CONT.

""THAT'S JUST LIKE YOUR OPINION, MAN!""

And suddenly, you don't have to feel small, and ashamed and defective and like there's something wrong with YOU. You know you didn't intend any disrespect, you don't think you're lazy, you tried to remember. You're really a young person (often in our culture a young man) who realizes you have the strength to say I won't be treated this way anymore! when someone calls you out.

That's why it feels like you (and your therapist) are arguing with an angry teenager. It's because you are!

So... why don't we grow out of it? Why are we stuck here? Why do we keep fighting battles we lost and won a long time ago when all fighting can do is hurt ourselves and our loved ones?

Part of coming to this understanding for me was reflecting on the difference in the ways RSD comes out at home and at work. When my RSD is triggered by my partner, I can get defensive and argue and go into that teenaged space of ""I won't be treated this way anymore!""

But when it's my boss who triggers my RSD? With some tiny piece of negative feedback? I can't do that to him, unless I'm ready to get fired. And I know that... so what do I do?

I get fucking scared man! Scared and ashamed and embarrassed. I get crazy impostor syndrome. I can't sleep because I'm so stressed out. Because my boss put me right back in that feeling of being the seven year old who can't remember Saint Francis's name. And that all affects my work performance and my job satisfaction. And now, at 42, you better believe that impacts my health, my home life and my ability to provide for my family.

RSD hurts me man! It's terrible! It's the worst!

Back to my point (can you tell I'm ADHD?) why don't we grow out of it?

Well just like any learned behavior, we can grow out of it. And just like any emotional damage, we have to heal it. That teenager keeps fighting because that little kid is still scared and ashamed, because that little kid has never had a chance to feel safe and accepted and like it's OK to be the way he is and has never gotten a chance to heal.

I had this epiphany about communication with my partner. What if I just admitted why I was feeling what I'm feeling? What if, instead of saying ""I won't be treated this way anymore!"" I said ""What you're saying is really reasonable. And I'm terrified, because it came out of left field and I feel <overwhelmed/scared/afraid> of having to take on some new responsibility I expect to fail at. But that's not your fault. I just need to process this feeling, because it belongs to a kid who thinks he's gonna get shamed and put down and he's going to go through all this self loathing and self abuse.""

tl;dr: The only way to break the RSD cycle is to give that little kid a chance to heal, so the angry teenager doesn't have to stick up for him anymore. And the only way to do that is to address the feelings under the deconstruction and the debating and the intellectualizing.

ADHD tangent: I feel like RSD and toxic masculinity are very closely linked, but that's another rant for another hyperfocus post.