Being sensitive can feel overwhelming at times, especially with RSD and double empathy. This is my raw journey toward understanding and healing.
Double Empathy (communication and empathy difficulties between autistic and non-autistic or neurotypical individuals) and RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria characterized by intense emotional pain in response to perceived or actual rejection, criticism, or failure in ADHD) together are like pulling the Joker card every time and being told to suck it up. Get over it.
Crazy making despair and worthlessness not to be understood. No matter how many times you twist and turn, pivot to rephrase, over explain, over share, leaving no details out with very direct communication so to avoid any possibility of misinterpretation.
Only to pull the Joker card again. To be shutdown. Dismissed. Misunderstood. The other controlling the outcome. Every time. And inside knowing you Lost again. Game Over. No more communication to be had. Told to ‘Go Fish’ somewhere else.
Left in a body of water with your own blood seeping out your open wounds and the enemy’s piranhas circling with no care they will devour you. Your blatant SOS flares ignored. A visual of religious trauma for you. No hiding behind double empathy to claim ignorance. God knows. Flares are a universal language. When you cast a victim out to die, your hands are not clean even if you keep silent. God sees straight to the heart.
Rejected. Dejected. Only to play the same game again and again like Ground Hog Day, a movie I personally hated. Probably the ADHD side of my brain literally frying over the monotony.
Experience this over a lifetime and you have full blown RSD. Now every miscommunication no matter how small, miniscule hurts like an open wound.
And because I have autistic hyper empathy, whenever my children experienced rejection, my RSD flared hot. Mama Bear on steroids with extra supercharged, genetically engineered, concentrated dose. I walked through motherhood feeling like I was being burned alive by relational rejections and injustices of my babies no matter how micro or large. Motherhood hurt a lot.
Yet, told you are too sensitive. How can all mothers not feel this level of pain over their children’s and how can they not try to avoid causing it in others by teaching theirs to have a shred of empathy for the love of God?
Of course, double empathy was not in my radar. I had never in my life heard of it. I had no language for any of it only coming to self realization through assessment and deep dives at almost half a century old. Living with severe RSD tacked onto my chronic untreated CPTSD from what I now know my AuDHD.
I can’t tell you the freedom that brought! Like a God-sized lightbulb going off in my brain. This is why you felt like a walking wound your whole life. Why motherhood hurt so bad every time your babies experienced similar hurts living in a neurotypical world and worse.
It doesn’t take away the pain, but it explains which helps my whole nervous system breathe, exhale, calm. Until the next flare from their lives now young adults, for which I finally have the language to tell myself and better access my grounding tools with my therapist’s help. The goal to eventually access more easily on my own.
In my little nuclear family, we all have a neurotype so double empathy was never an issue in our home. The family motto I drilled into our little family system since they were small: Life outside is harsh enough. We don’t tear each other down. At home we are safe. From rejection, fear, and being chronically misunderstood.
In our home, we do not experience double empathy, and now I know why. Being a family filled with different neurotypes and the challenges they bring also makes us super close in ways that we don’t in the world. For this, I am thankful for our collective neurodiversity.
For me, in my healing journey, I’ve had to make drastic changes for my mental health.
I have purged all my neurotypical relationships. I do not have a single intimate one. Not on purpose of course for that reason, but going No Contact with an entire former community of trauma stripped me bare.
And now, I have zero desire to replace them.
Not because they are all bad, or every relationship would end in double empathy trauma.
Because when you come from childhood trauma you naturally attract the toxic ones and these left me in chronic autistic burnout, shut down and CPTSD. I am reserving the very small energy reserve I have built from nothing for those I can completely be myself and be safe around. My traumatized nervous system of almost half a century requires I limit risk and unnecessary triggers that are inevitable to occur between me and a neurotypical. It’s not about grace. It’s about survival.
Your story may look completely different. And you may have a much higher energy reserve from positive pouring in from at least a few multiple safe places, or one really solid one in your childhood home. I really hope that for you.
One might think I am a recluse. Perhaps in a neurotypical definition I border.
But I assure you I am not. In recovery, I have removed myself from mainstream life.
I live with my husband, partner of 30 years and our rescue pets. I FaceTime my young adult children every day. And my whole being lights up. To be connected to them.
I removed all social media after the decision to go No Contact 21 months ago coming up on two years.
I use an anonymous account where I have joined two neurodivergent online community groups where I feel seen.
I listen to podcasts and audiobooks by other neurodiverse humans.
I have a neurodivergent therapist who gets me every time I open my mouth.
I do online pickup for groceries to avoid sensory overload and the uncomfortable social encounters that have no meaning or appeal. Conserving my energy for the relationships that matter – my little nuclear, growing family.
I attend and serve in a small, inclusive, neurodivergent friendly, affirming church that receives me, my gifts and my input in a completely different denomination from our trauma as I reconstruct my faith from the ground up. No longer looking for surrogates.
I boldly do faith in neurodivergent ways which is bringing me closer to the most important relationship I have on this earth and heaven: God.
Learning to see Him and myself through new eyes. Free from double empathy and trying to fit both of us in neurotypical approved boxes. Without apology. Restoring my faith.
Allowing only the cards that play not a perfect, but a fair game close to my heart. Without drawing Jokers. And, exiting without explanation when I do refusing to play with the cognitive dissonance of being misunderstood.
And, I have never felt more connected, been happier, more stable, or more at ease inside my own flesh, mind, heart, and soul.
And I will not change it for the world.
I am where I belong. Writing you. Connecting in ways and with others that honor my own being and my strengths while accepting my weaknesses rather than forcing these to change to accommodate others by dying to Self.
I now accommodate myself.
You deserve to take up space. To accommodate the exact way God made you on purpose, for purpose: this way.
The God who made you understands you. No double empathy.
You might not need to disintegrate your whole life and start from scratch like me. Discarding the whole deck of cards.
But you are worth discovering what works for you, and what does not.
Where you are seen and where you are not.
Where you are pursued to be understood, and where you are only drawing the Joker card that diminishes your worth.
It is your Life, the one God has given who knows all your needs and accommodations. And it doesn’t need to look like all the rest. Seek His help in figuring out how you can live happier, more stable, and at ease. And seek neurodiversity affirming counsel to help.
You are loved.
Love,
Raya
The Gentle Rise 