Navigating ADHD and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria with Jessica Summers
Today I’m talking with Jessica Summers, a seasoned hypno-psychotherapist and the mind behind Hypnogenics. Jessica brings a unique blend of hypnotherapy and intuitive coaching, specifically tailored for individuals grappling with ADHD, autism, and high sensitivity. With her dual expertise in hypno-psychotherapy and energy coaching, Jessica has become a beacon for those seeking alternative therapeutic approaches.
Now, I know the idea of hypnotherapy is not for everyone, and while traditional use of hypnotherapy is not specifically targeted for ADHD, it has been used to manage symptoms associated with ADHD, such as anxiety and stress management. So there's less direct research on hypnotherapy solely for ADHD symptom management, but it may help improve focus, reduce impulsivity, and enhance executive function through relaxation and stress reduction techniques - all stuff we’ll get into during the conversation. I just wanted to make sure I was up front about everything and didn’t want anyone to feel like I was being misleading with where there science currently stands.
But really, the episode has a lot of focus on rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD), and while I know there are a lot of people who really resonate with this topic, it is again something that does not have a ton of research behind it yet. In the conversation, we explore this through the lens of the limbic system and how managing this brain region can profoundly impact ADHD symptoms and how we can work on helping deal with those RSD symptoms as well.
I got a lot out of this conversation and felt Jessica’s perspective was enlightening, offering actionable advice and novel therapeutic options that could lead to a bit more balance to your ADHD treatment.
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William Curb: Welcome to Hacking Your ADHD. I'm your host, William Curb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
Hey team, today I'm talking with Jessica Summers, a seasoned hypnotherapist and the mind behind hypnogenics. Jessica brings a unique blend of hypnotherapy and intuitive coaching specifically tailored for individuals grappling with ADHD, autism, and high sensitivity. With her dual experience in hypnotherapy and energy coaching, Jessica has become a beacon for those seeking alternative therapeutic approaches. Now, I know this idea of hypnotherapy is not for everyone, and while the traditional use of hypnotherapy is not specifically targeted for ADHD, it has been used to manage symptoms associated with ADHD such as anxiety and stress management fairly well.
So while there is less direct research on hypnotherapy solely for ADHD symptoms, it may be able to help with improved focus, reduced impulsivity, and enhancing executive function through relaxation and stress reduction techniques. I just wanted to make sure that I was upfront about everything and I didn't want anyone to feel like I was being misleading about where the science currently stands here. And really, this episode is a lot more focused on rejection-sensitive dysphoria, or RSD. And while I know there are a lot of people out there who really resonate with this topic, it is again something that does not have a ton of research behind it quite yet.
In the conversation, we explore this through the lens of the limbic system and how managing this brain region can profoundly impact ADHD symptoms and how we can work on helping deal with those RSD symptoms as well. I got a lot out of this conversation and felt like Jessica's perspective was enlightening, offering actionable advice and novel therapeutic options that could lead a little bit more balance into your ADHD treatment. If you'd like to follow along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackingyourADHD.com/220
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William Curb: Can you tell me a little bit about hypnotherapy and especially in regard to ADHD because there's always that gap between what you've kind of heard about and what reality is?
Jessica Summers: Yeah, and I have a lot to say about hypnotherapy and ADHD and some of it might surprise you. So I'm part of a really amazing directory in the UK called Hypnotherapy Directory. And they do not have a search term to look up on their directory for a symptom for ADHD. And I asked them why? Why don't you have a search term to look up ADHD? They said, not enough people are looking for it. We only put things on that a lot of people are looking for. And I was absolutely shocked by this, surprised and interested as well.
William Curb: Like if people don't know it's an option to look for, then they're not going to be looking for it. So it's kind of one of those things where people are like, yeah, girls don't like playing video games. And that's why we keep them in the Boy aisle. And girls are like, well, they're a boy toy because they're in the Boy aisle. And it's like, oh, once you kind of break people like get that out and like, oh, now people understand like it's just for everyone. And I can imagine like this, people like, oh, I don't know that this is something I can use this for.
Jessica Summers: Exactly. And I talked to my supervisor about this. He was surprised too. But he said, I do see a lot of ADHD clients, but I see them for anxiety, relationship issues. They're seeing me for symptoms of the ADHD, but they're not necessarily seen someone comprehensively for the symptoms of ADHD. And I think it works absolutely brilliantly with ADHD for a few reasons. So the first one is that it's gentle. It's not a pressured situation. And for hypnosis and it's hypnotherapy really to work with ADHD. There has to be other elements along with it. So there needs to be behavioral things. There maybe needs to be changes in how your brain is processing things and help with that and practice.
But hypnotherapy makes things a lot easier to do that because I don't know about you, William, but I can find it hard to sustain practice for various things. You know, I can resist that quite a bit and find it difficult to remember. And hypnotherapy can really help with that. And basically, some people have a negative idea about hypnotherapy because everybody's seen those stage hypnotists in the UK. We have Darren Brown, you know, and they feel like they're going to lose their control. Now, I've noticed that a lot of my clients who came to me were actually, you know, control freaks. They did not want me to be directed.
They wanted two things. They wanted me to make it all better with the magic wand, but please don't control me. Now, the way to deal with this is hypnotherapy is fantastic because it doesn't have to be that kind of controlled situation where I'm controlling you. What we do is we utilize naturally occurring trance states that you have every day, you know, like if you're sat on a bus or a train and you're looking out the window and you disappear. Sometimes even when you're driving the car, you can get to your place, but you don't remember how you got there.
That's a naturally occurring trance state and it actually happens like maybe 400 times a day. So we can use those to gently put suggestions in that like you're feeling calmer. We can also help you develop your executive function by exercising it in a trance state. So using that part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, to help exercise it and strengthen that. So it's fantastic for lots of things, not in isolation, but as part of a whole package for ADHD.
William Curb: Okay. Yeah. So not as a replacement for any other kind of therapy, but just as an addition to.
Jessica Summers: Well, I'm going to say the thing is, like we had this conversation about hypnotherapy, hypno-psychotherapy. My certificate is in hypno-psychotherapy and you will find a lot of hypnotherapists these days have a grounding in psychotherapy. They have a grounding in NLP and are psychotherapists and you can get everything you need from that hypnotherapist if they're really well trained.
William Curb: What is NLP?
Jessica Summers: Neuro-linguistic programming.
William Curb: Can you tell me a little bit about that too?
Jessica Summers: So NLP looks at how we code our experience. So for example, I'll tell you about something I did with a client yesterday. We looked at how she saw her past. I asked her where is it? And she said, well, it seems to be sort of off to my left. And what does it look like? Well, it's one cube with a moving video. I mean, it's crazy, isn't it? You wouldn't think you could see that she wasn't in a trance state. But when you ask people to look, they're looking where around them, they're visualizing things. And so we moved it, we changed it, we played with it and her experience changed.
She let me know today from that. And that's what I really like about it. That's just one small example of what you can do. But what I really like about it is, there doesn't have to be a loss of control. You're very active, you're not in a trance state. And it's very interactive. And actually, this client fed back to me, she said, I really enjoyed that because I was fully engaged, my attention was engaged, I wasn't having to relax, I was zoned out. So it's really great.
William Curb: Are there people that works better for worse for because I kind of have like, from what I've seen about like, the stage hypnosis, like there's very specific people that they're looking for where you're not trying to do the same kind of thing here. But I can imagine there are people that are more or less susceptible.
Jessica Summers: Yes, definitely. And I think that's why it's really important that a hypnotherapist has access to many, many different types of trance induction. So there was like the godfather of hypnotherapy from the 1950s, Milton Erickson, he could say a few words in a certain way, and you would alter your state of awareness. So he could just say something and there you would be in a trance state. And not in the kind of state where you lose control. There's also someone else, Michael Yapco, who really worked on using different trance states. So if you're looking for deep hypnosis, yes, there are only certain people for whom that will happen. But hypnotherapy is much, much more than that.
William Curb: If someone was looking to do hypnotherapy for their ADHD, what kind of issues would you expect to see people coming for? And like, what do you think like the best areas that you could particularly help with are?
Jessica Summers: It's kind of difficult to answer that question separately from what I do, because what I do is like this whole thing that also includes the limbic system. And I think that's kind of jumping ahead. But for someone got to see another hypnotherapist, things that you could go to them for will definitely be for help with anxiety, because our nervous systems are so keyed up. When you begin to work with calming your whole system down, then that has a knock and effect in all of your life. It's really good for relationships as well for managing your emotions. And I'm a bit biased. I think it's pretty good for everything.
William Curb: The way we think about the world is often how we experience the world. And so I like the saying that you don't have to believe everything you think. So that means, yeah, you can, I can experience the world a bit differently if I work on how I'm thinking about it.
Jessica Summers: Yeah, exactly. If we reframe our thinking, and yeah, we need to go through our lives reframing our thinking. But it really helps to have hypnotherapy where you receive those suggestions on a deep level that really help remind you to reframe as you go about your day. It's not so difficult. It's not an uphill struggle. Yeah.
William Curb: So you're trying a bit how your method differs and you are mentioning the limbic system and stuff. How about we go a bit off into that direction?
Jessica Summers: Yeah, sure. So how I'm working now came about by a rather unpleasant accident or event. I had a soft rope for three days, went to bed for one, it was nothing, you know, and got up and I thought, I'm okay. Went about my business for seven days. And after that, I couldn't get out of bed. And I had all sorts of personality changes, extreme fatigue, dizziness, all kinds of things. And then eventually realized that it was post-viral syndrome or post-viral fatigue. I didn't really know what to do.
So I began researching and looking up about limbic dysregulation. And I got helped out by someone who, you know, gave me a clue in that direction and said, this could be this, you might want to look into it. And I began then to retrain my limbic system, which basically meant understanding how it works, relaxing it, because I realized it had been on high alert pretty much my whole life, but it had got a lot worse in those recent months.
And I still do my practice every day. And but what I noticed was that when the limbic response, which was high anxiety and sort of shaking feeling, sinking feeling, deep shame of reacting to everything, I thought, this is a lot like RSD. And when it stopped happening, when it started working the brain retraining, and then episodes would come and it would come back, I realized, oh, wow, I've actually been living without something I've had my whole life. And well, I began to understand my own work in a different context.
I've always developed my own work within my practice. And I began to realize why what I do works with people, because it's actually beginning to override the limbic system so people can achieve things. Because the limbic system is part of the nervous system, and its job basically is to keep us safe from threats.
Yeah, is to protect us from a life or death threat. And it's not meant to help you run your relationships. It's no good at that. It's not meant to help you in your job. It can't do it. But it's beginning to step in and take over our lives because it feels under threat. And it's seeing everything around it as an increasing threat. So I've begun to include that work and what I do. And it has really quite an impact on ADHD and RSD in particular.
William Curb: Yeah, and I think RSD is the place we wanted to go to next. It's something I know many people have heard about, but they might not know what it is. So could you give me just a quick rundown of RSD?
Jessica Summers: Yeah, because I didn't know what it was either. And it's important we do now if you experience these symptoms. So rejection sensitivity dysphoria is an extreme shame response to outside triggers and also inside triggers. So I'll explain what I mean by that. If you have ever sent a text and then the person did not respond, and you began to catastrophize, what have I done wrong? Are they not talking to me?
Maybe I should send another message or an eye roll in the office. Somebody rolls their eyes at you or even smaller, you're just speaking to them and they look at their watch while they look away. And you begin to have the severe episode of shame. That's RSD, rejection sensitivity dysphoria. But it's also an internalized experience. You can trigger an episode of RSD by thinking about things. But by your own thoughts can trigger rejection.
You can reject yourself, which is something I don't see a lot of people talking about. And I also wonder very much, and there's woefully little research on RSD, I wonder very much whether men and women have different experiences of RSD the same as with autism. It's very different experiences.
William Curb: Yeah. The RSD is different from normal, because no one likes to have the rejection things or see people ignore any of those things. This is just a outsized response to what you would expect to someone being checking their watch or it's not just a normal level of what you would want or expect experience in those situations.
Jessica Summers: Yeah, that's a really good point. It's physically painful. It's almost as if you have another sense that other people don't have, another sense that you can feel pain in and it's incredibly uncomfortable and incredibly distracting and absorbing. You can miss work for this, for sure, from one small trigger. So we're talking about that level of severity. It's not like social anxiety either. You can be very confident in social situations, but a trigger can send you into this tailspin whereby you can be debilitated by it.
William Curb: I also appreciate you talking about how it needs more research because it's not yet a recognized condition, but it's important to also acknowledge people's lived experiences and stuff. So it's both important to get more research, understand it better because there are a number of other conditions that could have not the exact symptoms, but with the anxiety disorders, yeah, that people can have these things where they're very oversized in response to the rejection, but it's different as you were saying because it's like, yeah, you can be comfortable in social situations, but also have this happen.
Jessica Summers: Yes. And that's a really good point about diagnosis because this doesn't just happen to people with ADHD. It can be people who don't have a neurological kind of disorder going on. They can just, they can have RSD. It can exist in lots of other situations. And although you could say, yeah, there's somebody with an anxiety disorder, I'm not a scientist. Okay. I'm a therapist, but I very much wonder if those people did limbic retraining and were aware of it, how their symptoms would change. So looking at what the root cause of all anxieties are and if that would change it, I think across the board being aware of limbic health can have a massive impact on a lot of conditions and it certainly won't hurt them.
William Curb: Yeah, because I was interested when you were saying how you're talking about RSD in the limbic system and could you expand on that a little bit and like, what did you mean by that?
Jessica Summers: It meant that I had words to put to what was happening to me because I followed a program to help me reeducate my limbic system and to repair my limbic system. And so when it was no longer hyped up, I could recognize when a response was, ah, there's my limbic system setting off, releasing cortisol into my system. Okay. And that gave me a means of understanding what was happening when I was having a severe reaction to rejection, the same thing, it wasn't any different. It was a fight, flight, freeze, stress response. And so it can be treated in the same way, not exactly the same. It needs other things.
William Curb: Yeah, because I can imagine what are the things I was thinking about with RSD too is it's what I'd love to see from research is seeing if this is kind of more of a learned response because we have this very understanding that ADHD gets overcorrected a lot of things and can create a lot of the sensitivity or if it's something that some people are just kind of predisposed to experience.
Jessica Summers: Yeah, I totally agree. I think personally, each person is going to be a unique tapestry of those things. And what I do really is try and cover all of those angles. And it manages to be quite person centered because that person gets to choose what they're going to work on with that limbic response. Because we can't fully know the root cause of this. And it's certainly not again, it's not another magic wand where you retrain your limbic system. And it's like, you're going to be able to manage life without any problems. Those are the work that needs doing.
But the important point is, and this is what I found, that the other work, the therapy, the behavioral techniques that you might apply to yourself, I think people with ADHD are incredibly resourceful and that way in resilient, they will keep trying and keep trying. But the thing to remember is they have a much better chance of working if your stress levels are not persistently through the roof. So that's why it's really important to start with learning a sense of safety in the body before you move on to the mind.
William Curb: Yeah. We do think of this like separation between mind and body, but it is the mind is part of the body and so, and we know with our ADHD symptoms that it's very hard to split our concentration on a lot of things. And so having just one more thing that's constantly pulling at our ability to concentrate would be make everything else harder. So kind of hitting the dominoes in the right way so that it makes things easier to hit the next one.
Jessica Summers: Yes. And I think that's something I've been really passionate about in my work from the beginning is what is at the very root that we can change that will have the most effect on those symptoms. So I like to think of it like a plant. You might have a flower that's growing in the ground and the petals are wilted and the leaves are brown and we could choose to focus on those leaves and try and figure out how to help them or we could look at the petals and what's going on there if they've got some blight on. But the first thing we should do is check the soil. Is the soil okay? Is it in the right spot? What is the most basic thing you can do? And then from there, you know what needs dealing with and what actually can just be helped by some holistic approach.
William Curb: One of the books I like referencing on the show is called The One Thing. It's what's called the focusing question, which is like what's the one thing I can do such by doing it. Everything else would be easier or unnecessary. And that sounds like kind of like what this approach is where you're like, let's keep asking this question of like what would make this easier until you get, okay, I'm at this root area and if I do this, then I don't have to worry about these next steps quite as much.
Jessica Summers: Exactly. I suppose another example is the body and if the immune system is compromised, I think Western medicine can focus on it on each single ailment. But if your immune system is compromised, none of those things are going to work. And if you strengthen the immune system, a lot of them will go away. So that's another analogy. And that book I've heard of it and I haven't read it, but that's now on my list.
William Curb: The book's great, but it's really just that one question where I'm like, yeah, that's all you kind of need. It could have been a PDF and just had that phrase on it. I guess with that in mind, how would people kind of go about figuring out if the limbic system is something they need to focus on?
Jessica Summers: I think if you recognize the symptoms of RSD for yourself, which is hyper-arousal really and feeling of overprotectiveness. So you're avoiding things, that's some of the symptoms that you're going to be avoiding things in your life. So in your work, you might find that you are really wanting to push yourself and challenge yourself and you frequently try, but you always pull back or you're not supported by yourself. You don't feel safe enough to do it. So you're a little bit torn because there are some people who stay in a safe position all their lives, but they're happy with that. Are you happy with that? Or do you constantly wish you were somewhere else? That's a sign that your limbic system is protecting you from where you want to go. So that's one thing.
William Curb: And then is this something that they should definitely try and be seeing a professional for or is this something that people can kind of work on on their own too?
Jessica Summers: I think that there is not enough of that out there. I think it's out there for specific things. For example, the program I did to get over Long COVID post-viral fatigue was a fantastic program by somebody called Annie Hopper DNRS Dynamic Neuro-Retraining System. I highly recommend it with a little warning. Her work is miraculous, but it is aimed at people who have got such severe sensitivities to, for example, perfumes and things in the environment, they're unable to leave the house or people who've been paralyzed, tachycardia, things like this.
And the reason I'm saying this is it takes such a lot of dedication to do it to the level that you need to do it, like an hour a day of practicing massive retraining of the brain all in one go. You have to be desperate, I think, to be able to do that. And I think generally people with ADHD would struggle with that level of commitment. And so that's why I say it is out there. So it's specifically tailored towards different kinds of conditions, but nobody's doing it for ADHD, which is very frustrating. And really, my work has come out with that I haven't found anyone who is doing this work for RSD and ADHD, and I think they could.
William Curb: Yeah, because I think, like, while RSD is not formally recognized as a condition yet, it's partially just, it comes from there's not research there, and there's not research there because there's not enough of like a ground swell of people talking about it where their researchers feel like this is something they should focus their efforts on.
Jessica Summers: Yes. And I think it's quite, it has a very silencing experience on the people who are talking about it, because there's almost this attitude that, oh, not another diagnosis, what, you know, an eye roll and not another diagnosis, not another excuse. That's what I get from people, not another label. But the thing is, until it is recognized, we don't have a voice to talk about our experiences. Now, as an autistic woman, I know what that feels like. It's only in later years that people have begun to speak about my experiences. And I go, Oh, wow, I recognize that.
And the relief and the emotion that comes up when that happens is just off the charts. And I care very much that people are listened to about this. There's people out there living lives in extreme pain. That's what RSD is. It's there are good moments where you don't experience it, but it's continual pain. And it should be taken seriously, it should be listened to, and it should be given a voice. So that's what I'm trying to do.
William Curb: And that's the thing with chronic conditions is like, people are like, how are you doing all this when you say you have this chronic condition? It's like, because I wouldn't do anything otherwise. It's something like, I have good days and I have bad days. And this is not me saying that I have any of these chronic conditions is just my understanding of like, yeah, you have good days, you have bad days, and you just kind of have to live with it if there's nothing you can do. And so it's really important that we try and figure out things that we can do.
Jessica Summers: Yes, exactly. We don't want to make this a reason for not trying. And I think that's that's the fear I often try to figure out what people are feeling and thinking when they say, oh, everybody's getting diagnosed with ADHD at the moment, don't you think? And I realize it's the fear that it's an excuse that we are being given a free pass where they have to do things the hard way. And it's a misunderstanding really, because we're not being given a free pass and people who are experiencing this try so hard every single day to live a normal life. I think we're a bunch of resilient people who are pretty good at keeping going.
William Curb: Yeah, it's the same argument that people have for like, everyone's a little ADHD and it's like, well, everyone can experience symptoms of ADHD, but ADHD is a condition where this is at both home, work, play, all these things you experience, all those symptoms, and it's the severity and the chronic nature of the conditions. It's not just like one time I forgot my key, it's that if I don't have a specific place that I put my keys, I will never know where they are. Or like when I was in college and I lost my keys for four months. And I just figured I had already replaced my keys a couple of times. And so I just figured out the patterns of people coming in and out of my building and didn't lock my dorm room door, because I was like, I could just get in and out real clean to leave this way. And I don't have to get my keys done for the third time and have them go through that process. It's so easy for people to dismiss experience they don't have themselves.
Jessica Summers: Yes, exactly. And I just want to offer some solidarity there and be a little vulnerable. I came down to my office this evening only to find I'd left my computer at home. So drove back and got it. But that's the normal part of my life. I'm used to that and I have a sense of humor about that. And I also want to say that ADHD is all of those things. But the thing I find the difference between people with ADHD and people who say, oh, I'm a little bit ADHD. It's our relationship with ourselves that's very different. It's that feeling of being other and being different and not getting it. And I think that's the genuine article.
William Curb: Yeah, it was funny when I got my diagnosis, my psychiatrist that I went through the process with like, well, so do you think you have ADHD? And I'm like, I don't know, is this not how everyone's brain works? I just assumed that I was bad at being a person and that that's what was going on. Like, oh, if something, this is not just a character flaw, this is something that's going on.
Jessica Summers: Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head. It's not just a character flaw. And I think I want to I want to bring our SD back at that time and say, I think that is the biggest thing where we feel that I'm flawed as a person. Because we got to be honest, some of the symptoms of RSD are not pleasant. A lot of people don't really want to talk about this. They don't want to say that they got it. I get lots of messages. Quiet ones saying thank you for saying what you're saying. Thank you for talking about this. I've suspected this for a long time.
But it can mean behaving like a child. That's how it kind of comes across sometimes that petulance, sulking, withdrawal, snapping at the people we love the most. It ain't pretty. You know, that's the other side of it. I've talked about the shame it's an eye roll. But also, there's pushing people away because we're afraid that they want lovers enough, there's sabotaging relationships before we get left. So you start to sabotage when things get rocky or things get difficult because you think, well, they're not going to want me anyway. The risk is just too great. It is a difficult thing to live with.
William Curb: Yeah. And then it's the internal dialogue there too, when you're doing these things and you can see yourself doing them and being like, I shouldn't be doing this, but I can't stop.
Jessica Summers: Yes. I find that I'm a therapist. I have all these tools and I'm certainly much, much better at handling myself these days because I work on myself extensively. But it doesn't seem to be related. And I want to say this because there is this argument that RSD is a lack of skills. Well, I'm pretty skilled up and I'm pretty emotionally literate and it is not connected with that. It's good that I can be aware of that, that I can be aware that I am those things. I can be very patient, I can be very calm. But if something in particular has triggered me, then, you know, that's it, I would lose it. And so it's not a skill problem.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, I guess with that in mind, if people are experiencing RSD, how is that something that is not a skill problem, but is there then avenues that they can start approaching to try and help themselves so that they're not dealing with this so much?
Jessica Summers: One of the best ways that you can do that is to tell yourself either during or after, okay, this is not who I am. This is something I'm experiencing and to really begin to think about it in those terms. Yeah. To begin to say to yourself, I am not weak. I need not feel ashamed, but I do have to do something. This sounds like nothing much. It's actually massive. So I did a LinkedIn live a while ago, whilst having an episode of RSD. I said very calmly, said my name and said, I'm experiencing a prolonged episode of RSD.
And that not to do a LinkedIn live, I don't recommend that for everybody. But to separate that from yourself, because then you can begin to work on it. So the other thing that you can start to do is that you can begin to talk to your limbic system. This is such a simple thing. So our limbic system, I don't feel people need to know tons and tons about it. I think we can get obsessed with researching and finding as much information about it as we can.
But we need to start doing things that will work and that will help it. And one of the things is to separate from it so you don't let it become you. And I like to think of it as a dog that has been badly treated. And when a dog is badly treated, it is looking for protection. Your limbic system is no different.
And many people have had many difficulties throughout their life. And so what you need to do is stand it down and say, Hey, you know, you've done a good job, you've done a great job, but I don't need you right now. And just to say those words, you can stand down now, I've got this because like a dog, it needs strong boundaries, it needs to be told what to do. Okay, you can calm down now. And then it begins to relax.
William Curb: It's a maladaptive response to what's going on. It's designed to help you, but it's not I kind of think of my brain being very dumb and doing things like, this is the solution to me by that's not the solution, buddy. And it's like, I can see why you think that's what we should be doing. But that's, let's calm down and figure this out in a way that's going to be beneficial for both of us.
Jessica Summers: Well, you're already an expert at this, William, you know, what you're doing actually, and this is part of what I do in my program is you're actually becoming the voice of the prefrontal cortex. You're, you're speaking as that part of the brain, you've become the person who's rational and separated yourself into those parts. And so the other thing that that voice that you've just spoken can do, it can begin to say neutral truths to the limbic system response. So I'll give you an example. If you are having like this severe response, and like say you're panicking about something, oh, I don't want to do this because I'm only going to fail and, and you know, you're going into a spiral and catastrophizing.
What we habitually do, this is a typical response is we will say either, yes, this is too hard, I can't do this. And then there'll be a lot of shame. I'm useless. I should have done that. I need to try harder. That's what the voice will say. Or we will push ourselves. You need to fight this. You need to think of a solution. You've got to get through this. Okay. Both of those ways of dealing with it will intensify this limbic stress response. So what we need to do is find a neutral statement and say, yes, new things can feel a bit uncomfortable sometimes. Oh, nothing to argue with. Okay. Growing can sometimes be hard. Yeah, can. And it provides a sense of relaxation.
William Curb: Yeah, I often find just acknowledging like, this is hard. This is, I don't want to do this, is such a great way to like approach my ADHD because pretending otherwise isn't really helpful.
Jessica Summers: Yeah, it causes a lot of stress and we make ourselves wrong. That's not a comfortable place to be.
William Curb: Yeah. Well, yeah. And if I'm like, I'm having trouble like getting activated on a task and I'm like saying, well, this is super easy. I should just be able to do it. That's putting so much judgment on myself about why I'm not doing it and making it just even harder to activate then because I'm like, I should just do this. And I'm like, that's not a solution. That's hand-waving away any of the difficulties I'm having.
Jessica Summers: And I think many of us are like master ADHD as well. We've forced our way through it. I know I have. I've forced myself when I was younger to do difficult things and just kind of shut myself down so I could do it. And the text of toll on your body and it's far better. And I think that's part of the reason why we don't acknowledge, yes, this is going to be challenging for me. I have different needs, different abilities. I need to do things differently. Like I've had a lifetime of doing things the same way as everybody else I'm pushing through. And it's a new skill to learn to actually say, okay, I need to take my time with this or I need to come back to this. I can't work in this way. I need to work in a different way.
William Curb: Well, I've had a great time talking right now. Are there some final thoughts you'd love to leave the audience with?
Jessica Summers: Yes, I would like to really remind people out there that you're not wrong. If you have experienced episodes that you feel ashamed of, it's not you personally. It's a response that you can change and that I know that you will change. And that's so important to know.
William Curb: Awesome. And if people want to find out more about you and your work, where should they go?
Jessica Summers: So they can go to my website, which is www.jessicaSummershypnogenics.com. And I have a quiz on there, which is not a diagnostic tool, but I think it's really important to identify whether you're likely to have RSD because once you can identify that, you can start thinking about yourself differently and giving yourself a break.
William Curb: Awesome. Well, I'll have that in the show notes and I'm sure a lot of people are going to be interested in exploring this more because there's just not enough of stuff about RSD out there yet. So thank you for taking the time and thank you for the work you do with RSD.
Jessica Summers: Thanks, William. I've had an absolute blast.
William Curb: Thanks again to Jessica for coming on the show and thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end. Before you go though, let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips. One, rejection-sensitive dysphoria, RSD, is an intense emotional reaction to a perceived or actual rejection, criticism or failure, often experienced as a sudden and overwhelming shame, panic or sadness. It's not just discomfort with projection, it's a limbic system-driven response that can feel physically painful and can lead to avoidance, emotional outbursts or withdrawal. Two, we can think of the limbic system as the emotional and threat processing part of the brain.
It's responsible for detecting danger and activating the fight, flight or freeze response. But for people with ADHD, and especially those experiencing RSD, that system often gets stuck on high alert. Three, when thinking about working on retraining your limbic system, understand that it isn't a quick fix and that it can take dedicated, intense work that isn't always ADHD friendly. You can start by focusing on working on using gentle daily practices to create safety in your body, working on understanding your nervous system and offering yourself neutral truths instead of judgments, such as, new things can feel uncomfortable sometimes, but that's okay.
The goal isn't to override the response with willpower, it's to help your brain feel safe enough to listen. Alright, that's it. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode. Feel free to connect with me over at hackingyouradhd.com slash contact, or you can find me on Blue Sky @hackingyouradhd. If you'd like links or to read this episode's transcript, you can go to the show notes page at hackingyouradhd.com slash 220.
I'd also like to remind you that this episode was brought to you by Freedom. This is the kind of partnership that has always made sense to me because the best partners come from products that I've already been using for years, products that I trust. And while there are a lot of apps out there that can help block out distraction on the web, Freedom has always been hands down the best one I've ever used. And it's the reason I bought a lifetime membership already. That's right, they can't even tempt me with free premium because I'm already a lifetime member. With just a few clicks, I can block distracting websites and apps across all my devices, ensuring that my focus stays on what I really want to. Whether I'm working on a new podcast episode or deep diving into research, Freedom's comprehensive blocking capabilities let me tailor what I'm focused on. It's one of those tools that I can set and well, not exactly forget because when I try and log on to one of those blocked websites like Blue Sky or Reddit, the site will be blocked and I'll get the message, you're free, enjoy this moment. Which is a great reminder because generally my initial reaction is ugh, but I was trying to procrastinate.
But because those distractions are blocked, I get to move on and follow through with what I was actually intending on doing. Freedom is available for free with basic features but also has a premium subscription option which unlocks more advanced features like scheduling, locked mode and unlimited sessions. If that sounds like something you're interested in, you can use code ADHD40 at checkout to get 40% off a Freedom yearly premium subscription, but feel free to try out the basic version first. So go check it out at freedom.to and discover what you can achieve when you truly have the freedom to focus. That site again is freedom.to code ADHD40.
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And now for your moment of dad. What's Forest Gump's password? one forest one!
This Episode's Top Tips
Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is an intense emotional reaction to perceived or actual rejection, criticism, or failure, often experienced as sudden and overwhelming shame, panic, or sadness. It’s not just discomfort with rejection—it’s a limbic-driven response that can feel physically painful and can lead to avoidance, emotional outbursts, or withdrawal.
We can think of the limbic system as the emotional and threat-processing part of the brain — it’s responsible for detecting danger and activating the fight, flight, or freeze response. But for people with ADHD (and especially those experiencing RSD), that system often gets stuck on high alert.
When thinking about working on retraining your limbic system understand that it isn’t a quick fix and that it can take dedicated, intense work that isn’t always ADHD friendly. Focus on working using gentle, daily practices to create safety in your body, working on understanding your nervous system, and offering yourself neutral truths instead of judgment (such as “New things can feel uncomfortable sometimes”). The goal isn’t to override the response with willpower — it’s to help your brain feel safe enough to listen.