RSD (Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria) help?

MrsPickles said:

Can you give advice on how you stopped it and manage to get by day to day?

In a word, mindfulness.

I used to be very similar to you in this (all pre diagnosis) and I was pointed to mindfulness by an assetivness coach on a training course,

It helps you rationalise whether you are being reasonable and focus much more on the moment to try to be effective in what you are doing and avoid the chain reactions you are generating.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/consumer-health/in-depth/mindfulness-exercises/art-20046356

I would do some research into it if you are interested. It isn't trivial to learn and requires some self discipline to apply but the results were so worth it for me.

That was my experience / soution - I hope it is of use.

Thank you so much. Can I learn this by myself? Not require any outside assistance? I will definitely try, I have gone through so many anxiety workbooks out of desperation

Thank you so much. Can I learn this by myself? Not require any outside assistance? I will definitely try, I have gone through so many anxiety workbooks out of desperation

Yeah I found the CBT side a bit hard to put into practice so gave up.

Mindfulness however is a game changer like you say, very useful. They used a lot of grounding techniques on there that I found helpful.

Another Autistician said:

Mindfulness came up in the NHS online therapy (silver cloud??) , that and also a heavy focus on CBT.

I don't believe CBT is the process by which all courses tech pupils to learn the skills however - it will work for many of the neurotypicals (which I guess is why they use it) so I would look for a course aimed at neurodivergents.

Mindfulness came up in the NHS online therapy (silver cloud??) , that and also a heavy focus on CBT.

I'm not sure about CBT, that cycle of 123 for many of us often go 8,5,2,1,3!  so it doesn't always work. But mindfulness was a big key takeaway for me from that, which you can then use to interrupt a cycle or pattern that you know you're going around.

Finding a way recognise when things don't feel right, to stop, asses yourself and calmly (ISH) work out what's going on, rather than just reacting to emotions and hormonal responses, which are often totally wrong, has helped me a huge amount. 

On the minus side I'm probably way too self analytical now, but I can slowly reign that back in.

MrsPickles said:

Can I learn this by myself?

There should be courses you can do online via sites like Udemy etc - but the most effective way would be with the help of a therapist if you can afford it (in my opinion).

If you can find some of these for free or on trial and give them a go then I would see if I am able to handle the basics.

The reason I say that is I see time and again here that autists seem to have real problems in taking action to educate themselves and apply that education, whether for mindfulness, rules of socialisation or whatever.

Many clain they "don't get it" - I'm starting to realise that in spite of many of us being above average in intelligence we are not necessarily able to apply this.

I'm not an expert in why but don't beat yourself up if you find it really hard going. It took me a few months of practice to get competent in just the basics but I did it on my own by trusting the books I was using even if I didn't understand all the psychology behind it.

This was over 30 years ago and I don't recall the book name I'm afraid.