Rejection Sensitivity & Time Off

Rejection sensitivity is striking again in my life, but this time it is in my personal life rather than work. Let me tell you, feeling severe rejection in the workplace can be traumatizing and exhausting, but it wasn't completely unexpected. (If you haven't seen it yet, I did a guest blog post on Rejection Sensitivity & the Search for Paid Work Experience on Voices of Academia in 2024). Despite overcoming that feeling in late 2023, it has come back in a less expected avenue recently.

As a quick reminder, rejection sensitivity is an extreme or emotional reaction to rejection by others and is often experienced by neurodivergent individuals. In the last 5 years, I have been getting rejected more and more through with whom and how I spend my time off. In an earlier blog post, I mentioned some evil cash-grab tactics that make me not want to do anything anymore, and I believe these two feelings have compounded to make me even more stressed, depressed, and confused about how to move forward in this world. Just as I began writing this today, I experienced another painful health flare up that confined me to bed in 8/10 pain for about 4 hours. I hope the pain does not return as I return to my laptop, but promises of pain-free life are no longer for my chronically ill self. Below, I want to reflect on some of these personal rejections in hopes of working out a solution for my emotional pain (and maybe bringing awareness of rejection sensitivity effects to those who are unaware).

a lone layover (2022)

Somewhere in Colorado

March 2022. Just me and you. I'm sorry I have PTSD. I'm sorry you expected more from me. I'm sorry I drank and you didn't. I'm sorry I got carsick. I'm sorry I'm afraid of heights. I'm sorry I was still learning how to manage IBS. I'm sorry most of all for thinking none of my personal issues would get in our way during a second trip together. I'm sorry I was wrong.

I don't know what the right thing to do was when I felt sick and you wanted to hike, but I don't think it was hiking and leaving me in your car for 2 hours. To ease the pain, I played some worship music and read digital books on my phone. I wonder if you actually enjoyed your solo hike. I wonder if you especially enjoyed your second solo hike when you abandoned me at Garden of the Gods. I headed back to the car lot early, feeling like you'd leave me there if you beat me to it. I beat you by an hour. I listened to a couple in a nearby truck play guitar and sing worship while I stood there shaking in the cold next to your car.

I would forgive you over and over for every moment you got angry with me on this trip and left me or ignored me. I wonder how many times you forgave me, if at all. I remember sitting in the airport waiting for my plane, wondering who had it worse during our trip. I decided to never spend more money on a trip than you; the last 2 times I did it, you left me feeling broken. When I got home, I tested positive for Strep, receiving the answer to my sickness. It wasn't my fault, was it?

A Birthday in Minneapolis

May 2022. I needed a reason to leave town, you need a ride to anywhere else. I drove us to the cities in my CR-V. I thought we'd do the touristy things together. I planned to take you to the country's largest mall, some Halal food, and a hike near some waterfalls. I just finished my first school year in the program and I thought we'd be fine together. I remember wanting to befriend you since the first week of training where you mentioned your love for art and we struggled using the university Macbooks.

I don't know what it is like to talk with your parents every day; I never really saw a need for such. Me and mine don't have that much in common. I don't judge any of my friends and roommates who had better relationships with theirs, including you. But somehow, I felt like nothing for those 3 days. I drove in silence while you called your mom during the whole 4-hour drive both ways. When we went to the mall, you searched for a port to charge your phone so you could videochat your mom while there. You woke up early at the Air B n B to call her too. I felt just a little lucky when signal was bad during our hike to the waterfall. We weren't on a trip together; I was a chauffeur for you while you showed your mom the world. I knew this was our last trip together, deep down.

I would never say anything in fears of ruining one of the only friends I thought I had. Not until today, as I type. Just a year or so later, others would see in you what I brushed off as a misunderstanding. I would hear strangers tell me stories about myself that weren't true... stories told to them by you. So I stopped inviting you to dinner on bad days and sending you conference call for papers that we could attend. I found new friends and dates who didn't tell co-workers lies about me. Who cares if you hate them? They had bad feelings about you first.

Our Last Thanksgiving

November 2021. I had a feeling you'd never understand me from one of our first walks together when you told me I would have children one day and be happy about it. I thought things were better when the others moved in; maybe I didn't need you to see me since they did sometimes. Still, I wanted to trust you, you who are the opposite of me... you who people like more than me.

I know you didn't mean for pranks and jokes to affect me in the ways they did. I know you're able to go with a flow more than me. It hurts more knowing if you didn't see me hurt, someone else had to point it out and it still never changed how I was treated. When you grow to dislike someone who everybody else likes, you feel more crazy than you already are. I told myself I wouldn't see you again. The last time I saw you, I think you lost a card game I desperately needed you to lose. Then I promised not to come back.

I did come back. I just never came back to see you. It's fine. Nobody comes to see me. I get that. At least now I know to cut people who cause me pain over and over and over again off after the third strike instead of the seventy-seventh.

Our Last Christmas

December 2022. Maybe since you'd be coming to me this time, things would work out. We made better roommates than travel partners anyway. Your mom dropped off a queen-sized blow up mattress after your dad caught Covid and you needed a place to stay. You didn't want to pay for a hotel, so you and your fiancee stayed with me, in my shitty one bedroom apartment that got demolished earlier this year.

Everywhere we went, I was left behind; the grocery store, the craft market, the snow, and the mall. I never did find out if you saying you'd sue me because you hit your head in my apartment was a real threat or a joke. The conversation never continued. I dropped you off at your parents' house and never saw you again. You called me when I burned my leg and my car was stuck in the ice and I never heard from you again.

All I wanted was a sorry. All you sent me were meaningless photos in the desert two months later without words. Sometimes, you learn to not apologize first and they leave your life. Sometimes, your friends around you applaud you for cutting ties with toxic people. You probably think you ended things on your terms. No honey. I ended things on mine.

My Second Wedding in One Year

October 2024. I felt the need to go, so I went. The flight was rocky both ways. My stomach upset consistently. Do you ever get somewhere and feel like your family only wants you there so they can say the whole family is together? I feel like that a lot. I felt like that all weekend.

I keep telling myself I won't regret showing up for once in a lifetime shit, but I'm not sure if that's what will happen here. It's not yours or hers or their fault. It's nobody's really. Just mine. I still need to learn when the cost of attending a once in a lifetime thing is too high and I am not needed as much as appreciated.

A Night In

January 2025. Strike two of feeling like I'm only wanted because they can say the whole family is together in just a couple months. And God, it's the worst. You sit in the awkward in-between, not quite young and not quite old. Even if you wanted me there, I don't think the others did. None of that is your fault.

Maybe that's why I didn't stop drinking. Thank God I saw someone who was happy to see me and I was happy to see him. Thank God I was leaving the day after you left. I'm not quite sure how many more of these once in a lifetime events I'm wanted at. I'm tired of the promise it's worth it. It's not about me, and that's great. Just don't make me feel bad if it's hard for me to be there. Nobody seemed to care when I was easily around 8 years ago.

My Third Wedding in One Year

Upcoming 2025. Nervous after the fatal plane crash in D.C., I buy the cheapest tickets Google Flights can offer and plan to stay with you. This will be my third once in a lifetime event in 6 months where the whole family is going to be there... but they're not. I hear you aren't going, or him, or her, or him, and I know it is going to be me and a bunch of adults who haven't healed and push their Republican rhetoric on my already frail soul.

It's too late to take back the ticket. I RSVP'd and there's no refunds. I'm going. And I don't know what to expect other than what I've already experienced twice so soon. And God am I already tired.

And That's Not All

God do I even want to mention March 2023, November 2023, or all the other people I learned to reject after just one trip? Long story short, I know what it's like to be part of a pack but be the lone wolf. I won't be doing such again.

No More

I already look forward to dissertating, where I am expected to go nowhere, talk to no one, and do nothing other than get. that. P. H. D. God, why is it easier to stay home, play videogames, and research in the little bubble that is my home office? Why do I hate travelling, and making friends, and seeing friends, and being a friend, and helping everybody even when they never helped me, and sucking it up to people who shouldn't be any more important than me, and organizing events for people who don't care, and keeping up with people I don't like, and pretending I'm not miserably sick when I am?

Sometimes I just hate it all and want to stay home with my cats and a man with fluffy hair and understanding beyond words and order good drinks. and shitty Midwest tacos and I somehow never quite do. I look forward to the excuse to. God, I do. These days don't hurt at the end. These days I feel unneeded and it's okay. These days I feel seen and unseen; only interacting with those I chose wisely. God, it's good. And I think I am learning more and more not to seek out otherwise. I'm tired of paying to hurt. I'm tired of rejection I see coming.

Maybe it'll hurt less tomorrow... I'm not sure it ever will.

#IDMD #IDisappointMyDad #rejectionsensitivity #mentalhealth #vacation #work #timeoff #plans #trips