Friends! I am newly returned from going down a rabbithole w @jacklinapina over the meaning of the D in RSD & I want to share my findings in case you, too, were confused as hell re the meaning of dysphoria vs dysmorphia! #ADHD & #trans chat ahead
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Quick background: I encountered the concept of RSD when first researching ADHD & initially took it as evidence of my *not* being ADHD. Bc while I'm definitely sensitive to rejection, the feelings I had around it were *not* the feelings I associated w. dysphoria
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Steeped in trans discourse, I thought of dysphoria - in the context of gender dysphoria - as a visceral feeling of wrongness of body. Being rejected made me deeply distressed, but it didn't make my *body* feel wrong so... was that not actually RSD?
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It turns out the actual issue is: dysphoria does *not* mean feeling like your body is wrong. Not even gender dysphoria!

Dysphoria literally means intense distress - the opposite of euphoria. Embarrassingly obvious in hindsight...
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When it's gender dysphoria, part of that distress can be feeling like your body is wrong in some way/s, but that's not the whole of or even a necessary element. The important part is that your assigned gender feels wrong in a way that distresses you
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/symptoms-causes/syc-20475255
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That feeling of wrong-bodiedness doesn't by itself have a name (that I've found). But the confusion may stem in part from similarities with body dysmorphia, a separate phenomenon despite how close the two names are
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Body dysmorphia = a mental illness where you feel like your body is wrong bc of a distorted perception of it. You might obsess over your face not being smooth enough or your muscles not big enough, even when your skin is flawless or your biceps huge
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/body-dysmorphic-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353938
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Even trying to describe the two as different it's easy to get lost in the overlap. I have plenty of experience with seeing myself in a mirror or photo & being jarred by my body not looking like my mental image of it, and sometimes I *do* obsess over my body being wrong...
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But even though it causes me distress (dysphoria), the body I see is real, not imagined or distorted. With the right alterations (some of which I've already made), I could potentially have a body that looks right to me; with dysmorphia, no amount of change will ever be enough
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So bringing this back to #ADHD, RSD literally = being sensitive to rejection (actual, perceived or predicted) to the point of deep distress. No specifically bodily element involved

Maybe it was only me who was confused by that! But I hope you found this interesting anyway
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