106: BEST OF: Is Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria Real? with Dr Lesley

🌟 Taking a Break! 🌟

Hey everyone! I am taking a short break for August to recharge and prepare exciting new content for you. I’ll be back in September with fresh episodes and engaging conversations. Thanks for your support and patience. Stay tuned for what’s coming next!

I’m back with one of my favorite guests who is always up for the challenge of a podcast–no matter what the topic is! I want to explore the term rejection sensitivity dysphoria and get Dr. Lesley Cook’s take on it because I have so many questions. Let’s learn more together!

 Dr. Lesley Cook is a psychologist who works with those with ADHD and other kinds of neurodivergence. Born and raised in Hawaii, she now lives in Virginia and works with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families.

Show Highlights:

●      What RSD (rejection sensitivity dysphoria) is and how it is manifested

●      KC’s personal experience with RSD and feelings of worthlessness

●      How RSD is different from sensory sensitivity and autism

●      Thoughts about the strong word dysphoria in RSD

●      KC’s personal experience with RSD and being told she is “too sensitive”

●      How we can grow, change, and find regulatory strategies for RSD

●      Why it is difficult to communicate the facets and nuances of RSD and other interpersonal difficulties

Resources and Links:

Connect with Dr. Lesley Cook: TikTok

Connect with KC: Website, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook

Get KC’s book, How to Keep House While Drowning

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website: www.strugglecare.com/promo-codes.

• Transcript

  KC 0:05

  Hello you sentient ball of stardust. Welcome to Struggle Care. I'm your host, Kc Davis And I have one of my favorite guests back in the studio. Virtually, of course, Dr. Lesley Cook. Lesley, thank you for being here.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 0:17

  It is always a pleasure. I'm excited. Every time I'm here,

  KC 0:20

  I've recently started doing this thing where I actually meet with people before a podcast recording for 15 minutes and come up with like an outline of things we can talk about. And I'm like, This is so great. And not only did I not do that with you, I haven't even told you what the topic is today. I said, Do you want to do another podcast? And you were like, Yeah,

  Dr. Lesley Cook 0:38

  this is my wheelhouse.

  KC 0:39

  I love that. I love that I just what I learned was not everybody likes that or can do that. And so I went through a couple of interviews. I was like, oh, I need to start planning things so that I can help like guide the Leslie, I want to talk about rejection sensitivity just for Yeah, don't we all. And here's my like, whatever that word is that you say the disclaimer, I want 100%. And like totally down for any term that someone identifies with, that describes their experience that makes sense of their experience for them, and helps them navigate in a world where they can ask for what they need, and create accommodations in their life, and learn and grow and have self compassion for themselves. And like, I'm so down for that. Like, I'm never one of those people that like wants to take terms away from people are like, that's not the right time. Like, who cares? You like it? You got it? It's fine. I'm disclaiming that only because I have so many questions about this term. And sometimes, in order for me to understand something, I go to this like devil's advocate place of like, these are like the objections that come up in me. And I'm not voicing them, because I think they're necessarily right. But because I have to get these answered for me to fully feel like I understand something.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 1:59

  Yeah, absolutely. I was just talking to another mental health clinician about how like in the evolution of social media, mental health professionals, I did start as the person that was like, that's not the right term. Don't use it that way. And there's some merit to that in some cases. But one of the things I've learned, and I needed to learn by so much exposure to the consumers of our services and our content, is that disclaimer is that number one, people only create and communities only create words when there's a vacuum. So there's nothing here that describes what I'm trying to say. And so everyone is just dismissing it. And I think that term, the biggest thing it did, is it encapsulated quickly, something that we could all go, oh, yeah, yeah, I've had that. Like, that's a real experience. Yeah, it's a real thing. And you share it. It's something that brings people together into more understanding of each other. And I think it's less pathologizing than just don't be so sensitive. So I share that disclaimer, but you know, semicolon, I also have concerns with some of the terms that were adopted. And I think it's because of the fact that things grow and change. And so the original intent of that word, I wonder if we have strayed away from that.

  KC 3:14

  Interestingly, you brought that up. So people ask me, sometimes if I struggle with rejection sensitivity, dysphoria, and for anyone that's listening, it's like, what the hell is that it's a painful experience that you have when you are rejected, or you perceive you're being rejected. So it often comes up with criticism, even like healthy kind of criticism. And it's the idea that like, I basically like, cannot tolerate anything that feels as though I've done something wrong, or I'm being rejected. And I'm extremely sensitive to basically interpreting all criticism, critique, pushback mistake as being rejected, and that my nervous system sort of has this really overblown response to that, where I feel panicky, I feel like I'm in pain, I feel like I'm drowning. I feel all these things. So that's the colloquial like, layman's understanding of that. So people ask, and it's talked about a lot as a something that happens in people with ADHD. It's not officially a part of the diagnosis. It's not a formal clinical term. It's not in the DSM. And to my knowledge, I have not seen any research on it, have you?

  Dr. Lesley Cook 4:30

  Not necessary I think, again, social media is moving so much faster than our science can catch up. It takes years to like select a group and then do some testing. And so I haven't seen specific, you know, outcome research of what is this but I have seen articles and periodicals and shared experience publications that talk about the fact that this does seem to be something that is relatively unique as an experience, specifically for ADHD found in every person to some extent, but over represented for the ADHD crowd. But I think it's unclear where it comes from or how we would encapsulate it.

  KC 5:08

  So I actually looked up like an article on it. And this is from like, the attitude magazine, which is like the ADHD publication that comes out. And it says, What is rejection sensitivity dysphoria. And it goes on to say like, it's not a formal diagnosis. It's just like a common under researched symptom of ADHD. We don't actually know if it is or not, but it is experientially very common. Noticeably, the first thing they say is RSD is not thought to be caused by trauma. And this is one of the hardest things is like, if you asked me, Do you have rejection sensitivity, dysphoria? And then you say, it's what I just described? Like, sometimes you'd be like, Yeah, it's like men really being impacted by the feeling of rejection. And those are, there's a part of me that's like, is that not just having your feelings hurt? Like, isn't that everybody, like, nobody likes to be rejected. But I will say that most of my childhood, I do feel like I had an extra sensitivity to feeling worthless, like I struggled with feeling worthless a lot. And so getting rejected, felt more painful to me than it seemed like it felt to others. And the only reason that I know that is because through being institutionalized, and having to go through a lot of like confrontational therapy that like forced me to grow some ego strength, and then also doing some, like having some own, like growth around some spirituality stuff, there was literally this weird day. And I won't go into it, because it's a very weird woowoo story. But let's just say that I had a run in with this woman at my work that bullied me, and like, It tore me up on the inside, like I would literally reacted that day in the middle of an all staff meeting by screaming at her because she like made a face at me that was kind of like a meant to make me feel stupid, and like ran out of the room and then cried and then went to my car and was trying to drive home and then a pull over. And anyways, I at that time was like, looking into some of my own like spiritual texts, right. And I like read this thing. And it was really meant something to me. And I felt this like physical shift in my chest. And then all of a sudden, it got lighter. And it was such a weird sensation that I described my friends as it feel it felt like something Let go of me and left me. And I had this shift, where from then on and I mean, I also was getting so much therapy. So I feel like it was almost this combination of like a lot of therapy work, a lot of spiritual work a lot of sort of like meaningful things for me, where when I would get rejected or get criticized, it still hurt. It still didn't feel good. But what was gone was this like darkness that would like slither up the back of my throat and whisper in my ear. See, I told you, you were a piece of shit. I told you no one was gonna love you. Like that previous to that, like de that was my experience of rejection. It was intolerable. It was painful. It was more painful than just this hurts right now, I had never heard the term rejection sensitivity. dysphoria, right. And I think the differentiating factor that when you hear people talk about it, as they say, one, it is not thought to be trauma, I would have told you that reaction in me was trauma. And I know what it's trauma from it's trauma from some family of origin shit. So I wouldn't have ever said that, because the specifically they say RSD is a nervous system difference that is not related to trauma. Now, I think I had a nervous system difference related to trauma. And then I got a bunch of therapy and also had like this bizarre spiritual experience. And now I don't feel that anymore. So personally, it's hard for me to contextualize that, because when you describe it, yes, I remember feeling that way. But then when you needle down on, it's not trauma, it's a nervous system difference. It's, I'm like, Oh, well, how would we even know? Like, In what world does somebody with ADHD not have traumatic experience by the time they're an adult?

  Dr. Lesley Cook 9:04

  I think that is the core of where I think we're still kind of trying to develop a way to conceptualize this thing that we're calling RSD. And we're not quite there. And I think to piggyback on that, I agree and disagree and love how they described it and absolutely hate it at the same time. So we know that ADHD comes with this list of dis regulations. And it's not just as we all know, as we all in the club now. It's not just our attention and focus, it's also our ability to control up regulating our emotions, sometimes getting excited or motivated, sometimes down regulating. It's hard to inhibit our impulses. And so one of the most famous pieces of research that gets quoted a lot is kids with ADHD, hear their name called in a negative way, by I think it's AJ teen, like 20,000 times the it's a huge number more than other kids. And so we could look at it through one lens and say, well, that's not necessarily trauma. That's just the interaction of a nervous system that has trouble with this and the environment. However, that's also another way to look at trauma is that the interaction? So I think it's almost a non sequitur, like, is it due to trauma? Is it not? That almost doesn't matter? I think I think what really matters is to look at all of these kids, especially these undiagnosed kids who are growing up hearing that down, stop it go away, you're too much, you're not enough. If you could just focus that builds this sense that of impending doom, that every side glance, every miss text is about rejection is on the horizon. And I don't love the description, but I love the description of it climbing up your throat, I immediately identify with that experience. I even had one experience as a teenager where a friend that I had had since kindergarten, I guess I was probably being too much and too loud, getting on the bus. And she turned around and said, Don't you get it? We don't really like when you hang out with us. And that was my throat, realizing like, oh, it's me, they don't want me. And that was a formative experience to know. Would that have happened? Had I been dysregulated? Bless, maybe not. But those things, I think, you know, are part of the same phenomena.

  KC 11:21

  Yeah, there is this interesting, like hyper vigilance to rejection that you develop because of that. And that's the thing that I was trying to express at the beginning. Like, I'm not saying that the experience that we're all describing, when someone says rejection sensitivity, dysphoria is like not real, like I believe it is. I'm more interested in like, when you get down to this question of, is it an environmental, like, is it an experience that is just describing something we already knew about ADHD, the different factors of, you know, we knew these symptoms. So this symptom intertwining with this environment, creating this kind of, you know, traumatic experience, causes this experience, versus people who will talk about it as a symptom like no out of the womb, something with your nervous system and your brain wiring. Like, even if you've never had a negative experience, like, is overly sensitive to rejection. Because that was my other thing was like, when I read I was like, is that not just emotional dysregulation? I think

  Dr. Lesley Cook 12:19

  you could phrase it that way, you could look at it as functionally speaking, this is an emotional dysregulation that happens faster and more intensely. For those of us with this neuro type with this neurological difference. I think you could also say, maybe for most ADHD people, it's so common of an experience, that it might as well be a symptom. I think the danger in that for me, and this is like a bee in my bonnet as a clinician for years is that when we start believing that this thing, I'm holding up a little AirPods case, that this thing, RSD is like inside of me, like it's part of me, then it's always going to be here. And there's a tendency to think then when it happens, oh, it's RSC. Yeah, that happens. Versus if it's something that that I'm holding that I can look at, that I can examine, there might be a way for me to figure out how to maybe put it down a little more, how to learn how to get that cognitive thinking part of our brain online to say, is this really rejection? And you know this, because we've talked, you know, off of the online space, but I have friends where I try to actively practice, here's what I'm feeling. Am I literally making this up? And I have some amazing friends that will say, Yes, you are making that up. That is your brain has created that story. That's not what's happening. And that has decreased. That feeling of fear of rejection by probably 80%.

  KC 13:48

  Yeah, I think when I hear people talk about it as an innate thing, and to your metaphor, I think it's when we tried to put it in the same category as like, sensory sensitivity and autism, like that's in your brain, you came out the womb with that, like, not every autistic person has the same sensory or even any sensory sensitivities. But it's like, that is a sensory sensitivity that has to do with the wiring of your brain. There's no like cognitive restructuring that you could do to make yourself not be erect or in pain over that sensory thing. Like it is not a social construct. It is not an interaction between some other autistic symptom and your environment, like it is just straight up a neurological response to something that would happen in a vacuum. And I see a lot of people talk about RSD moving in that direction, as is like, No, this is an innate symptom separate from other symptoms that would happen even in a vacuum. And that's the one where I'm always like, Hmm, I'm not sure. And I'm not sure if it is, maybe it is, but if it's not, and we put it there will we be doing ourselves a disservice. And that's, I think what you were saying is like, well, here it is, you know, deal with it. It just sucks forever,

  Dr. Lesley Cook 14:56

  right? Like that's just what we have and I do think there are Some other pitfalls with that, as well, because it could be weaponized and and that could I see this a lot with kids. So if you have a child who like let's say, a teenager who is actually experiencing rejection, and they have ADHD, I have seen it, you know, well, that's your RSD. You know, it's possible that that can be weaponized against kids and adults alike, I

  KC 15:23

  don't have to take your hurt feelings seriously. Because your feelings are just an indicator that you can't control yourself, they're not an indicator, they're not couldn't possibly reflection that I hurt you, or that that thing really hurt you. It's just this, you know, and I have some friends that have borderline personality disorder. And they talk about that exact scenario with them. They're like, you know, I'm, and they're really healthy people, like really mature and healthy around their borderline. And they'll say like, the thing that sucks the most is like, really, actually having someone do something shitty to you, and like, try to talk to your loved ones about it. And they either say or imply like, well, like, Could this be the border line, and you're like, No, like, it actually was a really hurtful thing they did. And like, it's valid for you to be hurt.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 16:07

  And I think sometimes that's what happens when terms start out meaning something and then they get so blurry is that they circle all the way back around to the thing they were supposed to replace. So understanding BPD was supposed to be helpful, and therapeutic so that we don't stigmatize folks that are struggling with that understanding RSD was supposed to help us get away from, you're just too sensitive. But unfortunately, when we use it in this way, it becomes like, that's just your RSC it becomes you're just too sensitive. And I think the other piece is distinguishing between, I think the use of the word dysphoria, and it is really hard for me. And that is the one as a clinician that I'm probably too much of a stickler for I probably need to get over it. But I struggled because there's something it's like when people talk about pathological demand avoidance, and I refer to it just as demand avoidance. Because when we add pathological and when we add dysphoria, those words mean something, dysphoria means I'm feeling not right, based on something that is not necessarily acknowledged by everyone, right? That's a really imperfect definition of dysphoria. But really, it's just being highly, highly sensitive to and reactive to real or perceived rejection. But that's not a super fun descriptive term, like twice as many words, I

  KC 17:25

  think this article talked about the word dysphoria, it says 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.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 17:47

  And so that's where I struggle, right, because who gets to judge whether it's out of proportion. And that's what that kind of what I was trying to capture. And that's much more elegant way of saying it is that my reaction is out of proportion for what's happening. When we start going down that road for some of the symptoms, I think and traits, we get into messy territory, not only who gets to determine whether it's out of proportion, but also, if you heard your name called 20,000 more times, by the time you're 18. Why would your fear of an anticipation of rejection be out of proportion? To me, that's a perfectly proportionate response. But you are highly sensitive.

  KC 18:26

  Yeah, like in proportion to what in proportion to the thing that just happened, or in proportion to your experience, your lifetime of experience, about what that means about you and what that message is about you. You know, what's interesting about all of this, is that, you know, at the beginning, I asked like, is there any research on this yet? And sometimes, like you said, well, all times like, the world of psychology moves faster than the science of psychology. And so, like, you can't say like, Well, if there's no research, then it's not valid, because again, it moves faster. But one of the things that I think people don't always appreciate about research, it's not just this like, well, we need a bunch of white men scientist to say it's real for it to be real. It's like when we do research, like No person is just their diagnosis, right? And so if we were to say, well, let's get a bunch of people with ADHD together, and like, see how prevalent this description of this thing called RSD is, well, that seems simple. But like, when's the last time you met somebody that had ADHD and no trauma, or no other diagnosis? So even if, you know, wow, 30% or 60% say they have this. Okay. But how do we know the RSD that they all have is stemming from the ADHD because, again, a lot of this sounds like stuff that comes up in bipolar. A lot of the stuff sounds like stuff that comes up and trauma. So you have to do so much research and so many different control groups and, you know, people that only have this one diagnosis and then of them like, what's their educational background? What's their emotional background? What's their race? What's their Right, like, you have to do so much of that, to make sure that the symptom you're looking at truly is only coming from this one disorder. And think about how impossible that is with how high the rates of comorbidity is between ADHD and other things.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 20:16

  Yeah, it's incredibly difficult. And I think if we look through an intersectional lens to, it probably is going to look and feel and be conceptualized in very radically different ways behaviorally, for a black American teenager, and a white 44 year old psychologist, lady, right. So my experience of that is going to be very different, because I also haven't had to hide and shift and mask other parts of myself that other people had. So this is also where to get a little nerdy for you for a second, where I think I really see people not grabbing or going to the qualitative research. And if you're if you don't haven't heard that term before, quantitative research is more when we're doing what we're talking about now. So we have control groups, we're trying to isolate variables we're trying to look at does this thing cause this thing? Qualitative research looks at storytelling and common factors and common experiences. It's a wonderful way to learn. It's it's highly scientific, it's highly rigorous, and we don't we just don't talk about it, I think enough in in regular media. So I wonder, and this is me wondering, because I haven't thought about it. I wonder if there is some, some data and more the qualitative area, I'm going to write that down.

  KC 21:34

  I did do like a cursory Google search to see if I could find any, you know, research data, the PubMed data and things like that. But maybe there's stuff out there that I just haven't found. So I'll leave that obviously, as an option. When you were talking about like, what could be the downside of over pathologizing? The rejection response is that, like, I know, for me, there were so many clinical interventions that went into both clinical interventions. And just like personal work that went into getting to a place where I don't feel like my world is ending when I feel rejected. And my own experience, I think, was too far in the other direction, where I was kind of made to feel as though like that is a personal failing and me like you're too sensitive, and you're not tough enough. And you need to get a grip, like get a grip. Now luckily, I mean, that wasn't the solution. Like that's how they pose the problem is like, you need to get a grip. But luckily, I had access to resources where I could work on like, Okay, this is trauma. Where's it coming from? How can I heal that trauma? How can I learn distress tolerance? How can I widen my window of tolerance? How can I hang on to myself in those moments? How can I work on some cognitive restructuring where I can talk to a friend and be like, Okay, this is what I'm telling myself. And they can either go like, yeah, that just happened or like, no, that sounds like you but and, like, I'm so grateful that I was able to work on that experience, so that I don't have to live that way every day. And I think back to your point is like, if that just gets classified as like, well, you know, that's just a thing, and it will never go away. It's like, I don't want people to feel like shame about having it or that it's some sort of like character failing. But at the same time, like, you don't want people to feel like they just have to live with this incredible pain.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 23:19

  And I do think that's where I have concerns about some of these. And there's other terms too, but that we use for these diagnoses, because they don't necessarily allow for the opportunity for growth. And we need that another thing we know about ADHD brains, in addition to the things that are kind of always going to be there is that our brains do continued while everyone's brains continued to grow and change. But some of the development of that frontal lobe lobe system is just delayed. So some of our treatment is ADHD, or is life is continuing, like literally growing up, yes, keep going. It's going to take us longer to find these regulatory strategies. And so if you tell someone who's eight, this is something you have in terms of RST, not ADHD, and that's it, there's nothing we can do. I wonder if there are opportunities to learn that we can survive some of these challenges, and that you can reach out and have support people that you can check with your friends, and they'll be honest with you, I wonder if we deprive them of that I didn't have access to any of that. I had to learn that as an adult.

  KC 24:22

  Well, and I think most people that I've heard use the term RSD are using it in I would literally say like 95% use it to describe oh my god, I'm not broken. This is a part of my experience. This is why it's so painful. I'm not weak or stupid or any of these things like I just have a pretty unique neurology, whether that is always innate, or whether that was environmentally shaped like whatever it is like this is the thing, this is why this is happening to me. Or maybe like this is why this is harder for me 5% of the time. I hear it used to say because the It is harder for me, for reasons that are not my control, I don't have to work that hard to address the impact it has on others. And that is just a human thing. Like we all don't, you know, it's hard to look at yourself, it's hard to take accountability. And I think that, like, you know, it takes a scalpel to really kind of draw that line between, like, I always, like, My example is always like, I am sometimes late to things because of my ADHD. And what I learned was, like, the proper place for it's okay, it's just my ADHD, that's something I tell myself, that's never something I told the person being impacted by me being late. Like, that's for me to not hate myself, to not feel shame. It's not for me, like that's to address my feelings of being upset at me, it's not to address your feelings of being upset at me.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 25:54

  Definitely forgot what I was going to tell you. And I love that this is like a real world example of like, some of the things that can happen when you have space to be authentic. But I was gonna say is that also does it mean that we're not allowed to reach out for support or ask for accommodations or let people know that we struggle with something, but I 100% agree with you that there is a balance point of what I tell myself. It's kind of like when we talk to kids about inside thoughts and outside thoughts and learning which are, which can make profound differences, I think for ourselves, but also our relationships, so that others feel comfortable to say when we have impacted them.

  KC 26:29

  And like feeling bad about something is also nuanced. Like, I don't feel like so for example, I was 30 minutes late to a really important podcast recording because when I read it, I read that season at 930 cet, not 930 at so I had the time, but whatever showed up 30 minutes late everyone's calling me. So I don't hate myself for that. I don't think that I'm a bad person. I know that has nothing to do with me being irresponsible, I still feel bad, that it impacted the people who were waiting for me and their day, like their day also matters. And so like, I think that that's the other like, fine point in there is like, I know, that's due to my disability. And I sometimes will communicate that to people, not because I want them to change their feelings of aggravation, but because I want them to know that I did not intend for them. I don't think I better than you I know your day is important. And sometimes that's part of the wound of someone being inconsiderate. And your mind is like they think that I don't matter. And I want you to know, like, I do think you matter. I do think your time is as important in mind. That's why I want you to know that this was a disability related, you know, flub not just me being entitled. And I think that it takes a lot of nuance to communicate that in a way that says, I want you to know that I do care. And I'm sorry. And not, you don't get to have feelings about this. And I don't have to address this.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 27:53

  I think even this particular part of our discussion really eliminates why talking about RSD is so hard because all of these different facets of the nuance and understanding. And I think what, what always kind of brings it home for me is that it for this particular experience. I don't know that we've quite gotten it yet. I don't know that we've quite nailed it. What is this thing? How is it? You know, happening conceptually, because it's so hard to talk about, there's all of these facets?

  KC 28:23

  Do you find that that's particularly hard when it comes to any symptom that primarily expresses itself? interpersonally? Yeah,

  Unknown Speaker 28:32

  that's a great point. I

  KC 28:32

  mean, like being late is kind of interpersonally. But I mean, like, you know, there's this RST, but then with borderline personality disorder, there's this, you know, maybe push and pull or being mean, or feeling, you know, what people would say it's being dramatic, somebody that maybe has PTSD, and that is showing up as anger, like you don't even like things that emotionally come into play. interpersonally. Like, I wonder if that's why it's so hard.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 28:56

  I agree. 100% I think that's how we arrive at the difficulty when we talk about things like weaponized incompetence. And why that's so hard to talk about, is because there's just this overlay. Anytime you have an exchange of communication in some way. It gets really hard. And I guess that's where a part of me always gets hesitant to label something boom, that oh, that's RSD. Because I think I know from my work and also my personal life, just because I'm so different than a lot of the people that I'm in relation to that it's just not that simple. As soon as we add the dynamics of someone else, everything gets murky, and we have to consider all of it.

  KC 29:34

  I think that's also what makes the large scale communication about these topics so difficult, just like personally as a content creator as an author. Because if I'm interacting with someone specifically, like I can ask enough questions to understand the nuances and then give a piece of insight or a statement or whatever. But what usually happens when I'm making content about something like let's say I make it about RST at And, you know, you'll have this person, or this huge group of people that will be like, you know, I'm a good person, and I try so hard to love the people well, and I feel so deeply ashamed that I can't live up to the neurotypical standards. And the people around me are always telling me that, you know, I'm not good enough, because I can't do this. And thinking that my inability to regulate emotionally like everybody else is due to me being bratty or not caring. And it's like, that's so painful. And so you want to talk to that about like, this is not a moral failing. This is this is a disability to death. But for every group of people in that bucket, you have a group of people in a bucket going, yeah, like, my husband, or my partner, or my friend, or my parent, was a horrible fucking person, and either abused me or mistreated me or constantly hurt me in some way, and refused to take accountability, because they had fill in the blank of whatever disability it is. And it makes it difficult to talk in general terms about the two competing truths of like, disability is not a moral failing. And it's not an excuse to mistreat people. Yeah, I think it's one of, and that's an easy thing to say out loud. But if you go any further than that, you know, there's no other sentence, you could say, except for that one, before you feel like the people who were married to an abuser that had a disability or being discounted, or the people that were always demonized for having this disability feel discounted, and it makes it a really weird, hard line to walk.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 31:32

  It does. And I think the most common response that I get when I also make content like that, or have discussions like that is well then how do I know the difference? And the fact that there is no answer for that? How do I know if I have RSD? How do I know if I have sensory dysfunction due to this? Because we're all actual, like human blobs, and we have all of this stuff going on? It's incredibly hard to give that answer, especially in these kind of short sound, by the ways. And I think when you're someone say you're in my position, it's so easy to talk about the nuance when you're someone who is consuming that content because they are in daily pain. It is very hard to hear, I think, I don't know, I don't know, you would have to look at the entirety of your relationship, you would have to compare it to this. So I understand the frustration. And I wish it was simpler than it is.

  KC 32:23

  Yeah. Well, Leslie, we are at time. And I can't tell you how great of a conversation this is. It's always a great conversation. With all of the pre planning that I've been doing. It tickles me pink to have somebody that I can schedule a podcast episode with and not even tell them what the topic is going to be. I myself thought of the topic about 15 minutes before I logged on, because I was like, Wait, have we not talked about a topic? But this has been great. You want to tell people where they can find you if they want to hear some of your sound bits, wisdom of sound bits, sound bits of wisdom. Yeah.

  Dr. Lesley Cook 32:51

  I don't know about the wisdom. But I've got lots of sound bits right now. I'm just on the tick tock at Leslie society. So it's le SLEYPSY Be

  KC 33:00

  nice. Thank you so much. Thank you