Time for another #BuildInPublicTherapySession!

Today, we're going to talk about pain. Specifically, this week for #ODCC1, we were asked to think about our students' pain points and where we could help them. Turns out, for #NeurodiverseEntrepreneurs, I think I have a really

good idea of where those pain points are, because I'm currently going through some of them. One of the ideas I keyed in on was the idea of being limited by past failures, specifically those related to our neurodivergence. Failures are something that can't be avoided as

an entrepreneur. I know this. You likely know this. But one of the lovely traits that tend to come along with #ADHD and #Autism is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). There have been others who have outlined RSD much better than I can, so I'm not going to go into specifics,

but the idea is that rejection (and by extension, failure) is felt extremely powerfully, even if there wasn't an actual rejection. This pops up all the time for me. I'm currently experiencing it, which is what is led me to write this thread.

I mentioned earlier this week that I have been participating in the Impact Innovation Academy and there was a pitch competition today. Three companies were awarded cash prizes, and unfortunately, DeFiNet wasn't one of them. That award would have really helped, but oh well.

And that's where the RSD really starts to come in. A little voice in the back of my head starts telling me that I'm a failure. Nothing has gone like I wanted it to. I obviously have no idea what I'm doing and I was stupid to give up a stable career to pursue my dream.

Logically, I can point to a million little things that have been going right for me. I know that I'm in it for the long term and I've been making progress, even if it's not as fast as I would like. That doesn't get rid of the voice in my head.

And that voice wants to remind me of every email that I never got a response to. And every attempt to build something that falls flat. And it makes sure to point out the patterns of failure that can be related to my #ADHD and #Autism. The problem with that voice is that it knows

all of my insecurities and plays on them. It doesn't help that I have people in my life who also like to point out my failures. I've tried to explain that this is not helpful, but it doesn't stop them from doing so.

So how do you deal with that voice? I like to write until it goes away. That's the other purpose for this thread. It's helping me apply logic to the overwhelming emotions that I'm experiencing.

A lot of feelings today. Time to process them and move on. Tomorrow is a new day.