The Things We Assume Were Said
There are days lately where I walk out of a completely normal meeting convinced I’m failing.
Nothing actually went wrong.
But somewhere along the way, my brain translated it into:
that was a waste of their time
why is she even here
It doesn’t feel like a guess.
It feels like a conclusion.
Especially lately, I’ve started to wonder how many other people are feeling this.
Recently I came across a term that made me look at it differently.
It’s called rejection sensitive dysphoria.
I clicked through a comment, read a bit, and found myself pausing.
Not because it fit perfectly. It doesn’t.
But because parts of it felt uncomfortably familiar.
Things like:
Feeling anxiety before a possible rejection
Interpreting neutral interactions as negative
Reacting more strongly than the moment might warrant
I don’t think I have RSD.
But I do think I’m rejection sensitive.
And seeing it written down, even imperfectly, made me look at something I’ve mostly just accepted as part of how my brain works.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an inner critic.
A steady voice that fills in the blanks.
A voice that doesn’t wait for evidence.
If a reaction is neutral, it doesn’t stay neutral for long.
It becomes:
You’re failing.
That was a waste of their time.
Why are you even here?
I’ve learned to live with it.
Mostly by believing it less, or trying to outrun it with preparation and competence.
With my girls, we call it the inner critic.
And when it gets loud, the advice is simple.
Tell it to shut the frak up.
I am very good at giving that advice.
Less good at following it.
Lately, though, it’s been louder.
I moved into a new role, in a new space, where I don’t yet know the patterns.
Where I’m still building context.
Where it’s harder to read signals clearly.
Every conversation has a little more ambiguity than usual.
And ambiguity tends to get filled.
So my brain fills it.
A short response becomes disapproval.
A delayed reply becomes dismissal.
A neutral meeting becomes a referendum.
And then, layered on top of that, came the VRP news.
Which, if I’m being honest, my brain translated immediately into:
of course… they’re waiting for you to go
Not as a question.
As a conclusion.
The thing is, I don’t actually know that any of those thoughts are true.
But my body reacts as if they are.
That’s the part that’s harder to explain.
It’s not just a passing thought. It’s a full emotional response to a story that got written very quickly and very convincingly.
And until recently, I assumed everyone’s brain worked like this.
Or at least, I didn’t question that mine did.
Reading about rejection sensitivity didn’t fix anything.
But it did something smaller, and maybe more useful.
It gave me a little distance.
Instead of:
this is just how things are
It becomes:
this might be how I’m interpreting things
That’s not the same as being able to change it.
But it does make it more visible.
What I keep coming back to, though, isn’t just my own experience.
It’s the timing of it.
We’re in a moment where a lot of signals are genuinely hard to read.
Roles are shifting.
AI is reshaping how work is talked about.
Efficiency is being measured in new ways.
And for many of us, there’s some level of uncertainty sitting just under the surface.
Even if no one says it out loud.
In that kind of environment, it doesn’t take much for an already-sensitive pattern to get amplified.
Not because it’s accurate.
But because there’s just enough noise to make it feel plausible.
So I find myself wondering:
How many of us are walking around with this right now?
Taking neutral moments and quietly translating them into rejection.
Hearing criticism that was never spoken.
Assuming conclusions that were never actually reached.
And then reacting to those conclusions as if they were real.
I don’t have a clean resolution for this.
I still hear the voice.
I still believe it more often than I’d like.
But now, at least sometimes, I can notice it happening.
And occasionally, I can pause long enough to ask:
Is that what actually happened?
Or is that just the story my brain wrote to fill the silence?
Maybe the work right now isn’t eliminating the voice.
It’s recognizing when it’s narrating instead of observing.
If you’ve felt this too, you’re not as alone in it as it might seem.
Alison + Wiggins
I know this one well.