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Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2024 has come around and gone now. But anyone who knows me knows my view on there being just one week to put focus on neurodivergent people and colleagues. The same can be said for Autism Acceptance Month this April. We don’t all of a sudden stop being neurodivergent, autistic or otherwise once the week or month is over. Our strengths and our needs are with us for life, and having those needs met by our friends, peers, colleagues and employers means we can thrive in life and work all year round.

I’ll talk about one of those needs in this article. It's something I’ve been experiencing as of late and it hit me like a truck!

I hope that by writing about this – something not uncommon with neurodivergent people – then our peers, colleagues and employers can be more accepting of our experiences.

What happened?

A few weeks ago, I picked up a shoulder injury during training for a new sport I’m getting involved in – I’ve since discovered it was a joint sprain, which isn’t fun at all!

I also had a momentary lapse in judgment and said something that I shouldn’t have and was pulled up on it, as anyone else would be. It was great that it happened straight away and the issue could be resolved there and then instead of lingering. We’re human, we make mistakes, and we learn from them. Simple.

Or is it just as simple as 'we make mistakes and we move on' for folks like us?

Well, I’m going to explore something called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and my own experiences of it.

What is RSD?

The simplest way to describe RSD is an intense emotional pain or distress linked to rejection or criticism, either actual or perceived, beyond what many other people may feel.

RSD isn’t uncommon for many autistic and ADHD people. And while it currently isn’t included as a presentation of ADHD or autism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), known as the diagnostic 'bible' for medical professionals to use when making diagnoses of any kind, there are many of us in the neurodivergent communities who have lived experiences of it.

RSD presents differently for everyone. How it presents for me is:

• hypervigilance;

• second-guessing everything I do;

• insecurity in my standing with my peers;

• intense sadness that I made the error in the first place;

• undeserving of any positive interactions;

• feeling stuck and having difficulty moving forward from the error; and

• an intense urgency that I must fix what I did wrong, otherwise I'll be unwelcome or in even more trouble.

After my error, I felt all of the above, which was hugely paralysing! 

There are theories as to where this can stem from: traumatic incidents that have left us with PTSD; unrealistic expectations from those who don't/won't understand us; bullying or abuse of another kind; unsafe learning environments at whatever age – the list goes on!

For many neurodivergent people, the world we live in can be incredibly hostile, uninclusive and unwelcoming. We can find that we put so much effort into 'fitting in' and trying to be accepted by society or the workplace. But what this means is that, for one, we’re masking – which is exhausting at the best of times – and, secondly, we’re not being true to ourselves but instead being someone who we believe someone else (like a manager) wants us to be so that we can be accepted. And being rejected or criticised after putting in so much effort, arguably more than our neurotypical peers and colleagues, can hit us hard, as you can see from my experiences above. 

Read more from Phil in this Blog post: 'How can you support your ADHD colleagues during the national medication shortage?'.

Ways in which we can move forward

We all have different ways of moving forward, depending on how RSD presents in us and to what extent. So, what I try to do is:

• take responsibility for my error and learn from it;
• accept that I feel bad for doing it and validate that it's a normal thing to feel after that kind of error;
• do what I need to do to look after myself (both for my shoulder and my mind and soul); and
• own the rejection sensitivity that I have, because without it I wouldn't be as empathetic to my own and other peoples' experiences, and I wouldn't know how I can look after myself or what others need from me to help them look after themselves.

How can our employer and peers help?

We can’t do it alone. So what can our employers and peers do to help us around this?

• Be constructive in your feedback and criticism of our work and identify what we can do to improve.
• Offer to work with us in improving our work or approach.
• Reassure us that constructive criticism isn't linked to our worth in any way.
• When you want a meeting with us, be clear about what you want to talk about. Or, better yet, provide us with an agenda or talking points so that we can be better prepared or bring things with us to contribute.
• Be patient if what we need to improve on is either difficult for us, or there's a lot we need to learn or take in.

Understanding it as a real thing can help us manage it, move forward safely and appropriately and, in some cases, even save lives.

As with anything, open communication is key. As you see, my mistake was pulled up immediately and it could be addressed there and then. It helps people like us to be clear on what mistake we’ve made so that we're fully aware of what has happened and we can work to rebuild that bridge.