Why Situationships Matter: Love Addiction, No-Contact & Letting Go — Dr. Cortney Warren

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 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

What if the plan you're clinging to for safety is the very thing keeping you stuck? Alice is joined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff — neuroscientist, founder of the newsletter Ness Labs, and author of Tiny Experiments — who was thriving at Google until the morning she woke up to find her entire arm had turned purple. A blood clot threatening to travel to her lungs. Her first reaction in the ER? "One second, I need to check my calendar." That was the life quake that made her question everything — and eventually walk away from the job her immigrant mother saw as the family's hard-won safe spot in society. Anne-Laure's reframe: certainty is a survival instinct, not a strategy. Our brains haven't changed much in a few thousand years, so we still cling to the illusion of control and quietly close doors to growth, connection, and self-discovery. Her answer isn't another blueprint — it's an experimental mindset: small, time-boxed actions run out of curiosity, measured by what you learn rather than the outcome you demanded. She's honest that she didn't handle the uncertainty gracefully — she bolted back into old patterns and started a startup "for all of the wrong reasons," just to have something impressive to say. It was only when that startup failed, which she calls one of the best things that ever happened to her, that she admitted she was lost — and found it liberating. Whether you're stuck in a job that pays the bills but doesn't fulfill you, or already mid-leap into the unknown, this is a candid, science-grounded reframe of what uncertainty is actually for. In this episode they explore: The purple arm and the calendar — the health scare that exposed a life built on saying yes to everything