Rejection sensitive dysphoria is a brain-based symptom that is likely an innate feature of ADHD. Though the experience of rejection sensitive dysphoria can be painful and even traumatic, RSD is not thought to be caused by trauma.Dysphoria is the Greek word meaning unbearable; its use emphasizes the severe physical and emotional pain suffered by people with RSD when they encounter real or perceived rejection, criticism, or teasing.
The emotional intensity of RSD is described by my patients as a wound. The response is well beyond all proportion to the nature of the event that triggered it.One-third of my adult patients report that RSD was the most impairing aspect of their personal experience of ADHD, in part because they never found any.
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