Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.” ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rejection, and the fear of being rejected, ranks among the most potent and distressing of the everyday events that people experience; it can even lead to suicide.
Emotional rejection is the feeling a person experiences when disappointed about not achieving something desired. It is commonly experienced in a quest of emotional relations, such as among romantic couples, in social and group settings, or in the professional world in relation to advancement.
Rejection by a loved one, a romantic relationship, ostracism, stigmatization, job termination, and other kinds of rejections have the power to compromise the quality of a person’s life. As a result, people are highly motivated to avoid social rejection, and, indeed, much of human behavior appears to be designed to avoid such experiences. The act of rejection can make the person experiencing it undergo a sudden drop in positive emotion. This is displayed as something ranging from a vague disappointment, sadness, and depression, to anxiety, phobic behavior, or even stalking or forcibly abducting the rejecting person.
Rejection is both a cause and consequence of depression. Peer and family rejection in childhood and marital discord in adulthood are all associated with increased risk of developing a depressive disorder. Interpersonal processes involved in depression, such as self-verification striving, excessive reassurance-seeking, blame maintenance, and stress generation cause rejection and are key factors in the maintenance and recurrence of depressive symptoms.
Rejection and Suicide
Rejection is heavily associated with increased risk of suicide. In particular, social isolation and family discord are associated with elevated risk of suicide. Many evidence-based psychotherapies for depression and suicidal behaviors target interpersonal functioning. These therapies help clients change their interactions with others to prevent rejection and skillfully manage emotional pain that results when rejection occurs. Thus, although rejection is associated with both depression and suicide, psychotherapy can halt the downward cycle.
The detection and treatment of mental disorder is oftentimes the main focus of suicide prevention strategies. However, additional suicide prevention strategies may be necessary to help individuals who may take their own life despite no signs of a serious mental disorder.
There have been cases of persons, who in spite of accomplishments and successes, had taken their own lives in young adulthood leaving loved ones at a loss to understand what really happened.
These persons appeared to have compensated for their lack of self-worth by exaggerating the importance of success, thus developing a fragile, achievement-based self-esteem in adulthood which left them vulnerable in the face of rejection and the perception of failure.
A study done by researcher Mette Lyberg Rasmussen of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, uncovered a particular vulnerability in persons to feeling rejected and to not having succeeded in achieving their goals. This is in stark contrast to previous research, which largely seeks to establish that mental illness, and in particular depression, in the period prior to death is an important risk factor for suicide.
Rasmussen stated that “In these situations there is a strong sense of shame and of being trapped in anger. This develops into unbearable thoughts that the vulnerable person cannot regulate or manage, and leads to a feeling of a life not worth living. The former strategy, which involved compensation with continual increased efforts, does not work anymore, and suicide becomes a way out of a situation of unbearable psychological pain.”
Desire for Acceptance
The desire for acceptance, the opposite of rejection, is a driving force that keeps many people from being authentic. They are so driven by the need for acceptance by others that they lose their own identity in the process. They mimic the ways in which others act, dress, talk and function. Acceptance is the underlying process in the power of peer pressure and is what causes young people, and older people alike, to fixate on the culture of the day. They crave recognition and acceptance from the reference group with whom they want to be identified.
People who operate out of a fear of rejection often display little or no assertiveness; they do not speak up and let others know how they feel about something, especially if their opinions differ. They lack the courage to function differently from others, even when they don’t enjoy the behavior in which they are involved. They will often keep their personal feelings hidden from others and too often from themselves.
For too many people, the fear of rejection and the desire for acceptance are the main motivating forces 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. The person who operates out of a fear of rejection all too often ends up pushing away the very friends, family, and helpers who care the most. The pulling away of these caring ones appears to be rejection, and the vicious cycle goes on with negative results.
The causes of fear of rejection can range from such things as having a physical condition that the person believes makes them unattractive to others, being rejected as a child, or having been abandoned or unloved. The person may have had a traumatic experience of rejection that deeply scarred them, they may have never been exposed to healthy ways of dealing with conflict or disagreement, or they may lack a healthy self-concept, sense of self-worth or positive self-esteem.
But regardless of the cause, it can create real problems in the “here and now”. Fear of rejection can lead to codependent, clingy, obsessive, jealous, or angry behavior in relationships. It can make you drive others away from you. It can cause you to reject others to avoid being rejected yourself. Overall, a fear of rejection can result in a very damaging pattern of emotions and behaviours that can cause real hurt to relationships and your enjoyment of life in general.
Coping with Rejection
Stop the “bleeding”
One of the most common reactions people have to a rejection is to become self-critical. We list all our faults, lament all our shortcomings, and chastise ourselves endlessly. Romantic rejections cause some of us to employ an inner dialogue so harsh that it verges on abusive. We then convince ourselves we somehow deserve it.
Yet by kicking our self-esteem when it’s already down, we are only making our psychological injury worse, deepening our emotional wounds, and significantly delaying our recovery.
Revive your self-worth
The best way to restore confidence, motivation, and especially self-esteem after a bruising rejection is to use a self-affirmation exercise. Self-affirmations remind us of our actual skills and abilities and by doing so, affirm our value in the domain in which we experienced the rejection.
The exercise has two steps. First, make a list of qualities you have that you know have value, and second, write a brief essay about one of them. By writing a couple of paragraphs about one of our strengths, we remind ourselves of what we have to offer and revive our self-esteem.
Connect to those who appreciate and love you
Getting rejected also destabilizes our ‘need to belong,’ which is why we often feel so unsettled and restless after a romantic or social rejection. Our need to ‘belong’ dates back to our days of living in small nomadic tribes, when being away from our tribe was always dangerous and sitting among them was a source of comfort.
One way to settle ourselves after a rejection is to reach out to our core group – whether they are friends, colleagues, or family members – to get emotional support from them and remind ourselves we’re valued, loved, and wanted.
