Mistakes and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)
When telling yourself, "everyone makes mistakes!" isn't enough
Today I made a pretty public mistake at work and was reprimanded by someone who isn’t my superior exactly but works for our corporate headquarters. Many important people were on the email thread in which I was very clearly told not to make that mistake again.
In this case, my mistake was asking on a large email thread with different department leaders if there was interest in centralizing information about all of the different budget cuts we were all making. I shared a few ways my department was handling it and offered to collate together a list of different strategies. I apparently didn’t have permission to share the information about the cuts we were making and another (somewhat higher up) manager was apparently annoyed because coordinating that kind of information sharing is “not my job.”
So, you can probably tell I’m defensive here. I honestly don’t think I did anything wrong and am *mostly* mad at pointless office politics about who’s allowed to say what when and territorial behavior, which I’m honestly not great at navigating because it’s boring AF and I just want to get on with things.
When I saw the email reprimanding me though, even though I don’t really feel like I did anything wrong, I immediately started catastrophizing. Two executive-level people were copied on the reprimand email and the unfairness of feeling like I was being so publicly punished for something that didn’t even feel wrong in the first place so how was I supposed to know it was wrong was overwhelming. “Well, there goes any hope of [promotion/raise/positive recognition of any kind], my reputation is totally ruined.”
Basically, my RSD kicked in. So here’s how I got out of it.
Why “it’s ok, everyone makes mistakes” isn’t necessarily helpful
When people say these kinds of platitudes - or give advice that those of us who are really sensitive to rejection that we should just tell ourselves this mantra - I know they mean well. It is true. Everyone does make mistakes.
However, this doesn’t address the cognitive distortion involved with RSD that my mistakes are worse than everyone else’s (yes logically I know they aren’t but it’s SO hard not to feel that way, that’s why it’s a cognitive distortion!).
When something like the above happens to me, all I can think about is I’ve never seen anyone else reprimanded in that way or make such an obvious, clearly stupid mistake.
Except - I have. I’m sure I have. I even vaguely remember comforting a colleague who found themselves in a similar situation, though I can’t remember any particulars about what they did, and I never thought about it again after it happened. Which is an important point! Literally no one, except probably the person it happened to, remembers anything about what happened.
A different way to frame “everyone makes mistakes” is more effective for me if it’s followed by something like: “and no one is thinking about you or your mistakes.” It will be forgotten. And if it isn’t, there’s not much you can do about it but dust yourself off and keep on keepin’ on. You can’t control other people’s thoughts about you. Or, put another (better, IMO) way, “other people’s opinions of me are none of my business” (thank you Eleanor Roosevelt).
In potentially an odd way, it’s very comforting to me to remind myself that everyone is way too busy thinking about themselves to even give a second thought to you, let alone some (in the scheme of things) tiny transgression that is basically of no real consequence in the long term.
Which brings me to another point -
Long-term thinking is hard with ADHD - and that contributes to RSD
I think it may have been Dr. Ned Hallowell who characterized the ADHD experience of time as either “now” or “not now” (please correct me if I’m wrong on that). A lot of times this is talked about as pertaining to other executive functions like the ability to plan long-term and prioritize tasks. But for me it contributes enormously to how heavy a mistake feels in the moment. Because now is what matters and right now I did something I wish I hadn’t, and it feels like that feeling will last forever, and that no future really exists where that mistake isn’t the most important thing in my life.
It’s just hard for me to visualize my possible future self.
One of the constructive reactions to a mistake that I really avoid (even though I know I shouldn’t) is learning from my mistakes. As in the example above - I am defensive and focused on the perceived unfairness of getting reprimanded, rather than thinking about how I can learn from this. OK, yes, office politics are annoying but I’m going to keep finding myself in this situation if I don’t develop some skills at navigating this. Because long-term, I *can* develop those skills - and looking back, I have gotten a lot better at navigating these things, though obviously I’m not perfect and still have room to grow.
Learning from my mistakes requires me to be able to visualize a future in which I am not making this same mistakes and plan out some steps I can take to improve my abilities in this area. This is all stuff that ADHD makes incredibly difficult for me - but that doesn’t mean I can’t do it. It just isn’t intuitive to me and it’s not a natural skill. However, I do have a natural skill in adaptability (rooted probably mostly in my forgetfulness to be honest) and if I consciously work toward framing a mistake as something that will make my future better if I learn from it, I’m less focused on the mistake itself and more focused on making my future better.
If “everyone makes mistakes” self-talk doesn’t help you…
Maybe these will?
“Most people are too busy focusing on themselves to devote any time to thinking about me and my mistake(s)”
“Now that I know more about what I’m supposed to do, in a few months I can be great at this”
“This happened because the universe is telling me I will really benefit from growth in this area”
“This will be forgotten, and I have plenty of opportunity to replace any negative reactions to positive ones”
Hang in there, fellow RSD folks! There will be a future in which you can’t even remember the details of a mistake that’s bothering you right now.
And if you can’t remember, trust, no one else does.