Stepping Off Now: Support for Neurodivergent Creatives
Hello, and welcome to the Stepping Off Now podcast. I'm Kendra, an AuDHD writer, and this is my safe space for talking about the challenges of being a neurodivergent creative and the lessons I'm learning along the way. It's a little bit dark and a little bit visceral, but always honest. I hope that it can be a safe space for you too, where you feel seen and validated wether or not you identify as neurodivergent yourself. All gentle souls are welcome, and my goal is to provide solace and support. The world at large may not understand or appreciate you, but I do. We are not alone in our struggles, and we are stronger and wiser than we know. We can do this.
Stepping Off Now: Support for Neurodivergent Creatives
E142. Handling Rejection Sensitivity for Neurodiverse and Highly Sensitive Creatives
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Rejection sensitivity is one of the primary challenges neurodiverse and highly sensitive creatives face in reaching for their dreams. It can cause us to isolate, not seek out opportunities to share or showcase our work, or even keep us from doing creative work in the first place. If we do put ourselves out there, we risk severe mental health consequences when we experience real or perceived rejection, even of the mild kind (and rejection is inevitable on any creative journey!) How can we pursue our creative dreams in this context?
In this episode I discuss the ins and outs of rejection sensitivity and its more extreme form, rejection sensitive dysphoria. You'll hear what it is, why neurodiverse folks are prone to it, what it looks like in real life (using some examples from my own), and some tools I've developed over the last five years of my own creative journey that have helped me go from not wanting to share my fiction at all to live pitching my now completed novel at a conference next week (wish me luck!)
Several resources I used for this episode:
Emotional Regulation and Rejection Sensitivity (Dr. William Dodson, October 2016)
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria and Its Painful Impact (Dr. Neff, blog)
Past episodes I mention:
E41. The One About Writing: My Writing Journey and Path Toward Publication
E65. In Which I Read One of My Short Stories
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