I Made RSD My Main Character’s Flaw…But What Is It?

What is RSD?

As I’ve been posting bits and snippets about my characters from Project Royalty, you may have wondered what their flaws are. If you’ve seen my character profiles, the weaknesses vary from person to person. Today we’re going to talk about the weakness my main character, Caiden*, has. There’s a lot to get into, so let’s get started.

What Is RSD?

Caiden (and I!) have what is known as Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, or RSD. RSD happens when a person feels intense emotional pain related to failure. Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is different from rejection sensitivity: RSD tends to have bigger emotional reactions and takes longer to regulate. Simply speaking, people with RSD (including me!) have a really hard time with defeat, a harder time than most people.

RSD is also linked to ADHD and autism, and anywhere between 30-70% of people with ADHD also have heightened sensitivity or rejection-related pain. I didn’t know I had RSD until a few years ago, but once I learned about it, some of my struggles suddenly made complete sense.

People with RSD have a hard time with setbacks, and it’s not because we’re “anxious” or “sensitive”. Ever since I was little, I have felt things deeply. RSD just makes my fears of failure more prominent then they might already have been.

To break it down a little bit, I feel like I’m on alert constantly. I need consistent reassurance that I am not in trouble or a failure, and some of the ways I interact with family members and friends are impacted because of that.

Some of the things people with RSD deal with include:

• Overwhelming anger or sadness after failure or rejection (or perceived failure or rejection)

• Sudden mood swings

• Shame, humiliation, and self-blame

• Feelings of helplessness

• Constant fear and worry about what other people think

• Feelings of isolation or exclusion

These feelings and worries usually mean that I:

• Overanalyze people through their tone, facial expressions, gestures, or words

• Ruminate over mistakes

• Over-apologize (a lot)

• Feel overwhelmed or shut down after constructive feedback, even if it’s friendly

• Have low self esteem and negative self talk

• Am a people pleaser

• And a perfectionist

• And I’m often self-conscious

But it also means that:

• I have a lot of empathy

• I don’t want anyone to feel RSD the way I do, so I try to make life easier for my friends and family (this makes me feel mature!)

• I try to use the correct words to explain what I feel and what I need

• I’m REALLY good at the Golden Rule

• And I’m able to use my weakness for good

If this feels like a lot, I agree. RSD is very hard to mentally juggle, on top of constantly keeping track of deadlines, schedules, random pieces of paper, my glasses…you get the point. But this ALSO means it’s a great flaw for a character to have. And I actually gave some of these traits to my character before I had the words to explain what RSD is, which is pretty cool!

Caiden’s Flaw:

So how does this influence Caiden, my character?

Obviously RSD impacts different people in different ways, and Caiden, even though he’s fictional, has a different RSD experience than I do. My RSD tends to center around my deadlines and a bunch of other small triggers I have.

Caiden’s RSD revolves around an incident that happened when he was seven. His aunt and uncle were kidnapped, and he blames himself for not knowing what was going on and not helping them, even though he was only a child. The RSD was born out of that issue and the subsequent rejections he receives from his father, who is battling his own kind of grief.

Caiden’s RSD highlights the low self esteem and negative self talk of RSD, which he calls “a voice in his head”. The voice is always there, and that’s something that I’ve drawn on my own experience of RSD. Caiden also avoids responsibility because he is afraid of disappointing his father.

Of course, RSD is very hard to describe in a middle grade fantasy novel, but I feel like I am giving it justice. RSD varies from person to person, but in a way, Caiden’s RSD mirrors a lot of my own.

In Conclusion:

RSD is a condition that many people (especially with ADHD) have. We experience failure more deeply than most people do, but are often empathetic and better friends because of it.

RSD is not a disability and you can’t get diagnosed with it, since it’s not part of the DSM (the criteria that tests for ADHD, autism, and other “disorders”.). But it still impacts people and is important to learn about!

If you know someone with RSD, please know that we are doing the best we can. And everyone’s different, so take my experiences with a grain of salt!

Do you include real conditions or disabilities in your writing projects too? Let me know in the comment section below!

If you’d like to learn more about RSD, I found these resources really helpful:

• Understanding Rejection Sensitivity (RSD) in Autism and ADHD by Elizabeth Yuko (blog post)

• Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria by Cleveland Clinic (blog post)

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Would you like more writing resources? Check out My Writing Compilation Post!

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*all names have been changed for character privacy*

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