to be corrected.” and communicating: “This part needs correcting, but overall I can see the work you’ve put into this, and here is what I would like you to change.” The information may be exactly the same, but the second message gives the brain more context.

For someone with RSD, that context can matter enormously. Perhaps the aim should not be to create workplaces where n body ever experiences criticism, disappointment or mistakes. That would be unrealistic. The aim could instead be to create environments where a mistake remains a mistake, feedback remains feedback, and neither automatically becomes a judgement about the person’s value.

Because when someone is already carrying a lifetime of experiences in which criticism has felt like evidence that something is wrong with them, a workplace can either reinforce that pattern or provide something different. And sometimes, what helps most is not telling someone to be less sensitive.

It is giving them enough clarity, fairness and balanced feedback that they do not have to spend half their energy trying to work out what the silence, the tone or the one criticism actually means.

Having experienced RSD myself, I also offer RSD-focused coaching with solution-focused hypnotherapy, helping people explore their triggers, understand their patterns and develop new ways of responding when criticism, rejection or overwhelm takes over.