DAMN IT!!!!!! currently in the talking stage with someone and this.... hit the nail on the head, this is crazy... i needed this to literally keep me a little sane? a little grounded? thank you.
I feel so seen in this piece. My favorite line that hit me directly in the heart is "I’m not choosing to be sensitive. I’d really rather live without it." I feel this SO incredibly deeply. Thanks for this, Ella 💜
Confession: even this week, when one of my closest Substack connections replies to some of the others in the thread but not me, I immediately go "oh they're sick of me". I know from experience that it being online does make it easier to just cut someone off.
I don't know if I "fear" rejection or am just sensitive to it. Cos I'm used to rejection but not the sting. I had a massive "rejection" 3 years ago where, cos I did something stupid, I lost my entire social network. People who I had known for years just blocking me without even so much of a goodbye. That permanently altered my brain - I feel like I'm constantly under surveillance and everyone's waiting for me to screw up.
But it is difficult with reassurance. I've heard so many stories from people in a relationship who say their partner just left one day and they were genuinely blindsided. I guess you can't really prevent something like that. Sometimes there are obvious signs, but I don't even always trust them. My friend could say she likes me but it doesn't mean she can't just cut me off without talking to me first.
But yeah. A huge topic throughout my life. Thanks for sharing this 💚
i can imagine that would have effected you really deeply, all you can do is built trust with people again and understand that (on the most part) people don’t block you randomly without reason or leave you <3
I really do worry that lightning will strike twice - most of the people that did block I never met in person so I could just about deal with it, but the ones that did, that made it scarier cos it was no longer this isolated online thing. I had to come off all social media so basically had no one for an entire year 😕
I think my network is healthier now but I'm just afraid of mucking it up and everyone just dropping me cos they decided they didn't ever like me in the first place
The courtroom that sees abandonment before reasoning is why arguing with the spiral never worked for me. The logic inside it actually holds: if love can be lost, and his tone just shifted, dread follows fine. The fault sits upstream, in the premise you named yourself, love as something earned and something that could be lost. I wrote recently about beliefs working as premises, "I am unlovable" being the load-bearing one for me, and your piece maps onto that almost one to one. A valid argument from a false premise regrows its conclusion no matter how many times you knock the conclusion down. Which is why I think you're right that reassurance just pads the cycle. Reassurance argues with the conclusion. The premise never hears about it. For me the premise only moved slowly, in daylight, across months of unremarkable evidence that nobody was leaving, and even then it moved like a glacier.
WOW yet another amazing piece of writing from you!! i didn’t realize that i needed to hear this until i started reading. thank you as always for making me feel less alone❤️
I try so hard to come off as though I’m okay when the slightest shifts in atmosphere happen. But in reality, I’ll panic if someone puts a full stop at the end of their text message because my brain automatically thinks I’m holding them back from better things in this world. I also only just realised a pattern I have in friendships. I seem to give it two years, and then I give them an out. I let them leave without guilt because, in my head, they’ve already had to put up with so much by being my friend. I am slowly getting better with this and letting people in. One thing that has helped is telling my friends not to reassure me, but to call my thoughts out instead 💗
The externalization move is such a small linguistic shift that does major work. And the diagnosis that RSD in women is a learned response to a world that trained us to be palatable... Gah. That's the whole environmental reframe. We were never oversensitive. We were accurately calibrated to places that priced likability as safety. Another awesome piece. 👌💚
DAMN IT!!!!!! currently in the talking stage with someone and this.... hit the nail on the head, this is crazy... i needed this to literally keep me a little sane? a little grounded? thank you.
ahhh genuinely this has made me so happy, you are so so NOT alone in this feeling <3
I feel so seen in this piece. My favorite line that hit me directly in the heart is "I’m not choosing to be sensitive. I’d really rather live without it." I feel this SO incredibly deeply. Thanks for this, Ella 💜
it’s so true though! i really wish i didn’t feel this way it would be a lot easier hahah, im so glad you resonated <3
Beautiful
thank you so much! <3
Confession: even this week, when one of my closest Substack connections replies to some of the others in the thread but not me, I immediately go "oh they're sick of me". I know from experience that it being online does make it easier to just cut someone off.
I don't know if I "fear" rejection or am just sensitive to it. Cos I'm used to rejection but not the sting. I had a massive "rejection" 3 years ago where, cos I did something stupid, I lost my entire social network. People who I had known for years just blocking me without even so much of a goodbye. That permanently altered my brain - I feel like I'm constantly under surveillance and everyone's waiting for me to screw up.
But it is difficult with reassurance. I've heard so many stories from people in a relationship who say their partner just left one day and they were genuinely blindsided. I guess you can't really prevent something like that. Sometimes there are obvious signs, but I don't even always trust them. My friend could say she likes me but it doesn't mean she can't just cut me off without talking to me first.
But yeah. A huge topic throughout my life. Thanks for sharing this 💚
i can imagine that would have effected you really deeply, all you can do is built trust with people again and understand that (on the most part) people don’t block you randomly without reason or leave you <3
I really do worry that lightning will strike twice - most of the people that did block I never met in person so I could just about deal with it, but the ones that did, that made it scarier cos it was no longer this isolated online thing. I had to come off all social media so basically had no one for an entire year 😕
I think my network is healthier now but I'm just afraid of mucking it up and everyone just dropping me cos they decided they didn't ever like me in the first place
thank you for writing about RSD :) i love how you tied it into feelings of perceived safety.
it definitely is to do with safety!!! that’s why the person you feel safest around can often trigger it the most <3
Beautifully written, as always. Sending you a big virtual hug ❤️
appreciate you so much! <3
The courtroom that sees abandonment before reasoning is why arguing with the spiral never worked for me. The logic inside it actually holds: if love can be lost, and his tone just shifted, dread follows fine. The fault sits upstream, in the premise you named yourself, love as something earned and something that could be lost. I wrote recently about beliefs working as premises, "I am unlovable" being the load-bearing one for me, and your piece maps onto that almost one to one. A valid argument from a false premise regrows its conclusion no matter how many times you knock the conclusion down. Which is why I think you're right that reassurance just pads the cycle. Reassurance argues with the conclusion. The premise never hears about it. For me the premise only moved slowly, in daylight, across months of unremarkable evidence that nobody was leaving, and even then it moved like a glacier.
exactly right, thank you for such an insightful response <3
WOW yet another amazing piece of writing from you!! i didn’t realize that i needed to hear this until i started reading. thank you as always for making me feel less alone❤️
ahhhh this makes me so so happy my love <3
aww girl you are loved 🥺
LOVE YOU <3
I try so hard to come off as though I’m okay when the slightest shifts in atmosphere happen. But in reality, I’ll panic if someone puts a full stop at the end of their text message because my brain automatically thinks I’m holding them back from better things in this world. I also only just realised a pattern I have in friendships. I seem to give it two years, and then I give them an out. I let them leave without guilt because, in my head, they’ve already had to put up with so much by being my friend. I am slowly getting better with this and letting people in. One thing that has helped is telling my friends not to reassure me, but to call my thoughts out instead 💗
The externalization move is such a small linguistic shift that does major work. And the diagnosis that RSD in women is a learned response to a world that trained us to be palatable... Gah. That's the whole environmental reframe. We were never oversensitive. We were accurately calibrated to places that priced likability as safety. Another awesome piece. 👌💚
Such a refreshing piece, so relatable too.