What is fear of rejection?

Fear of rejection is the:

Irrational fear that others will not accept me for who I am, what I believe and how I act.

Pervasive motivator for caution in my behavior and interactions with others.

State of mind that makes me incapable of doing or saying anything for fear of others' rejection, lack of acceptance or disapproval.

State of being of individuals who are over-dependent on the approval, recognition, or affirmation of others in order to feel good about themselves. In order to sustain personal feelings of adequacy these individuals are constantly concerned with the reactions of others to them.

Self-censoring attitude that inhibits creativity, productivity and imagination in one's approach.

Driving force behind many people that keeps them from being authentic human beings. They're so driven by the need for acceptance of others that they lose their own identity in the process. They mimic the ways in which others act, dress, talk, think, believe and function. They become the 3 dimensional clones of the "role models'' they so desperately need to emulate in order to gain acceptance.

Underlying process in the power of "peer pressure'' that grabs hold and makes people act in stereotypic, "pop'' culture, counter culture, punk, new wave, preppie, yuppie and other styles. They crave recognition and acceptance from the reference group with whom they want to be identified.

Energy-robbing attitude that leads to self immobilization, self-defeating and self-destructive behavior. This attitude encourages ongoing irrational thinking and behavior, resulting in personal stagnation, regression and depression.

Driving force of some people for all actions in their lives. It plays a part in their choices concerning their education, career direction, work behavior, achievement level, interpersonal and marital relationships, family and community life and the ways in which they spend leisure time.

What common behavior patterns exist for people who operate out of a fear of rejection?

People who operate out of a fear of rejection:

Display little or no assertiveness.

Don't speak up and let others know how they feel about something, especially if their opinions differ.

Function as enablers. They have neither the courage nor the ability to assist others in discontinuing self-destructive behavior, e.g., alcohol or drug abuse, underachievement or workaholism.

Lack the courage to function differently from others, even when they don't enjoy the behavior in which they're involved.

Resort to passive/aggressive behavior; that's dishonest, sneaky and allows for no open communication.

Play games with people. They'll keep their personal feelings hidden. They're in tune with what's in and make every effort to emulate it in their lives.

Privately express a great deal of anger or depression over how unfortunate and unhappy their current lifestyle is. Yet, when helped to look at alternatives involving confrontation with others, they take a "yes and but'' attitude.

Are confused as to their true identity, wearing "masks" to please others.

Become so obsessed with functioning, looking and acting in a "prescribed" manner that they become rigid, inflexible and closed to alternative behavior. This is true even if they're unhappy in the lifestyle they hold to so rigidly.

Are dishonest with themselves, so much so that it carries over into their interactions with others and they become habitual liars.

• Apply pressure consciously or unconsciously for the person to continue to conform to their desires or wishes.

• Play on guilt feelings and press for "their way" so that "awful" consequences can be avoided.

• Are unaware that the person fears their rejection and don't take this person seriously.

• Ignore the input or ideas of the person and never incorporate the person into their inner circle.

• Find it humorous how the person bends over backwards to please them.

• Manipulate the person to do a multitude of favors for them and are ready to dump the person once the favors become unnecessary.

• Openly reject the person once they have "used" him and have no further use for him. Often they'll reject him once he gets up the nerve to confront them about how they really feel about him.

• The person who operates out of a fear of rejection ends up being rejected by the very people from whom he fears rejection.

What are some underlying causes for operating out of a fear of rejection? 

People who act out of a fear of rejection may:

Rejection, Sensitivity , etc.

The other day I met someone I instantly liked. It seemed clear that the feeling was mutual.

We had so much in common. We both were interested in psychology, education, counseling, children and teens. We both are non-conformists. We both buy our clothes at the second-hand shop.

The next day I felt judged and rejected by her. I woke up in the middle of the night and wrote her a letter, which I gave to her the next morning. I sat there while she read it. It was hard for me to sit there. I felt very vulnerable; afraid of further rejection and judgment.

I wanted her approval, her acceptance, her admiration. I admired her and I wanted the feeling to be mutual. She told me I was too sensitive to rejection.

I said "Maybe so, but this is how I am right now." I told her she didn't know what had happened in my life to make me so sensitive to rejection. She agreed that she didn't. I still felt a little judged, but more understood and we agreed to continue being friends.

I do get lonely because my partner isn't physically with me right now.

She is on one continent and I'm on another. I do sometimes long for a hug from someone who cares about me and my feelings, but I don't feel as needy and as desperate as I did before.

Two years ago I actually felt suicidal when I felt rejected by someone. I still feel suicidal from time to time, but now it's more likely to be due to feeling discouraged about not being able to make much of a difference in the world and from the pain of all the things I see happening, such as the people who still believe in using force on strong willed children and any one else by whom they feel defied or threatened.

So now that I feel a sense of security, both from within and from my partner, I'm able to handle feelings of rejection a bit better. It still hurts but I don't feel as much of a need to get away. I almost left town the first night I felt rejected, but I decided to write the letter and deliver it in person so we could try to have a talk.

I've walked away from everyone who I've felt rejected by. Sometimes I want to go back to them, sometimes I don't. I suppose it depends on how needy I am and how much I value the relationship.

In this case, I placed a lot of value on the relationship with the person I felt rejected by. She's a beautiful, intelligent, sensitive person. She can teach me a lot if only I can accept her. She doesn't feel very accepted by me. She told me she felt judged 6 out of 10.

She's told me I'm "very judgmental." Maybe I am. Maybe I am.

I don't want to be as judgmental as I've been. I want to be more compassionate. It's hard to feel compassion, though, when you feel rejected and judged.

Or at least it is for me. I know I'm sensitive. But am I "too" sensitive? Who decides? If everyone told me I was wrong for crying when a child is hit, would I really be wrong?

If my conscience told me to walk away when someone told me to pull a trigger and kill someone, would I be wrong for walking away?

I know that I have a lot of "baggage." I know I have a lot of old wounds which haven't entirely healed. I know that I'm very sensitive to rejection and abandonment.

I used to try to rescue people in the hope that they'd feel indebted to me for the rest of their lives.

I've found that this doesn't work. I still want to rescue people, that's one of the main reasons I try to help the teenagers. It feels good to know that you've helped someone at a critical point in their life, perhaps that you've even literally saved a life.

Maybe I should've been a fire fighter or a knight who fights off dragons to save the damsel in distress or who helps her escape from the castle tower where the parents are holding her captive.

In some ways this is how I see myself. I also see myself as Don Quixote, fighting windmills and thinking they're monsters.

Yeah, I'll admit it. I want to be someone's hero. Actually, I am. To my partner I'm her hero. I guess that's enough for me.

To know that one person loves me so much they'll never leave me. But there the myth starts again. The fairy tale romance of two people living happily ever after and neither one leaving the other. I guess I'm petrified of being alone.

Even though I'm more alone than most people in the world as I travel without a real home, from one country to another, I still am looking for a connection with one person. I think I've found that now. A connection that stays with me no matter where I am.

This connection is changing me. It's helped me be more forgiving, more accepting, more compassionate. Which leads me back to my new friend. I know I've been judging her. I know I've been needing too much from her.

She told me on the second day that I was "high maintenance." She wasn't talking about money; she saw how I live. She was talking about my emotional needs. She said I need too much of everything. Sadly, this is very true. But this is one reason I value her.

She can see so clearly. She saw me the first day we met. I was visible to her, as Nathaniel Branden talks about being visible in his book on romantic love.

I yearn to be seen for who I am. I yearn to be acknowledged. When I wanted to be seen as a child my mother would say "Ignore him, he just wants attention." Am I blaming her?

I feel defensive. So many people have accused me of hating my mother. I've never hated her though. I know the feeling of hate. I hate people who are abusing my suicidal teen friends -- the people who're supposed to be protecting and nurturing them but who're actually hitting them, mocking them, invalidating them, punishing them and killing them by over-controlling them.

This hatred is close to the surface. Maybe it's hatred towards my mother which I'm projecting or transferring whatever the Freudian term is. But I don't think so.

There's resentment towards my mother, but not hatred. My mother didn't treat me as badly as some parents are treating my teen friends. My mother never locked me out of the house, hit me, choked me or kicked me.

She'd hug me when I needed a hug. And she would let me cry when I needed to cry. Even though she was abused as a child, she still kept some of her nurturing instincts.

So was she a "bad" mother or a "good" mother?

Is anyone either a bad or good mother? How simplistic we humans are. What is bad? What is good? Where is the magical dividing line? Who decides where this line belongs? Who decides who falls on one side & who falls on the other?

Maybe one of the most important questions in life is who decides the meanings of the terms. I suppose it takes judgment to know. But what's the difference between using judgment and being judgmental?

If someone says "I feel judged" does that mean the other person is judgmental? Maybe. Or maybe not.

It seems everything comes down to personal interpretation. Which depends on personal experience and innate personal nature. The same comments, in the same tone, said to two different people can feel much differently.

One might feel judged, another might feel inadequate, another might feel teased, another might feel loved.

I joke a lot and rarely try to really hurt someone. But sometimes my words do hurt. Not so much because of my words or tone of voice, but because the person has been hurt so many times before.

So when I felt rejected this last time I realized that it wasn't me who was being rejected. It was all the other people who've judged and pressured and tried to control my friend.

This was an important realization for me. So when my friend called me & asked if we were still friends, saying she didn't mean for me to feel rejected, it was easy for me to apologize for judging her and pressuring her. And it was easy for her to accept my apology. Now we will see what happens when I see her today!

S. Hein - Feb. 14, 2003

"The Rejected Gift of Love"

Sometimes a gift of love can be misunderstood, rejected or even worse, seen as an attack or a betrayal by the recipient. This can be very painful for the giver of the gift.

A friend of ours was recently in crisis. We offered our love in the highest way we could. We were met with anger and our gift of love was rejected.

The reaction hurt us deeply, so we took a careful inventory of anything in us that could have been our responsibility. It's very important to both of us to take complete responsibility for our own actions.

We searched our souls for any attached strings in our giving, any agenda of what we wanted back. We came up with none. Our motivation was our caring. We finally understood that behind the crisis, this person was in deep soul pain, wasn't really wanting to look at it and projected onto us the blame for this pain.

Our responsibility was taking the risk to offer love when it wasn't asked for, a gesture that holds the potential of being rejected.

I've done it myself with Joyce at moments when I was miserable and therefore lacking self-love, like in the middle of an argument. I remember at one of these times, after both of us had expressed our pain and anger, I felt my heart shut tight to Joyce.

But then she caught me off guard. She softened, a light of understanding came into her eyes and she told me she loved me and wanted us to be close again. I, however, was still locked into my own hurt and blame of her and responded to her with anger.

It was a true act of love on her part that I was rejecting. It was almost as if the sudden burst of light coming from Joyce's face and heart was too much for me. The love coming toward me was a stark contrast to my dark mood and I responded by pushing it away.

That action on my part was devastating to Joyce, coming from her vulnerable reaching out. She burst into tears and left the room. I was then even more miserable as I realized the missed opportunity for reconnection and happiness.

Being committed to my personal growth, I couldn't stay very long in self-righteousness and blame. I could reach out to Joyce from my own vulnerability and together, take responsibility for each of our parts in the in harmony. Together, we have a commitment to work out every in harmony until we're both in our hearts.

We can never be guaranteed that our gift of love will not be thrown back into our face. If this happens, it can hurt, sometimes deeply. It helps to see how the person has reacted because of their pain, rather than from their true selves.

Yet sometimes you simply can't ignore the hurt you feel yourself. What to do? Honesty is always important. But remember, the highest responsibility is honesty with yourself. If you feel hurt, admit it to yourself.

You may feel unappreciated, betrayed or angry. Give yourself permission to feel your feeling.

It requires real listening to inner wisdom to know when and how to express our feelings to the person you were trying to love. But if your heart says yes, than you've got to do it.

We wrote a letter to our friend. That felt like the clearest way to express our feelings. We haven't heard back yet. We may never hear back. That isn't the point. It was for our own sense of completion that we wrote the letter.

The risk to love is the risk to become vulnerable. You can only love another if you're willing to risk getting hurt. In this sense, becoming a lover is to become a warrior of the heart.

2. We may need to learn to love the other in spite of his or her behavior, regardless of whether we stay with that person or not.

3. We can discover that we can live without this person and that happiness, security and love are internal states that are always within us, if only we allow ourselves to experience them.

4. We can use this opportunity to develop greater inner strength so as to feel confident and able to face whatever may come to us in the game of life.

5. Most of us will need to change our self-image. We need now to learn to accept, love and respect ourselves more, so that we don't create the same problem in our next relationship or in life in general.

6. By directing our energies in a spiritual direction and developing a relationship with God - the Universal Being, we're no longer so vulnerable or so dependent on others for our feelings of security and self-worth.

7. We may also need to learn that the other's decision to leave may not be a rejection at all. He or she may love and respect us dearly but be forced by other needs to seek happiness elsewhere.

Why Other Children are Rejecting Your ADHD Child

By Anthony Kane, MD
Author of "How to Help The Child You Love"
Mental Health Professional
Physician & Surgeon
ADD ADHD Advances

Anthony Kane, MD is a physician, an international lecturer & director of special education. He's the author of a book, numerous articles & a number of online courses dealing with ADHD, ODD, parenting issues & education. You may visit his website, ADD ADHD Advances, at http://addadhdadvances.com

Introduction

Developing healthy peer relationships is critical for the normal development of a child. Peer relationships have been found to be an important predictor of positive adult adjustment and behavior. Difficulty in finding friends leads to feelings of low self-esteem and these feelings usually continue into adulthood.

Children with poor social skills are at risk for delinquency, academic underachievement and school drop out. Even though the inattentiveness, impulsiveness and restlessness frequently persist into adult life, these problems are of less importance as the child gets older.

Rather, the main difficulty ADHD patients encounter as they reach maturity is their inability to interact appropriately with others.

ADHD children often lack the social skills that are essential to success in life. These children can be socially inept and their lack of interpersonal skills may cause them a multitude of difficulties. In addition, positive relationships with friends in childhood provide a critical buffer against stress and help to protect against psychological and psychiatric problems. ADHD children lack these positive interactions and thus are at risk for a number of emotional problems.

Probably 60% of ADHD children suffer from peer rejection. ADHD children are less often chosen by peers to be best friends, partners in activities, or seat mates. As the children grow older, their social problems seem to get worse. Their inappropriate behavior leads to further social rejection and exacerbates their inability to relate to others appropriately. Long term these children are more likely to have difficulty finding and maintaining successful careers. This isn't surprising since social aptitude can make or break careers and relationships in the adult world.

ADHD children are frequently disliked or neglected by their peers. It's difficult to determine all the factors that make a child unpopular, but children who frequently display aggressive or negative behavior tend to be rejected by their peers.

Impulsivity and Aggression

ADHD children tend to be more impulsive and aggressive than other children. Teachers observe that the social interactions of ADHD children more often involve fighting and interrupting others.

These children are more intense than others and behave inappropriately in social contexts. i.e., ADHD children are more likely to yell, run around and talk at unsuitable times. They also tend to want to dominate play, engage in off task behaviors and engage more in teasing and physical jostling of peers. This sets up a process of peer rejection.

Academic Problems

ADHD children often don't do well in school. Poor school performance by itself doesn't result in social rejection. However, the way the child responds to his academic difficulties can contribute to inappropriate social behavior. Children who can't engage themselves with classroom work assignments often disrupt and irritate their peers.

Inattention

ADHD children have difficulty with sustained attention. Deficit in attention seems to be related to peer rejection independently of the aggressive, impulsive and hyperactive behaviors of ADHD children. These children become bored more easily than other children. As a result, they are more likely to become disruptive in the classroom.

ADHD children have difficulty in modulating their behavior and changing their conduct as the situation demands. They have apparent social-cognitive deficits that limit their ability to encode and recall rules of social cues. Children with ADHD pay less attention to others verbally in games and other activities.

Many ADHD children are aware that they are socially inept. Children who are anxious or fearful about peer relations are unlikely to behave in an effective manner. These children withdraw from peer interactions and in this way, limit their ability to gain acceptance and friendship.

Children tend to encounter social rejection when they're perceived to be dissimilar from their peers. Similarity fosters social acceptance. Because ADHD children don't learn social clues as well as other children, they tend to be viewed as different.

Bad Behavior

One of the keys to your child's social success is proper behavior. If your ADHD or ODD child frequently misbehaves, it's your obligation as a parent to teach your child how to improve his behavior.

If your child is aggressive or defiant, if he doesn't accept the authority of adults, or if he conducts himself in a such a way that children his age will view him as a behavior problem, then your child will have a difficult time making and maintaining friendships. The friends he'll attract are other aggressive problem children, the type of child with whom which you'd rather your child not associate.

All children need friends. Behavior problem children have trouble making friends with others, so these children tend to congregate together. They reinforce each other's bad behavior. If you're an aware parent and you have control of your child you can put a stop to friendships with these children. However, you must take control of your child's behavior in order to help him to avoid the trap of bad friends.

Conclusion

Helping children with ADHD build close peer relationships is an important goal to focus on and is one that often may be overlooked. You, as a parent, have the ability to help your child accomplish this important social goal.

You should make every effort to help your child in this area. His psychological health and his happiness, both now and in the future, are very much dependent upon how successful he is at making and maintaining childhood friendships.