You know the one.

You’re standing in the kitchen, wine glass in hand, fairy lights twinkling like they’re personally mocking you, and someone makes an offhand comment about your bread basket—“Oh, crescent rolls would’ve been fine”—and suddenly your nervous system hits the eject button.

In 0.2 seconds flat you’ve gone from “festive and fabulous” to “clearly I’ve been politely tolerated for years and everyone’s just waiting for me to leave so they can finally relax.”

If that sounds familiar—if the holidays feel less like a Nancy Meyer’s movie and more like an emotional minefield disguised as a gingerbread village—you might be dealing with Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD). And, it’s not you being dramatic. It’s your ADHD (or as I call it, VAST—Variable Attention Stimulus Trait) brain doing what it does best: turning tiny social breadcrumbs into a full-blown Hansel-and-Gretel-level tragedy.

The holidays are basically RSD’s Super Bowl. Shiny distractions everywhere, expectations piled higher than the presents under the tree, and every interaction loaded with invisible emotional tripwires. One wrong glance, one neutral comment, one “we don’t need anything fancy,” and boom—your chest caves in like you’ve been voted off the island by people who love you.

But I’m going to whisper a gentle secret to you: it’s not about being fragile. It’s about having a nervous system that treats perceived rejection like a five-alarm fire.

What RSD Actually Feels Like (Spoiler: Not Cute)

Everyone hates rejection. That’s human.

But for many of us with VAST brains, rejection doesn’t just sting—it detonates. It’s fast, physical, and ridiculously hard to turn off. A sudden drop in your stomach. Heat rushing to your face. That quiet internal collapse followed by three days of forensic replay: What did they mean by that? Why didn’t they include me? Am I actually the problem?

And the kicker? Half the time the “rejection” hasn’t even happened yet. We’re just rehearsing it in advance, like overachieving emotional stage managers.

Classic holiday flavors include:

• Obsessing over what to bring/wear/say
• Scripting conversations that will never occur
• Post-party debriefs that last longer than the party
• Avoiding gatherings entirely “just in case”
• Feeling crushed by comments other people forget five seconds later

Notice how much of this happens before anything has gone wrong? That’s the VAST brain’s special talent: preemptive heartbreak.

A Real-World Example: Julie

Let’s take Julie.

Julie prides herself on making family heirloom recipes. Food is how she shows care, creativity, and belonging. Her in-laws, however, don’t share that tradition. Every year, they ask her to bring something completely boring — usually bread.

This year, it landed especially hard. Not only did they ask her to bring bread, they asked for a specific croissant from a specific store, told her exactly how much it would cost, and offered to reimburse her.

That single request sent Julie into a quiet shame spiral.

I guess the bread basket I brought last year wasn’t received well.

The year before, Julie had decided: If I can only bring bread, I’ll bring the best bread basket that ever lived. She bought a special basket, lined it with Scotch-plaid cotton napkins, and filled it with breads from cultures around the world — babka, julekake, pan de Navidad, roscón de Reyes, breadsticks, ciabatta. Not to impress anyone. Just to bring something thoughtful into a room that often felt closed to her.

Later, someone casually said, “You know, crescent rolls would have been fine.”

Julie smiled. She said nothing.

But the wound didn’t come from croissants. It came from stacked meaning — years of interpretation suddenly clicking into place. That unprocessed pain showed up later, fueled by a few glasses of Pinot, as an epic car-ride blow-up on the way home from Christmas.

After being diagnosed later in life, Julie changed her approach. Now she brings the crescent rolls — and a side that makes her happy. She watches with genuine curiosity, and a little relief, at what happens next.

Another Example: Isabella

Isabella travels to Tahoe with her hopeful future husband to spend Christmas with his family. Every year, they take a family photo after Christmas Eve dinner.

Throughout the trip, Isabella is introduced several times as “a friend.” She initially brushes it off — assuming it’s about privacy, not rejection.

But when the family gathers for the photo and someone asks, “How are we going to get a picture of all of us?” the mother suddenly says, “I know — Isabella can take it.”

In that moment, every previous introduction rearranges itself into proof.

Isabella feels certain this means she is not wanted, not included, not family. What may or may not have been intentional registers as exclusion at a nervous-system level. Within weeks of returning to their shared apartment in Nashville, the relationship unravels, and Isabella moves to Colorado.

The Trap We’re Really Good At: Stacking

Here’s what Julie and Isabella have in common (and what so many of us do without realizing):

We stack.

We’re brilliant at rapidly gathering “evidence” to support the emotional verdict our brain just handed down: I’m not wanted. My efforts aren’t valued. I don’t belong here.

Once that verdict lands, every past moment reorganizes around it like perfectly obedient soldiers. Suddenly everything “proves” the case. And because we’re often high-IQ overthinkers, we build airtight arguments—against ourselves.

One Tiny Tool That Actually Helps (No Toxic Positivity Required)

You don’t have to fix the feeling. You don’t have to talk yourself out of it.

You just have to notice it.

In the middle of the spiral, pause—just for ten seconds—and ask:

What is my body reacting to right now?

That’s it.

That tiny shift from being the reaction to observing it creates breathing room. It doesn’t erase the emotion (thank God—we’re not robots), but it stops the autoplay on the disaster movie in your head.

Because here’s the truth: the slight might be real, or it might not. But hijacking your entire holiday over it? That’s optional.

Final Thought, From One Recovering Spiralista to Another

If you’re reading this and nodding a little too hard, you’re not weak. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not the problem at the family gathering.

You just have a brain that’s been running a very convincing drama series in the background for years—and now you get to change the channel.

This holiday season, bring the crescent rolls if you want. Bring the babka if you want. Or bring nothing and wear the good cashmere anyway.

You belong here. Full stop.

Even when your RSD tries to convince you otherwise.

Happy holidays!! You loook AMAZING! You’ve got this.

If this feels familiar, you’re not broken—and you’re not alone.
I created a short guide that explains why these loops happen and what actually interrupts them.

→ Read the Looping Guide

If you want personal support, you can also work with me directly or join the workshops starting in January.