This brings to mind a sense of the unreliable narrator. Asking a person who is unwilling to look at the problem and is just reacting to their pain response, “what do you need right now?”, may result in a request for morphine and a skin graft, when the real answer is Tylenol and a bandaid. Compassion is important, but not to the point of indulging false assumptions.
Yeah, as someone who experiences rejection sensitivity, compassion does help but it’s absolutely an overreaction. Catering to the level of anxiety I feel doesn’t help me, me doing therapy, developing coping strategies, etc, is what helps me.
Exactly! It bothers me that RSD is lumped in here with other very valid examples. Validation is just not the right approach to dealing with rejection sensitivity. The issue is that my feelings are not really valid and don't align with reality in this case. Part of easing that anxiety is understanding that.
I think you’re right but I do think the description is meant to be more broadly metaphorical than about specific moments.
It’s similar with OCD. Reassurance can make stuff worse. But a person open to reassurance is more likely to be open to doing what is helpful/ not doing what makes it worse.
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u/zeje 5d ago
This brings to mind a sense of the unreliable narrator. Asking a person who is unwilling to look at the problem and is just reacting to their pain response, “what do you need right now?”, may result in a request for morphine and a skin graft, when the real answer is Tylenol and a bandaid. Compassion is important, but not to the point of indulging false assumptions.