Why Do I Feel So Hurt By Criticism?

Someone offers you feedback on something you are working on and you can feel the burning heat in your stomach, your muscles tighten, your jaw locks. Even though this person appears to be pleasant and offering their help you feel attacked and hurt. You try to not show it but your response is short and off, they notice and apologise for their comments and reassure you that it's great, but the damage is done. No matter how hard you try to shake it and see the positives, you are spiralling and now your thoughts have reached ultimate shame and paranoia. You swing from wanting to search for a new job, to emailing them to ask them if they really think your work is good, to convincing yourself everyone thinks you're out of your depth and is just waiting for you to slip up.

This is classic rejection sensitivity, a familiar feeling for highly sensitive people and those with difficulties with emotional regulation.

There are other contributing factors that can intensify rejection sensitivity such as our experience in life, if we grew up being criticised often and told we are wrong then future criticism can trigger old feelings of hurt and shame, this is especially the case for those with ADHD and Autistic people. It may also stem from fear of being abandoned, again this is a fairly innate human trait as we are dependant on our communities for survival and to be completely cut off would be extremely detrimental, however, this evolutionary need for acceptance can be hijacked by the perceived fear from an innocent comment - so it isn't accurate or helpful.

What is rejection sensitivity dysphoria?

In simple terms it is an intense emotional reaction to perceived rejection or criticism that feels like an overwhelming physical pain.

Although it is not something that can be diagnosed on its own, it is recognised as a unique set of traits that people with RSD all experience.

RSD is spontaneous, it comes on instantly and quickly with no warning signs, this makes it extremely difficult to control reactions as the emotions come like a forceful wind and blow you off your feet.

The reaction is often much larger than the actual trigger, in that the pain is caused by the fear of rejection rather than the actual event. It can be accompanied by feelings of shame, particularly as you are aware that your reaction is not appropriate for the situation which triggers more percieved rejection in itself.

The coping behaviour of many with RSD is that of avoidance, if there is no rejection there is no pain. This can look like fawning and people pleasing, perfectionism, avoiding tasks and situations that you might fail at or get wrong, holding yourself back in career opportunities for fear of others judgement or not getting the job, needing control over outcomes and excessive planning and preparation.

How much is perception of criticism over reality?

With RSD most of the pain comes from the perceived critisicm, this is because it is driven by fear, and fear is rarely accurate in its interpretation of facts. Fear always errs on the side of caution, it is far better to be wrong about that persons negative intentions and survive, than assume they are safe and get it wrong.

If you fear that someone will make fun of you preventing the embarrassment seems rational, however, it rarely gives us the outcome we hope for - safety. Simply avoiding uncomfortable feelings is not a useful strategy, it just moves the discomfort to something else instead like having to settle for a situation that isn't good.

In reality criticism is just opinion, it is neither good nor bad. If someone thinks your work could improve you still have autonomy, you can choose to agree and make the changes or choose to disagree and leave it as it is. It might be difficult to take criticism because in doing so you have to accept that there is possibility you made a mistake or got something wrong, and nobody likes to find that out. But, again then you have some control in how you respond, you can choose to see it as a learning opportunity and change something, or choose to ignore that information and carry on as you were.

How can you deal with criticism when it hurts so much?

There will be times in life where it is important to see our mistakes and learn from them, to prevent future problems. So learning how to deal with failure as our first attempt in learning is an invaluable life skill.

Rarely does someone point out a mistake in an attempt to hurt you, and only can it hurt you if you allow it to.

If you think back to times where you have messed up something and someone pointed it out, regardless of their intention, you needed to deal with the situation and make it right or learn from it.

So starting with your own measure of success is important, if you only see success in perfection you are setting yourself up to fail, or seriously limiting what you do in life. Instead if you can measure success in learning and improving, then you are already winning.

Along with this you are making it your own criteria for success not someone else's, therefore it is only you that gets to decide the outcome.

Seeing others feedback as useful in achieving these goals then removes the fear and shame that comes from negative feedback.

When something does trigger an intense reaction, labelling that fear for what it is 'that was the fear I wasn't clever enough' and then rather than dissecting the evidence to prove or disprove it use compassion, tell yourself 'I am proud that I tried to do it, that was something that was hard for me to do, it's okay that I wanted to do well so it does feel hard that it didn't go to plan, but I will try again anyway'

Diffusing the fear with kindness, love and compassion is a much more effective way than listening to the fear and letting it make all the decisions.

If you are looking for support with rejection sensitivity dysphoria get in touch, I help people understand themselves better, create better goals and measures of success, and learn how to manage big emotions so that they are in control of their lives.