The Life Of Bryony - Why Do I Think Everyone Hates Me? The Truth About Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria with Alex Partridge

Episode Date: March 2, 2026

If you’ve ever felt crippled by perfectionism, terrified of rejection, or spent your life trying to make everyone happy – even at your own expense – then this episode is for you. I’m joined by Alex Partridge, host of the ADHD Chatter podcast and author of the new book ‘Why Does Everyone Hate Me?’, to talk about Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD), a little-known but deeply felt condition that’s finally being recognised as a disability. Alex explains how RSD affects those with ADHD and neurodivergent minds, how the quest for perfectionism leads to exhaustion, and the emotional toll this takes on relationships, work, and self-esteem. We also dive into real-life stories, strategies for coping, and why understanding RSD is so important for anyone who feels ruled by fear of criticism or rejection. Whether you have ADHD or just want to understand your chattering mind better, this is a conversation that will make you feel less alone. BOOKS DISCUSSED IN THIS EPISODEAlex’s new book ‘Why Does Everyone Hate Me?’ is released on 24th March 2026 and is available to pre-order now.WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOUGot something to share? Message us on @lifeofbryonypod on Instagram.If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might need it – it really helps! Bryony xxCREDITS:Host: Bryony GordonGuest: Alex PartridgeProducer: Laura Elwood-CraigAssistant Producer: Tippi WillardStudio Manager: Sam ChisholmEditor: Luke ShelleyExec Producer: Jamie East  A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Now then, I have a question for you. Actually, I have a few questions for you. Do you spend an unhealthy amount of time worrying that you might have done something wrong? Are you terrified of rejection and criticism? And will you do anything, including things that are really quite bad for you to make other people happy? If so, then today's episode is for you. Alex Partridge is the host of the podcast, ADHD, Chatter. And he's just written a book, called Why Does Everyone Hate Me? It's all about a little known condition that's being talked about more and more and was even recently recognized as a disability by a court judge in the UK.

And that's rejection sensitivity dysphoria or RSD, as we refer to it. So if you feel crippled by perfectionism and people pleasing, well, hello, you're my tribe. And I've made this episode just for you. People with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, they're like swans often. They're capable of doing amazing things. And people see the beautiful, the graceful, the stunning swan on the lake, but they don't see their legs frantically flapping underneath the water. They don't see the getting home from work, the door closing,

then falling to the floor and bursting into tears. My chat with Alex Partridge coming up right after this. Alex Partridge, why does everyone hate me? or perhaps I should put it this way, why do I think everyone hates me? Gosh, what a first question. It's a common worry. Many people with ADHD, in fact, pretty much every person with ADHD I've spoken to, has this paranoia that everyone hates them.

In fact, their brain will convince them that everyone hates them 100 times a day and that everyone thinks they're a piece of trash for no other reason other than vibes. of that just the vibes aren't right yeah you know it's so obscure to so many people who don't understand rejection sensitivity dysphoria but if you live with it you truly believe this to be true you can pick up on the tiniest shift in someone's tone of voice that maybe the footstep is slightly heavier they've come home and the door has slammed a decibel louder than it normally does and you zoom in on that tiny change and you personalise it. You think it's about you.

You think that you've let them down, that they hate you, that they're annoyed with you, that they're mad at you. And you need to seek reassurance. It's exhausting. So I want to explain the genesis of this podcast, because this particular episode, because I should be clear here and say, I don't have a diagnosis of ADHD.

But I would describe myself as neurodivergent. I don't feel I need to go out and get a diagnosis of ADHD because for me, I guess, personally, I'm very lucky in that as someone who talks a lot about mental health. I have a lot of resources around me. So I understand the madness of my brain, you know. And but I read recently about a, it was a story in the newspaper about a guy who had been awarded compensation, I think, by a judge. because he worked for a big supermarket chain and he had ADHD. And the judge found that because of this thing called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, he had been unfairly treated and dismissed and kind of ruled it as a disability, which essentially means that people with ADHD will be able to describe this aspect of it,

RSD, as a disability. Now, I, all the time people say to me, Alex, have you got, I think you're ADHD, Bradley, I think you're ADHD. And I'm like, thank you for that diagnosis. And when I look at the symptoms, and I have many friends with ADHD, right? So this isn't, like no judgment there or anything. When I look at the symptoms of ADHD, some of them chime, some of them don't, you know. But the one that absolutely does is rejection sensitivity, dysphoria.

So I wrote a column about how I really feel this, this constant hypervigilance to make sure no one's upset with me, that I'm not disappointing someone, this constant fear that maybe I've done something wrong. So you've written this book called Why Does Everyone Hate Me? And it is all about rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria. And I really wanted to have this conversation because when I wrote the column, so many people got in touch with me and they were like, oh, I didn't know that this was a thing.

I just thought it was me being faulty, you know, too sensitive, taking things too personally, all of these descriptions that people hear throughout their lives, and especially people with ADHD here. And as you explained in the book, it's because children who have ADHD, something like, was it, 20,000? 20,000 extra little criticisms

in their early years, from birth to 16 years old, little micro corrections that neurotypical children just aren't exposed to. Little comments like, why are you so sensitive? Why are you so lazy? Stop fidgeting. Why can't you be normal? Stop doing that. All of these little comments that might not sound too damaging in their isolated form, but you compound them over a childhood and they add up. You know, they compound to create an adult that A is so fearful of criticism and rejection because of the extreme emotional pain that it causes when they encounter it. But also they see it when it's not there. You're so primed to anticipating rejection and criticism.

You pick up on it in the absence of it. It's a tragic story. And I share this with absolute permission. And the name has been changed. But we can go into this later. But I go to Alcoholics Anonymous. I think you do too. I do too.

And a lady shared this in one of the meetings. And she said that she's been so. for six years. And a couple of Fridays ago, she was clocking off for work. It was about 5pm in the office on a Friday. And she got an email from her boss and it said, have a lovely weekend. Can we speak Monday morning? And that's all it said. Just even even you saying that fills me with a sort of sense of absolute dread. Oh, it's terrifying. Sort of receiving that email. It was instant visceral sadness and shame. And she explained how the ruminating

started instantly. It was they found me out. What have I done wrong? They're all mad at me. I'm going to get fired. And she went straight home via a petrol station and bought a bottle of two bottles of wine. And she said in that moment, her sobriety, it was such an intense physiological, emotional response to that comment, that email, that her sobriety went out the window and she relapsed after six years. And the sad thing is, she went into the meeting, shaking on the Monday morning with her boss and he said it's good news you've got a promotion wow so actually her brain told her something that was at bed absolutely no resemblance to reality but that is that is typical of rSD yeah i mean terrible boss by the way we should always you know can we talk later i think is hurtful for anyone

but with rSD you can really catastrophize and the downward spiral can be catastrophically fast there's loads of anecdotes to explain rSD the tragic fact is it's the most brutal part of the ADHD experience. And it's why I would always push back on when people say ADHD is a superpower, because yes, there are many strengths that come with being different and thinking differently, out-of-the-box, creativity, hyper-focus, being great in a crisis, resilience, all of these brilliant things that make someone with ADHD a tremendous asset to society and the workplace. But bloody hell, RSD brings the House of Cards down every time if you don't understand it.

So I just want to say to anyone listening or watching, right, that regardless of whether you have a diagnosis of ADHD or not, I think this is an incredibly useful conversation for anyone who finds that their lives are ruled by a fear of rejection, a fear of criticism, a fear of upsetting people, right? So, you know, so I will say that it's not in the DSM, it's not officially recognised as a symptom of ADHD. But I think this is an important conversation to have because for a proportion of society and that proportion that would consider themselves neurodivergent, for a proportion of people who have a history of mental health issues, mental illness, right, whether that's caused by the fact that they were undiagnosed ADHD or by childhood trauma or whatever, right? there are a large group of people who find that their lives are adversely affected by this fear of rejection, rejection sensitivity, just four as we're going to call it, right? And so I want to talk about that. And I want you to kind of put any sort of judgments or whatever you have out of your mind. Because I think this is an important conversation that we're having. And there's a reason we're having it more.

and that's because people are able to talk about it more. I wanted to just start by saying, Alex, explain to us, explain to anyone a skeptic at home who's going, but surely everyone doesn't like criticism. In what way is RSD different? So standard sensitivity to rejection is very human. It's a very universal trait. If we go back to when we lived in tribes,

it would be almost fatal if we were kicked out of the tribe. So if we sense we're being, excluded or some kind of social approval is being taken away from us. It can be extremely painful because it's a fight or flight response. But now we have supermarkets, we live independently, we don't need the tribe, so it's not fatal if we get excluded from a group. What separates that reaction to real or perceived criticism is the extremeness of it and the intensity and how long it can last. And that goes back to people with neurodivergent conditions and it's ADHD and autism and dyspraxia and discalculia and OCD and many others. It's that extra exposure to criticisms

in your early years, which makes the difference. It's the traumatic experience of the compounding effects of all of those. If you scan the brain of someone with ADHD, it looks almost identical to that with of someone who has PTSD. Really? Because of all of these 20,000 extra negative comments and had a brilliant neuroscientist, Dr. Samantha Hugh, on the podcast, who showed me these diagrams. And it's tragic. And often you don't realize that you're spending your whole life tiptoeing around this fear,

because it's so painful. So it's kind of like a trigger to your nervous system. So it's almost, it's something that as a child you may have done to protect yourself, but as an adult obviously is actually causing you quite a lot of pain. So it's a kind of, it's a trauma response essentially. Huge, yeah. And I think ADHD people are the world's best problem solvers because we learned from a really young age in response to these extra criticisms,

the solution was, well, let's hide who I am. The world doesn't like difference is what we are told. We're exposed to so many, stop being lazy, you're too sensitive, why are you doing it that way? It's not that loud in here. Why are you so noisy that we learn to change our personality? People with ADHD are the world's best actors. We are incredible at playing this character called Normal.

We're chameleons. If there was a BAFTA or an Academy Award for playing this character, we would be on stage accepting that award all the time. And the perfection we put into this ability to mask, we hold a lot of pride in it. And when someone sees through it, when there's a little comment that that perceives us as less than perfect, it's so painful. Because it's reaffirming that horrible internal critic, that horrible internal monologue that so many people with ADHD have.

It's sad, heartbreaking. So many people with ADHD underneath the mask truly believe that they're useless. Yeah. And broken, hence the mask. And when they get a comment from the outside world, your boss makes a tiny correction to your piece of work, or you find out there's a Christmas party, and the person organising it says, oh yes, you can come if you want or if you like.

And it validates that internal critic. So that if you want, if you like, will send someone into a sort of spiral. Yeah, in the absence of being explicitly invited to that Christmas party, you pick up on that and you assume that your presence at that party is going to be a nuisance to everyone there and that they will hate you. So let's, can we just go into some of the symptoms of this condition? So it's seeing rejection when it isn't even there. So as the girl that you spoke about earlier, who, so it's sort of, it's an extreme hypervigilance, right?

So I always describe it. The way I feel is sometimes that I'm sort of a mere cat scanning the horizon for danger. And when I was reading your book, I was like, this is exact, this kind of all sort of tracks. So over-apologising, sorry, sorry, sorry for, existing. That's part of it. This one really landed, which is quickly accepting blame even when undeserved. I think everything is my fault. It's so common. It's because standing up for yourself is extremely combative. I mean, a lot of people can do it, but the person with rejection

sensitivity, dysphoria, it's terrifying. Confrontation is terrifying because, again, it's putting you in that arena where the chances of getting a little comment, a little pushback, criticism, rejection is going to be high. And you're doing everything that you can, probably subconsciously, if you don't know about rejection sensitivity dysphoria, to avoid that pain. It's completely debilitating. So you will just say sorry, even when it's not your fault, which is really heartbreaking in relationships. It leaves a lot of people with rejection sensitivity dysphoria vulnerable to abuse. You will stay in bad situations for you because you don't want to offend the person. that's being toxic towards you.

You know, we talk about rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, is just this extreme emotional pain when you perceive a criticism. Someone responds with a thumbs up to a text, and it's instantly emotionally painful. But it's so much more than that. It's not being able to stand up for yourself. It's over-apologizing.

It's saying, yes, it's putting yourself in really vulnerable situations that you don't want to be in, just because you don't want to say, I don't want to get a taxi back to yours tonight. Okay, so yeah, so this goes back to, I mean, you mentioned that in the book about that saying, yeah, saying yes to a romantic partner when you actually, you mean no, you don't, you don't, you're too scared to say no. Do you know what I mean? And I didn't want to be seen as a tease or something.

It's awful. Like, I can't even believe I'm saying that. It is heartbreaking. The inability to say no that comes with rejection sensitivity dysphoria nearly killed me. 15 years ago I started a business and it grew to a scale where I needed help and I needed to bring in people to help me and I put out an advert to go into business with these two people and I met them. We were all going to go into business together and they presented me with an agreement to sign. And I remember that day my intuition was screaming at me telling me these two guys are not on your side. I could pick up on their slimyness.

you know, the slight changes in tone of voice, that little micro facial expression that I think so many people missed, I could tell they weren't honest. But I didn't say no and I signed a bit of paper and shortly afterwards I'd been kicked out of the business and it triggered a five-year court case. So because it was too, it was easier to just go along with these people that you could already perceive to be slimy and sleazy and dishonest than it was to say no to them. Absolutely. I mean, look, my first memory of feeling different was when I was seven.

in the classroom said you could be one of the cool kids, Alex, if you weren't so weird. I've always had this hyperactive, hyperactive mind. It's like 10 highly caffeinated squirrels running around in there. Each one pulling me in a different direction. And that has enabled me to be creative and see things that other people don't. But when they've got nowhere to go, it can create a huge amount of anxiety. ADHD and anxiety, the overlap is huge. I had my first panic attack in a classroom when I was eight.

I was happily sat there, daydreaming, minding my own business. and the teacher pointed at me and said, Alex, do you know the answer to this question? All of the kids turned and looked, and I felt my heart rate go up. I ran out of the classroom, found someone in the corridor, and I said, please call an ambulance,

I'm having a heart attack. And the paramedic reassured me that I wasn't. I was having my first anxiety attack. And when I went to see the solicitor after I got kicked out of that business, he said, they're not allowed to have done this, but if you want to fight this, this is going to be one or lost in a courtroom.

And you're going to have to give evidence in front of a busy courtroom. and my mind flashed forward to the image of me in the witness box. And of course it flashed back to that memory of me in the classroom. And I stood up from my solicitor's office, ran out and went to buy a bottle of vodka. And I can only tell you what the nurse told me when I woke up in hospital the following morning, which was that two members of the public had found me in an alleyway, still clutching the bottle, apparently.

And I tried to stagger away, tripped, hit my head on a wall, and they called an ambulance. And as the nurse was telling me this in the hospital ward, huge shame, huge embarrassment. And I, in that naive state, knew that while I need more alcohol, to soothe this feeling. And I knew there was a shop near the hospital. So I jumped up from the hospital bed, ran out of the ward. Security had been called. And before I knew it, I was in the back of a police car. And I looked out and I could see my parents.

And I remember making eye contact with my mum and just seeing this look of fear and desperation in their eyes. But if you fast forward a month, the trial happened in London, and I was cross-examined for six days. The judge was very accommodating. He let me take regular breaks. He let me notify him when the anxiety was getting too much. But I got through it. And if you fast forward a month, my telephone went, and it was my solicitor. And he said, are you on your own?

And I said, yes. And he said, you've won everything. You've won the company back. And I remember just falling to my knees and bursting into tears because it was a five-year legal battle, but it was a huge mental health battle for me that nearly cost me my life through alcoholism. And I really reflected, hence why I'm so passionate about rejection sensitivity dysphoria,

why I signed that bit of paper that triggered this court case that nearly killed me. And it was because I didn't know how to say no. I was so terrified, even in the face of intuition screaming at me, telling me this is not a good situation for you, run. You didn't want to let them down? We see it all the time in relationships.

People can see that it's not a good thing to be in, but they don't have the confidence to listen to it. And they get into that relationship. They become friends with that person who's not a good fit. Yeah. And it's heartbreaking. And they stay in it because they don't know the exit plan because getting out of something is combative, which is terrifying for someone with rejection sensitivity dysphoria. Yeah.

You know, I was listening to you and I was thinking it's almost like a physical reaction you describe RSD as, a sort of an overwhelm that leaves you incapable of focusing on anything else. So a normal, quite a normal, and when I say a normal person, it's like, what is normal? But a neurotypical person would, if they sense rejection or they sense criticism, or they sense that they are going to have to tell someone something that they're not going to like, They might feel uncomfortable doing that, but they will still go through the experience, right? Whereas someone with this kind of rejection-sensitivity dysphoria will agonise over it, they won't be able to focus on anything else for a period of time.

Is that how you'd sort of describe it? Oh, absolutely, yeah. It's the intensity and how often it happens and the frequency of how long it lasts when it does happen. I mean, no one likes being criticised or rejected. That's a very human thing. But when someone with rejection sensitivity, dysphoria experiences it, it's all-consuming, completely overwhelming, instantly fill up with sadness, perhaps rage, underspoken about. But I think it's so important to talk about the rage element of it sometimes. You can rage, quit a job or say you want a divorce or storm out of your relationship when you're in that moment of heightened sensitivity.

And then you come down from it and you sort of come back with your tail between your legs and say, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean that. but some of the decisions you can make when you're in those states can be really shame and anxiety-inducing afterwards. It's the picking up of the smallest things and ignoring all the positives. I interviewed a brilliant guy called Dr. Ned Hallowell, and he was a Harvard-educated psychiatrist, and he did a talk at Harvard and standing ovation, a thousand people in the auditorium. And he was in the taxi back to the hotel with his wife afterwards, and he was crying. And his wife said, Ned, why are you crying? And Ned said, I was awful.

I was terrible. That went absolutely awfully. And his wife said, what do you mean? Everyone was giving you a standing ovation. And he said, no, there was one lady at the back, not standing up. And she was scowling. I'm terrible. And that's the reality.

Ned. Ned is so relatable to me. I totally get that. The negativity bias. and that thing of you're hypersensitive to criticism and yet very suspicious of praise. So if people give you praise, you're like, well, this is a fluke. Or they're sort of being nice to me. They don't actually mean it.

That's, again, that's incredibly relatable, the amount of times I've done like talks or I, you know, I'll put a post on Instagram and there'll be like 100 lovely comments and there'll be one comment going, God, you're a tedious windbag. And I'm like, everyone hates me. That's very relatable. The thing is with rejection-sensitivity dysphoria, there are lots of anecdotes that can create relatability.

The sad fact is it controls people's lives without them realizing. We've spoken about the people-pleasing element of it a little bit. But sadly, it turns people into absolute perfectionists. You think to yourself, I can't possibly be criticized or rejected if the piece of work is absolutely perfect. And in reality, that looks like staying in the office six hours later than everyone else. Or working throughout the night just because you've got a meeting the following morning and you're so terrified of handing in this work at a subpar level

and raising the even potential of being criticized. people don't see the silent struggle. People with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, it's a well-trodden analogy, but they're like swans often. They're capable of doing amazing things. People see the high-achieving element of it because they do overwork. And a lot of the work they do is to a high standard

because of perfectionism. And people see the beautiful, the graceful, the stunning swan on the lake, but they don't see their legs frantically flapping underneath the water just to stay off. They don't see the getting home from work the door closing, then falling to the floor and bursting into tears, or having the row with their partner because they are so exhausted from putting on this

camouflage of perfection. That when they get home, it all comes out. But also it's that thing. You talk about people with RSD being very high achieving and creating work to a high standard. But then there's also this flip side of not starting things for fear that they won't be perfect. because if there's not the instant guarantee that, you know, this is going to do well, then I'm not going to do it, you know. So it's that almost inability to understand that sometimes things require a lot of hard work and you're not instantly going to get praise. So it's the sort of like it's a, I think in my life I've had these moments where I'm like,

am I addicted to validation? Am I addicted to validation? And actually what I realized, what I've realized reading about rejection sensitivity dysphoria, but also just looking into trauma responses and reading your book as well, is that actually it's more a sort of absence of self-belief, you know, an absence of self-esteem.

And, you know, in the absence of that, there are times when I'm not feeling good about myself where it's like, I guess it's just looking to outside people to tell me what I don't believe myself. Does that make sense? Totally. There is an opposite of rejection sensitivity to sporia and that is a euphoric response to praise. When someone does praise you, when someone says that's a good job, then you can fill up and it's the best feeling in the world. You get flooded with dopamine. Yes. But the euphoric response to praise, again, it perpetuates this vulnerability. Because if you are in a toxic relationship, going back to that example, A, you can't leave or you really struggle to leave because that's combative and you don't want to say no and you don't want to say I'm leaving you. But then often that person understands that when they praise you and when they say, I love you or you're amazing, you get filled with this dopamine and that sort of pulls you in to stay.

So the push and pull of this rejection sensitivity dysphoria not allowing you to leave, but then the partner may be taking a lot. advantage of your euphoric response to praise and constantly using that as a tactic to pull you in can make the person with rejection sensitivity tophoria extremely vulnerable to not escaping toxic relationships. Have you experienced that yourself or have you met, presumably you've spoken to lots of people that have? Literally hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of people who they know that they are in a bad situation. I mean, it's relationships, it's jobs sometimes, it's friendships, and they know that they should leave. Many of their friends are telling them they should leave, but the thought of sitting down and having that conversation is impossible. So they stick in it and the cycle continues. And

in the most extreme cases, you see physical abuse involved as well. Even in the case of that, they still can't override that ability to have that fear. They can't override that fear of having that conversation and they stay in that relationship. Okay. So the other symptom, which I think is really interesting is this sort of like all or nothing. Either someone loves you or they hate you, but there's no, there's no room for any sort of, that they're just not actually thinking about you. There's no, there's no room for anything in the middle. Yeah, you know, I think if you are an extreme person, you're all or nothing, you're going to start that business, you're going to stay up all night, buy the domain, design the logo, or you're just not going to bother. You're going to clean

your whole flat to a professional standard or you're not going to bother. You're going to carry on picking your clothes up from the floor drove and carry on. And it's the same with rejection sensitivity dysphoria. There's no middle ground. There's no ambiguous nuance of what did they mean by that. It's either they love me or they effing hate me.

And it's brutal. You know, you could be watching your favourite film and you really attach your worth to this film and you say to your best friend, can I show you this film tonight? And they get up to use the toilet halfway through the film. And you say, oh, shall

I pause the film for you? And they say, no, don't worry. And you take that as an instant attack to your worth, because you've aligned your worth to this film. And them saying, don't pause it, shows in your mind that they're not interested in the film and therefore not interested in you. That's the madness of rejection sensitivity, dysphoria sometimes. It takes very normal, mundane situations and translates them into everyone hates you, you're under attack, you need to go into fight or flight mode now, or you need to escape, escape the situation, you need to leave that relationship because you've sensed that there is an incoming threat. Okay. So it is essentially a sort of nervous system response that is programmed into us as children. Yeah, and the thing is,

because when you are triggered, when you perceive a threat, when someone replies to an email with regards rather than kind regards, I mean, that's the ridiculousness of it. You see that, and you can get triggered and you think that that person's mad at you who sent the email, but you're not responding to the fact that they haven't put the word kind before regards. The fact that they haven't done that has snapped your nervous system back to those 20,000 horrible messages, those why are you so sensitive, why can't you just, what's wrong with you, you're so lazy. And that's what you're reacting to.

So the risk is if you respond in the moment, you're probably not being provoked. proportionate to the comment, the thing that has triggered you in the moment. So let's talk about strategies because I have to say that reading about this thing, reading that I was not alone, that there are other people who have this sort of overwhelming, unignorable spiral sense of rejection. That in itself, Alex, I found really helpful. I found really helpful. It enabled me to step back.

from it a moment and go, oh, this is part of me, but this is not all of me. And I can actually sort of take some space from it. And I wanted to sort of talk about strategies, really, because obviously, and I'd like to get into this, for you and I, often the strategy for dealing with rejection or these overwhelming feelings of rejection has been alcohol. So you're sober. Yes, I'm sober. And looking back, my triggers to rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria were often the reason why I would reach for the bottle. The feelings were so intense, the sadness, the rage, the shame. And the only thing that instantly turned the volume down on those intense feelings was alcohol.

So sort of RSD, I suppose, is something I would say that is experienced by a lot of alcoholics, this intense sensitivity to emotions and this intense. feeling that they're wrong, you know, and everyone hates them. It's sort of paranoia is something I hear a lot from other people in sobriety. So I guess the question is, is how do we deal with this without alcohol? Because for me, for you to drink, well, I can't speak for you, Alex, but for me to drink would be to die, right? You know, we could be triggered quite often, but we need to take, you know,

it's not our fault that we have this response. It's not rejection sensitivity dysphoria is nobody's fault. But it is our responsibility to deal with it, right? So I wondered if you could share with us a few strategies. It's such an important part of the conversation and really three strategies. The first one would be to never worry alone, perhaps the most important strategy, is to recognise that you're not the only person who is experiencing this horrible thing called rejection sensitivity dysphoria. find community, podcasts, books.

The most important thing is realizing that you're not alone because so many people with rejection sensitivity dysphoria have been told, even by doctors sometimes, which is the heartbreaking thing, that they are just too sensitive. And they need to stop taking things personally. And in some cases that they're crazy. Many people do think that they are the only person living with this.

So the first bit of advice is realize that you're not the only person who experiences these huge highs and these huge lows. The second thing is when to know when to remove yourself from the situation. I think so often when you are triggered in the workplace, in your relationship, the intense emotional pain is so extreme, that sadness, that rage, and the impulse can be to respond in the moment. Right, which can cause more shame. Yes, because your nervous system has been snapped back to those 20,000 comments.

So you're not responding to what that person has said today, and therefore you're probably not going to say something that's proportionate to what they have said today. So essentially often you are, I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it, that often we are reacting, not to the comment that's been made, but to the cumulative effect of all the comments we've had in our lives. Absolutely. That inner child that has been cut 20,000 times is hiding underneath your mask. And when someone criticizes you, they come to the surface. and they scream, they get really sad or they get really angry. And that can be absolutely explosive

sometimes in the workplace. Have you had that experience yourself? How is you, how is, because you do write, you write in your book about how RSD has affected you at work. And I wondered if you would be happy to go into some of the ways that you have found yourself reacting as opposed to responding, I suppose. So in my relationship, because I haven't had too much experience in the workplace, being an entrepreneur, but in my relationship, I pride myself on being good at two things. One is social media. I've done my career on social media. And the second one is making pancakes. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love making pancakes. I made them all the time when I was a kid. And in my relationship, I was really excited to make pancakes for my partner. I went to the supermarket,

bought the eggs, the milk and the flour, and I was really mixing them all together, euphoric for a fun evening ahead. And as I was mixing then, my partner said, you've put the ingredients in the wrong order. And that comment, in an instant,

transformed and flipped my euphoria into absolute sadness. And I burst into tears in the kitchen, as she said that, because in that moment, the one thing that I, put so much of my pride and self-worth into had been criticised. And it completely derailed the evening. This was before I knew about rejection sensitivity, dysphoria. And I took myself off into the

other room. And it was totally humiliating as like a 34-year-old man to have that. But you weren't a 34-year-old man in that moment. You were eight-year-old Alex. Exactly. That was what was being, that was who was responding there, right? And it's so nuanced because when you don't understand these extreme emotional swings caused by tiny comments, especially as a man. The shame that comes with that. I'm 34. I shouldn't be having these huge emotional outbursts in front of my partner. Of course, that should be encouraged, but there is a lot of internal societal pressure that says that shouldn't. How healing for you, Alex, has it been to do your podcast, ADHD chatter and to write your books and to become a sort of, I guess, figurehead for this community, a male,

figurehead for this community? Like how healing has that been for little Alex? Oh, it's been phenomenal. Each episode is like a therapy session, which is absolutely fantastic. I learned something more about ADHD and myself with each conversation. I wish I could go back in time and put my arms around the little version of me in that corridor, having that anxiety attack and say, you're not broken, you're just different. You are enough. But of course, I don't have a time machine. But what I can do, is talk about ADHD as much as possible in the hope that a little version of me does hear it and starts their journey of self-awareness sooner than many of us did. What was really heartbreaking is that when I got my diagnosis,

I put a post on LinkedIn and I said, I have ADHD, and I had so many DMs from people saying how brave I must be to talk about it. And that was really tragic because the presumption of bravery is proof that stigma, still exists. But couldn't you see it? So this is interesting because I would say that those were that those are people wanting to be kind to you. Do you know what I mean?

And yes, it is proof that stigma exists and we wish that it wasn't brave to talk about those things. But those were in their ways compliments. Oh, absolutely. The intentions were good. But the fact that they thought that you have to be brave to talk about a topic shows that, there is significant stigma still in place. And it's stigma that stops so many people in the

workplace, in relationships, in your private life from asking for help. Do you sometimes feel, and I wonder, I'm interested in this because I was thinking about this the other day. You know, it's like it's a healing, it's a healing thing because in speaking to others and helping them, we kind of help ourselves and we find our tribe, right? Would you say that's also the case for you that talking about RSD, talking about ADHD, is this sort of way of speaking to little Alex. Absolutely. And this is really important. There comes a point in every neurodivergent child's life when they have a moment when they realise they're different. Sometimes it can be like one significant moment. For me, it was that comment. Like Alex, you could be one of the cool kids if you weren't so weird.

And there were many others. Sometimes it's one big event. Sometimes it's often lots of compounding little events. But from that moment on, you abandon your inner child. They get left behind and you put on these layers of masking. You conform to what society wants you to be in order to fit in and to feel misunderstood and keep the risk of being rejected at bay. And that feels really soothing in the moment because it can protect you from that devastating emotional pain of feeling othered, of feeling different, of being criticized. But the long-term consequences of abandoning your inner child, is that you turn into an adult who has absolutely no idea who they are. And it's impossible to make right decisions for who you are if you don't know who that is.

So a relationship will come your way, a new job will come your way, a new hobby. And because we have a lower level of dopamine, we'll impulsively jump into that thing a lot of the time. But we're quite often very quickly find out after the honeymoon period has passed that that new hobby isn't for us and that domain will end up. up in that graveyard of domains that so many of us have. That relationship, we'll leave it, that job, we'll leave it. And you'll feel like a failure. And the compounding effects of starting something and abandoning it, compound and hack away at your self-esteem. You genuinely feel like, why can't I just stick at something? And the reason often is because you don't know who you are. I feel like ADHD is not a deficit of attention despite what the name says.

A lack of self-awareness, do you say? Absolutely. When someone with ADHD finds something that truly connects with their inner child, with who they really are, they don't have a deficit, they have an abundance. When that happens and the stars are aligned, that's when that person with ADHD will go on to become the best in the world at that thing. ADHD is more a deficit of self-awareness because of so many years of abandoning who you are and pretending to be someone that you're not just to fit in.

Or self-knowledge. Self-knowledge, would you say, like, sort of understanding, yeah, who you are as a person because you spent so long putting on a mask and covering that person up. I mean, this conversation to me is about talking to people who feel alone and they feel other. And the way you start to go through that, I'm not saying this is like the moment that you're cured, but the moment you start on your road to recovery is by understanding that that's not true. The loneliness piece is huge and so interesting. I feel like the neurodivergent experience, ADHD or autism or the others, can be incredibly lonely.

I think with many people with ADHD, the mask is so thick and so expertly put on. And there's such a gap between the version of themselves they're putting out into the world and they're in a child, that they feel lonely in a crowded room because the version of themselves that's getting the attention, that's speaking to people, that's making connections isn't actually them. So they're crying inside, screaming out for attention, but they're so good at masking that their inner child doesn't get any. I feel like generally the ADHD experience can be incredibly lonely because we're in experts at masking.

And the part of us that desperately needs that social interaction is so hidden away. We're so ashamed of it that we layer it up with perfect versions of ourselves and it never gets any exposure to real human connection. So how does it feel? And I suspect I know the answer to this question, Alex, but I want to ask it anyway. How does it feel when you then hear people like the Health Secretary where streeting, talking about overdiagnosis of conditions such as ADHD? How does it feel to you as someone with ADHD to hear this stuff sort of weaponised and politicised?

To hear it is infuriating and devastating. It's easy to find a community. and, as you said, weaponise them in order to get clicks and to appease a certain part of the voter demographic that might not be believing in ADHD, which is ridiculous. But I think that was the motivation behind those headlines. You know, the fact is the World Health Organization puts ADHD, between 4 and a half to 5% of people would reach a diagnosis of the criteria, for one, if they went for an assessment. It's very real. We are seeing a huge spike in diagnoses now. and that's mainly because the net of how we classify ADHD has widened,

and loads of women who have been let down for so many years, who until 15, 16 years ago, were told that they couldn't have ADHD, that they were just anxious or lazy, or that there was no real explanation for those highly caffeinated squirrels in their head that caused so much overwhelm. Also, I suspect that the reason you're seeing a spike now is, is partly to make up for the lack of people being diagnosed in the past, right? You know?

Well, I say a huge generation, particularly women and girls, playing catch up. It's almost like a balance. I mean, as you say, until quite recently, ADHD was thought of as something that boys had. It's one of the biggest myths that I'd try to debunk. People in the community and many, many people know now that it obviously is men and women, but it's scary how many companies I go into, how many communities I walk into. and they still fundamentally believe that ADHD is just a boy thing and girls just don't have it. So it's one of the huge myths that ADHD is not just a boy condition.

So apart from the RSD, which I suppose one would argue is it's not a direct symptom of ADHD. It is a result of being seen as other and different, right? So in which case, as you say, it could be applied to anyone with neurodivert. And I guess that's perhaps why is someone with OCD, that's the result of the experience. What are, if anyone listening who is curious and thinks, and has been thinking for a while, maybe I have ADHD, what are the kind of key symptoms? And then what is the kind of root for a diagnosis? So if you had a doctor on today or a psychologist, they would say that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by traits of impulsivity, forgetfulness, and

disorganization. That's kind of the stereotype. And actually, that's still what the DSM-5 diagnoses people and assesses people on. And if you reach a high enough score on those, then you would be invited for an interview and perhaps get a diagnosis of ADHD. But I think as we progress our understanding of ADHD, and we recognize the emotional toll that it takes on people. It's the overwhelm really that that is that causes so much problems. A neurotypical brain, for example, will have a traffic light system outside of their head. If you can imagine you've got a traffic light system outside of your head. And there's so many thoughts circling around like, I need to reply to that email, I need to clean the flat, I need

to send that text message. And with a neurotypical, each thought will get to the traffic lights. And if it's a red light, one thought will go in. That thought will get processed. The tasks associated with that thought will get done and the thought will be processed. And then the next one will come in. Then ADHD person doesn't have those traffic lights. There's a hundred thoughts circling around. I need to reply to that email.

I need to pay that parking ticket. I'm going to miss my train. They're all flooding in at the same time. So a neurotypical person has the traffic light system. They know how to kind of order their. thoughts and how to prioritize them. Yeah. And the thing is, like, if you've got that highly caffeinated squirrels, that chaotic brain with all these thoughts coming in at the same time, you don't know where to start. And it can create a physical paralysis, an overwhelmed physical

paralysis that some days get so bad, you can't do anything other than lie on the sofa and scroll social media, because the dopamine you're getting from the social media is the only distracting you from how terrible you feel. And the optics, like, what does that look like? If you can't get off the sofa, you're stuck in ADHD paralysis, and then your partner says, why are you being lazy? That's the emotional toll that the paralysis, the overwhelm causes. And it just perpetuates that in a critic. It's really heartbreaking. You already know that you've got a million things to do. Like, you're not enjoying lying on the sofa. You're not sat there thinking, oh, this is great, I'm not doing anything, this is so relaxing.

Your mind is screaming at you saying like, why can't you just get up, you P-O-S? Yeah, yeah, that is quite relatable. Like overwhelm. Right. So what are the tactics, Alex, that you, because you, again, to me, seem like an incredibly, highly successful human being who's super organised. You know, you've shown up on time. You've, you've, you've, this is your second book, is it? Yeah, I've shown up on time.

but what you don't see is that I've been sat in a cafe around the corner for an hour because I'm so scared of being late and letting you down. Oh, no, Alex. Can we just talk through this because I'm really interested in this? So it is now 1129 in the morning, right, on a Monday. So talk me through your day so far. And I'm wondering if you are like a highly anxious person, did this start yesterday? Like how do you start to prepare for a day for a podcast interview?

you? Well, last night, I was screenshoting the email that had the address on. I was planning my route saying how long it takes to get from Victoria Station to here, nine minutes, so therefore I could back engineer it, see what train I had to get to be here an hour and a half early, just in case anything went wrong and eradicating any chance that I could be late. Not because I'm super efficient and don't want to not be productive, it's because the thought of being late is I can't even go there. So if you're late, then you're worried that we'll be crossed with you or something. If I was five minutes late, it's why I've let you down.

We were doing the interview and I'm, oh my God, I've wasted her time. I've messed up a whole day schedule. You're mad at me. No. And the whole interview I would be on edge thinking that our conversation wasn't authentic because secretly you're annoyed that I'm late. So the reality is, yes, I look like I'm super successful because I turned up on time. But the reality behind the scenes is, again, it's that flapping swan legs under the lake.

You don't see it. And if I have a Zoom meeting at 4pm with my publisher or a podcast guest to go over the questions, I am stuck in waiting mode. Oh my God, can I just ask you about this, waiting mode? Because this is, again, something that I've only just kind of read about. But if I have something at the end of the day, it's just like, or something in the evening. Don't do it. Schedule stuff at the start of the day.

We lose so much time in waiting mode. It's awful. And what is waiting mode about? You're just anxious. You're anxious. about the impending doom of that meeting. You can't focus. Is that all or nothing?

You've got one appointment. That's all you can focus on. And you're anxiously paralyzed in waiting mode until that point. So I can turn up to a meeting at 4pm, say with my publisher or a podcast guest. And in that meeting, I can be coherent. I can be engaged. I can be charismatic, whatever version of me I'm putting on. And that's all they see.

And they say, oh, Alex was good today. He's really professional. He made the meeting. In fact, he was five minutes early. Yeah. He's really successful. He's got the traits that you need. But again, what they don't see is I have been scrolling social media for the last six hours, glancing at the clock every five minutes to see how close I am to. And nothing else has got done. And I think it's so important to be so precious with your time as someone with ADHD. Because if you, the biggest lie we tell ourselves that we can do two things back to back and be okay afterwards. And as an entrepreneur, like I have to really dedicate evening time to decide. Like, and it's not always one thing. Sometimes it's two things, but like, what are the really key important things that I need to do tomorrow?

Like, what does not need to be done? Yeah. You need to be realistic with yourself. Yeah. And I put the three things. Say I do three tasks in a day. That might sound always not very efficient, but there are three really important tasks. And that's why I dedicate an evening to decide, like, what are three high priority tasks?

And I write down each task on a little rubber bracelet. And when I wake up, I put the three. bracelets on, because first that acts as a memory jog of the three high priority things I need to do that day. Now, I go through the day, if I complete one of the tasks, I take off the corresponding bracelet, off it comes, and I put it in a bowl. And if I fill up the bowl, if I go through all three tasks, then I reward myself. I buy myself something off my Amazon wish list, for example. Okay. Gameification, essentially. Yeah, you've gamified life. I mean, that's a memory strategy that has really helped me. But ultimately, it's more about, like, being so damn pressures with your

energy. Yeah. I think one of the biggest kind of, like, strategies that I circled in your book, I feel really lucky, by the way, to have read your book because it's not out until the end of March. You can pre-order everyone, okay? And also, Alex's Instagram is just full of incredible reels about RSD, if you need more information there. But one of the very helpful things I also find as a strategy is that thing of understanding that people aren't as hyper-focused on me as I am on them and their brains thinking about me. Yeah, it's brilliant advice. It helps to zoom out as often as you can. You know, last week I went to Starbucks, a coffee shop, and I got given my coffee, and the guy said, enjoy your coffee, and I said, you too. And why, and it's easy to go, oh, that was a stupid thing.

to say. Like, he's saying, enjoy my coffee. Why would I say, you too? And normally, I would ruminate on that all day. It could potentially derail my day. I'd be lying in bed later thinking he thinks I'm an idiot. And he definitely hates me. But zoom out. Like, you are, that interaction with him was a minuscule piece of his day. He's probably serving a thousand coffees that day. He probably thought it was quite nice, because what you meant from that was have a nice. You know, he's like, oh, that guy was nice. And meanwhile, you've spiraled thinking he hates you. Are you mad at me? You hear it time and time again, you know, and the person with rejection sensitivity dysphoria will constantly be seeking reassurance or they'll constantly

be thinking that their partner is mad at them for absolutely, really, there's no evidence to suggest it. It's hard for those of us with obsessive compulsive disorder because we are told, one of the big strategies that you were told by professionals is not to seek reassurance, right, is to get, you need to get used to the discomfort and accept that it's okay. Like, even if that person was mad at you, the world would not end kind of thing. And I guess that's true.

And I've discovered that, like, with my editor, for example, I'll be like, was that column okay? And she'll be like, oh, my God, Brian. I'm so sorry. It was amazing. But because it's always so good, I just don't feel I need to. You know, and it was that all I had to do,

because I'm like, I mustn't seek reassurance. That's a shameful thing to do. It's not a shameful thing, or it's something I shouldn't do. But actually sometimes that's simple. And I just was, I just was like, oh, okay, fine. And they got on with my day. And I think what I felt was that we could just all do with being a lot kinder to each other. Absolutely.

I mean, it really helps to, the thing is with RSD, rejection sensitivity, dysphoria. Like when you are triggered and you're in that emotional tsunami, it does help to have, have a reminder of your positives and your achievements at maybe in your pocket on a piece of paper written down. Maybe on your notes app. Maybe a trusted person you can call who can reassure you in that moment because, and reminding yourself, like this person, say your boss has made a tiny correction to a piece of work you've handed in and rejection sensitivity dysphoria will take that correction. Maybe your boss has said, oh, this paragraph is a bit too long and you've taken that to be an attack on your entire beard.

It is so important to remind yourself to say, right, they are criticising that, which is a tiny bit of the output I put into the world. It's not the whole of me. And to remind yourself, because rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, I will trick you and want you to believe that it is the whole of you that they now detest and hate and think is annoying. But remind yourself, like, it's one piece of work, it's one paragraph, it's one day of my life.

they don't hate me, it's just a very valid correction perhaps to that piece of work. Just separate what they're criticising from the whole of you can really help. Yeah, yeah. If they did hate you, they'd be absolutely mental. Do you know what I mean? Like that's the other thing is to get some perspective. Exactly. Typically, if someone does actually hate you, like there's evidence.

There's like a pattern of behaviour. They'll probably make it obvious some of the time. Yeah, but also I think, you know, again, it's about getting the older I get, the more comfortable I am with the idea of, of people not liking me. And that in itself is a massive thing. You know, I'm not a bad person. I'm just a human. And there are bits of me that are bad. There are bits of me that are good like everyone, you know, and that's okay. And the other thing that I have found really helpful is that it is okay if I do muck up and it is okay if I do upset someone, do you know what I mean? Like the world

will not end. And, you know, I can apologize and move on. And I think, that we do live in a world, sadly, right now, because of social media, that isn't very forgiving. You know, council culture. There's a lot of, you know, holding people to account, you know, for things. There's a lot of fault finding in people. And I just kind of want to say to people that actually, it's okay, you can make mistakes, like, because you are a human and it's not the end of the world. And I think that for me personally, for this person who experiences rejection sensitivity dysphoria, a social media can make it feel a lot worse than it actually is in reality, if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Oh, it does, totally. We all live in glass boxes now. And I think social media can be so toxic because it amplifies this horrible lens of comparison that we all see. we all see everyone's highlight real, right? Like the perfect holidays, the perfect engagements, the perfect new car, whatever it is. And we compare that to our behind the scenes. And sometimes that can actually validate that internal critic

that's saying, are we, I'm 37, I haven't got my life together yet, and everyone else seems to have it perfect. So it can be brutal. And I think rejection sensitivity dysphoria, tying into the alcoholism, certainly was often the trigger unknowingly for me reaching for the bottle. Did you find that when you were, drinking, the triggers that maybe came with rejection were a trigger?

I, you know, it's really interesting to think back because weirdly, when I was at the height of my alcoholism, I was incredibly successful, you know. So I think it, you know, but it, again, it enabled me to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be, you know? So for me, drinking was, yeah, it was just a way to kind of, I, you know, I. guess numb myself out to like to calm my version of the caffeinated squirrels, you know? And I think in a way, actually, alcohol, like alcohol just kind of numbed any rejection sensitivity, dysphoria or whatever you want to call it. Like, in a way, it, yeah, it stopped me from feeling anything other than,

I mean, obviously didn't stop me from feeling anything other than glittering because in the morning I would wake up and I would have done terrible things. But. But it distracted me from this inner turmoil, I guess, is what I would say. Can we agree then that because we're both swans. I feel like I should have brought a fancy dress out. I would have loved it if we've done this podcast in swan outfits. I just want to be clear to you so that you don't go all. way and worry that this has been a really fantastic, fascinating conversation that I think

there's so much, like, it's made me, it's kind of, it's one of those conversations that's made me want to look into having more conversations, you know, which is the sign of a good conversation. So I just wanted to thank you, Alex Partridge, for coming on Life of Briny and for all you do to make the ADHD community feel more heard. It's a great thing. Oh, thank you so much. And also back to you. You're a phenomenal podcast host. And, you know, I think it's so validating to me personally to speak to someone about it. And I'm sure to the listeners and viewers as well. So you're brilliant too. Oh, thanks. There is so much in this conversation that's going to sit with me for a very long time.

In fact, I feel like I need to make a few more podcast episodes to deal with it and process it. I'd love to know what resonated with you most. Come and tell me over on Instagram at Life of Briny Pod. Alex's new book, Why Does Everybody Hate Me, is out in March, but it's available to pre-order now. And he'll be back this Friday for a special bonus episode. In the meantime, don't forget to subscribe, follow, rate, and obviously rave about us to your friends. But most of all, keep being you. I'll see you next time.