Show Notes
This episode discusses ADHD, rejection sensitivity, and mental health. It is educational and not a substitute for professional care. What if being "too nice" was never a personality flaw — but your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to stay safe? Everyone who loves Alice has told her the same thing: be more assertive! Nobody ever explained how. In this solo episode she chases down her million-dollar question — how a self-described self-sacrificer with ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria actually learns to speak up. Alice's reframe: people pleasing isn't a moral failing, it's trauma-driven behaviour. The link between ADHD and people pleasing runs through rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and masking — the quiet acceptance that turns "I guess I'll do the dishes" into years of swallowed resentment. She walks through what took her from being the roommate who never said a word to the woman who now asks a table to move over. She's clear she's not a psychologist, so this is the research talking: a 2024 study linking ADHD symptoms to higher rejection sensitivity, a finding that over 90% of adults with ADHD mask socially, a 2025 Lancet Psychiatry review on medication and emotional regulation, Russell Ramsay's work on perfectionism and emotional reasoning, Steven Hayes' acceptance work, and Marsha Linehan's DBT — including a line-by-line ride through the DEAR MAN script you can use in a hard conversation. Whether you've never once sent food back, or you're mid-recovery and still get the RSD flare-ups, this is a practical, research-backed reframe of what assertiveness is actually for. In this episode Alice explores: Why "being more assertive" is useless advice without a method
The roommate era that broke her go-with-the-flow approach
Is people-pleasing a sign of ADHD?
Rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and masking
The 2024 study tying ADHD symptoms to higher rejection sensitivity, and why RSD makes criticism land harder
Why over 90% of adults with ADHD mask
Calm the storm first: the 2025 Lancet Psychiatry review on ADHD medication and emotional regulation
Catch the lie your brain is telling you — Russell Ramsay on perfectionism and emotional reasoning
You don't have to win the argument with the thought — Steven Hayes and the ACT reframe
DEAR MAN, decoded line by line — Marsha Linehan's DBT script for asking and saying no without fawning
Sources:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-022-043566https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178125001994https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10115-2 https://www.cbt4adhd.com Source: 2025 ACT systematic review(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09727531241300741).Source: Linehan (2015) DBT Skills Training Manual; controlled DEAR MAN study (https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/742/).Neff self-compassion research index (https://self-compassion.org/the-research/). Connect with Alice: Website: hustlingwriters.com Instagram: @alicedraper LinkedIn: Alice Draper Email: [email protected]. Chapters: 00:00 "Be more assertive" — the advice with no instructions 01:05 The roommate era: going with the flow curdles into resentment 02:30 From silent to the one who asks the table to move over 03:20 Is people pleasing a part of ADHD? 04:10 Rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and the 90% who mask 05:15 Step one: calm the storm — medication, DBT, psychiatric care first 06:40 Step two: catch the lie — Ramsay on perfectionism and emotional reasoning 07:45 Step three: don't delete the thought — Hayes and the ACT reframe 08:40 Step four: get a script — Marsha Linehan and DEAR MAN, line by line 11:20 Why a script feels terrifying at first — and stops feeling that way 12:15 Step five: be kind to yourself after the no — Harvard on self-compassion 13:10 Repetition over getting it right: still flaring, doing the hard thing anyway 14:00 A note to the listener: this room, and reaching out
More from My Rejection Story
What if coping with rejection is less about surviving the loss and more about surviving what you decide the loss says about you?
This episode discusses genocide, war, racism, death threats. Listener discretion advised. What if the rejection that cuts deepest isn't a stranger's hatred — but the silence of the people who swore they loved you? Alice is joined by Lena Derhally — licensed trauma-informed psychotherapist, bestselling Palestinian American author, and a white-passing Christian Palestinian who ended friendships of forty years when the people closest to her went silent about Gaza. Lena grew up the daughter of a Bethlehem-born father and a small-town Indiana mother, with a message about her Palestinian identity: be careful who you tell. What makes her story impactful is her refusal to hide. Lena's reframe: the sharpest rejection she's known came not from enemies but from friends of forty years who went silent when it mattered — what she calls "the great betrayal." She traces the messaging that first taught her to disappear (a father whose name changed from Odeh to Eddie in high school), and the day her son asked her to take the signs out of the yard. Her answer to all of it: "Integrity is bearing witness." Whether you've hidden a part of yourself to fit in or watched people you trust go quiet when it counted, this is a raw reframe of what solidarity looks like. In this episode: "The great betrayal" — why Lena ended friendships of four decades over silence
What if the person you can't stop craving after a breakup isn't a lost love — but a drug you're still detoxing from? Alice is joined by Dr. Cortney Warren — board-certified clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, and the researcher who studies self-deception, love addiction and coined the term "exaholism." Alice opens with her own pandemic situationship: the man she'd never met in person yet couldn't stop texting at 5 a.m. But her real gift is the reframe underneath — falling in love is an addiction, and a bad breakup is withdrawal. Cortney's core idea: your ex isn't a person you lost, they're a stimulus your brain is still craving — "the non-relationship relationship." She explains why romantic love evolved to be addictive, why intermittent reinforcement (breadcrumbing, love-bombing, the on-again-off-again) hooks us harder than consistency, and what it takes to stop using your drug of choice. If you've ever wondered about the truth about situationships, or found yourself stuck on emotionally unavailable men/women, this is the neuroscience behind why. The turn comes when she argues the goal of a brutal breakup isn't to get over someone — it's to see both your ex and yourself in "stark reality," until the relationship becomes "just a version." Forgiveness, she says, isn't letting them off the hook; it's the ultimate act of self-love, including forgiving yourself for the values you compromised. Whether you're deep in a no-contact detox or you just want to build emotionally healthy relationships, this compassionate reframe explains the purpose of heartbreak and is essential listening for anyone thinking about relationships in the 21st century. In this episode they explore: Why falling in love is biologically engineered to be addictive
What if the deepest rejection isn't one loud "no," but the quiet ones that pile up until you stop noticing them? Alice is joined by Tiffany Yu — CEO and founder of Diversability, three-time TEDx speaker, and author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto — who was nine years old when a car accident took her father's life and permanently paralyzed her arm. She grew up being picked last in gym class every single day, and internalized a quieter verdict underneath it: that she wouldn't get chosen in the rest of her life either. But what makes Tiffany fascinating isn't the résumé — it's the reframe underneath: that the deepest wounds don't come from one big rejection, they come from "chronic exclusion," the micro-exclusions that stack up until you seat yourself on the sidelines before anyone else can. Tiffany's reframe: exclusion is rarely loud. It's the party you weren't invited to, the captions no one added, the comment asking if your hand "can be fixed" — one remark is fleeting, but at the scale of 7 million views it starts to rewire how you feel about your own body. Her way out wasn't toughening up; it was community. She traces how co-founding a Taiwanese American club at university gave her the template that she then rebuilt as Diversability, and how one member's adaptive climbing invite became the start of a "redemption journey" that now includes the USA Paraclimbing team, a half marathon, and a surfing lesson she took the day before recording. In this episode they explore: • "Chronic exclusion creates irreversible trauma" — the line from her 2018 TEDx talk that keeps finding people, and why micro-exclusions do more damage than any single "no" • What a microaggression actually is — the subtle "I don't think of you as disabled" that quietly props up much bigger structural inequities • The gym-class wound — being picked last every day, and sitting on "the sidelines of the gym and the sidelines of life" • How a TikTok about her paralyzed arm hit 7 million views • Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, ADHD, and the research that a child can absorb 20,000 extra negative messages by age 10 • Assimilation as erasure — hiding her Taiwanese American identity, and how co-founding a culture club unlocked her courage Connect with Tiffany Yu: Website: https://www.tiffanyyu.com Book (The Anti-Ableist Manifesto): https://www.tiffanyyu.com/book Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imtiffanyyu TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@imtiffanyyu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanyayu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imtiffanyyu Chapters: 00:00 "Chronic exclusion creates irreversible trauma" 00:57 The car accident at nine, and the gym class that became a core wound 03:29 What a microaggression really is 06:00 7 million views and "can it be fixed?" — comments that rewire self-image 08:25 RSD, ADHD, and 20,000 extra negative messages by age 10 09:11 Assuming friction everywhere — and being surprised when access is seamless 11:20 From the sidelines to the redemption journey — surfing, half marathons, paraclimbing 12:05 Assimilation, erasure, and the Taiwanese American club that started it all 15:00 The climbing wall, January 2016 16:48 Internalized ableism and the friction of just showing up 19:42 Searching a Facebook group for "surf" 21:10 The oxytocin of being in the room — why proximity reduces fear 22:57 Defining assimilation as erasure — not acknowledging what makes you different 25:02 Three things that made it easier 28:00 The message is bigger than me — the surgeon who added a mental-health provider 34:32 The 10-minute story vs. the one-sentence version 35:22 NATO — not attached to outcome — vulnerability vs. oversharing, and small wins 41:24 Creating your own opportunity — disability, hiring bias, and a "jungle gym" career 43:00 Getting fired, the "March 3rd anniversary," and the shame we don't talk about 47:43 Building community from nothing 51:33 Where to find Tiffany, the book, and Diversability
What if the loneliest rejection isn't losing a partner but losing a friend? Alice Draper is joined by Dr. Kimberly Horn, internationally recognized research psychologist, public health scientist who spent nearly 30 years studying addiction and health inequalities, and author of Friends Matter, For Life: Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship (endorsed by Mel Robbins). After the pandemic, Kimberly watched her own research play out in real time: people suffering less from the virus itself than from deep loneliness. But what makes her fascinating isn't the credentials, it's the reframe underneath: friendship isn't a nice-to-have, it's the most accessible tool we have against a crisis the US Surgeon General declared a public health emergency in 2023. Kimberly's reframe: rejection is data, not a verdict. Friendship loss is real grief but because we choose our friends, with no scripts, no casseroles, no paid leave, it's a lonely, invisible kind of pain society hasn't learned to hold. She and Alice unpack why social atrophy since COVID has left us more sensitive to rejection, why "accessible" doesn't mean "easy," and how self-friending becomes the antidote to the stories we tell ourselves. Whether you've quietly let a friendship fade or you're still stinging from one that ended without explanation, this is a clear-eyed reframe of what friendship is actually for. In this episode they explore: Social atrophy and rejection sensitivity — how losing our social "buffer" during COVID made rejection hurt more