Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum

Rejection. Let’s be honest, here, it’s one of the more shit things that we, as humans, encounter. I would hazard to say that it’s a pretty much a universally experienced phenomenon- although, obviously, feelings of rejection might be felt to varying degrees and at varying frequencies by different people over their lifetimes.

Like I say, the chances are that most of us have probably all been rejected at some point in our lives. I reckon it would be pretty hard to navigate the world of relationships without encountering some form of rejection at one time or other. When we are young, we can come across so many rejecting experiences: maybe we didn’t get invited to a birthday party, or someone didn’t want to be our friend at school, or perhaps someone we had feelings for didn’t reciprocate them (we all remember those early heartaches!).

I mean there are literally tonnes of rejections that we can experience over the course of our lives, and they will hurt, but most will only sting for a little while. For example, someone not ‘liking’ your holiday pics on social media won’t be the end of the world, and not succeeding at a job interview will probably be a bit harder – but essentially, we get over these ‘little’ rejections and move on… but there are other rejections and, crikey…they can feel like physical wounding and are much harder to move through and past.

Clearly, I am not here today to talk about a time when I didn’t get to go a to a party when I was five…I’m here for those other BIGGER rejections (and abandonments). The ones that really really hurt us. You know, the ones that cause us such intense pain that it feels almost physical. You know where I am going with this, right?

As you might have realised by now, I’m one of those really unfortunate, sensitive types, who feels rejection acutely – and sadly, seem to have been rejected enough by significant enough people over my lifetime that I have what now feels like an unhealable wound. Every time I think I’m getting somewhere with it, and the blood flow is temporarily stemmed, the person that I trusted to help me mend and heal, rams a fucking great rusty dagger into the heart of it, twists it, and walks away without so much as a backward glance… and I am left haemorrhaging again, bleeding out in agony.

This is the problem with relationships. Anytime we put ourselves out there we are opening ourselves up to possible rejection. Most of us crave connection. We are human after all; we’re built for connection and relationship; we want to belong. But my goodness it’s risky, isn’t it? Being vulnerable and unguarded is what is required to connect and most of us, who have been hurt and rejected in the past, take a long time to let others in. We fear rejection so acutely, and understandably so, because it is soooooo frigging painful. As I’ve said so many times before, healing takes place in relationship but so does wounding…and sometimes it feels like you’re playing Russian Roulette with you heart entering into what’s meant to be a ‘healing’ relationship.

Ultimately, I think rejection has to be seen as a relational injury. I think sometimes, too, and it’s important to acknowledge this, we can feel rejected and it’s not the intention of the other person to reject us – and that makes it all the more complex. However, intentional or not, the person that experiences feelings of rejection is the one that is hurt and left to try and navigate it. The real kicker comes in when we feel rejected but there is no repair… we’re just left holding a world of pain.

It’s no secret, here, that the main reason I am in therapy is because of the #motherwound. I guess this early, and ongoing, rejection is the one I can never get away from and it’s the one that is tapped into each time something goes wrong with a therapist. I let someone in, expose that hideous wounding, and my most vulnerable parts, trust and attach to someone who promises that they won’t hurt me, that they’re not like the last one…and then… when it comes down to it the same pattern keeps repeating in slightly different ways and it’s left me feeling broken and bruised. It’s soul destroying.

I’ve definitely been feeling my teen part a lot this last couple of weeks who always turns to Counting Crows lyrics in her despair and self-loathing, “So much rejection in every connection I make”…and I hear her. Fortunately, Adult me knows it’s not EVERY connection…but it’s enough!

Feeling rejected is horrible. As I say it feels literally, physically painful. It’s not just emotional, is it? It evokes a massive somatic response in the body. Or at least it does for me. I’ve never given the physicality of it much thought – all I know is that I am too fucking familiar with the pain of it and, when I am sobbing face down on my bed, that the only way out is through! The antidote to rejection is connection and yet that, so often, is impossible. As I say, frequently, (in a therapeutic context at least) the person that has done the rejecting has no interest in repair or reconnection. They wash their hands clean, sever the connection, you’re no longer their ‘work’ and you’re left wondering what the hell happened?

Interestingly, I was reading something the other day about rejection… because obviously it’s quite a dominant feeling for me right now (AGAIN) after what’s happened with Em, Anita, and now Hannah. And it turns out that researchers and neurobiologists have discovered that we actually do experience rejection in the same way as physical pain. Apparently, rejection triggers a response that travels down the same neuro pathways as physical pain…so that’s why it hurts so fucking much! We’re not all nutters who are too sensitive, then!

That’s something at least!

Another thing about rejection that I find so thoroughly soul destroying is what it does to our relationship with ourselves. What do I mean by that? Well, I don’t know about you, but every time I get hurt/rejected my default response is not to be gentle with myself and give myself the ‘it’s not me’ self-talk, far from it! Rejection triggers my Inner Critic who goes on a mission to further destroy my self-esteem. When someone I love or care about rejects me, I automatically run the internal narrative (on repeat and high volume) that I am unlovable, unworthy, too much/not enough… and it’s really hard. We berate ourselves endlessly and sink further and further into isolation believing we are not good enough and better off alone.

The shame we feel is suffocating. We feel ashamed for having cared, for letting people in…and mostly for having a need. I’m not sure there’s anything much worse than having a need not met and then feeling like you have been rejected for being too needy.

We all know by now (I think!) that the Inner Critic, whilst seeming like a grade A sadist is actually our number one protector. When that voice starts calling you all the names, “you fucking pathetic moron!” it’s really only trying to protect you from getting hurt again. If you believe the narrative that you are unworthy of love and care, then you are unlikely to go and seek it out again. And if you don’t seek it out again then you’re safe from rejection, aren’t you? I mean it makes perfect sense. Only, feeling isolated, alone, and uncared for is not really a place you want to be stuck in either. It’s like being broken down in Weston-super-Mare… when you really want to be in the Maldives!

I don’t know where I am going with this, really – just thinking out loud, I suppose. I am really struggling at the moment (I know, broken record). It’s been two months since I last saw Anita and honestly, it just isn’t getting any better. The acute pain of her rejection is just beyond words. And whilst I know what’s happened with H is not intended to feel rejecting and I think she’d be horrified if she knew how her ultimatum has impacted me the last couple of weeks, it does feel rejecting. I feel like I am notching up therapist rejections at a rate of knots. The whole point of therapy was to go and undo a narrative put there by my mum and reinforced by some others over the years…and instead what I am learning is, it’s a ME problem.

Part of me knows this is all just bad luck but I honestly don’t know how much more being open, honest, and vulnerable I can do – because all I seem to do is get hurt…and rejected.

Rejection sucks.