My Rejection Story

What if coping with rejection is less about surviving the loss and more about surviving what you decide the loss says about you? 

Alice is joined by Dr. Jessica Zucker, Los Angeles psychologist in women's reproductive and maternal mental health, founder of the #IHadaMiscarriage movement, and the author who miscarried alone at 16 weeks while her doctor stayed on the phone. For anyone sitting with grief, loss or the self-blame that follows, Jessica's thesis is unsparing: the route through it is to stop treating yourself as the reason it happened.

This episode discusses pregnancy loss, miscarriage and medical trauma in some detail.

Jessica's reframe: grief isn't a failure to fix — it's a place to live in for a while. "I'm going to swim in it," she decided. The one question she asks patients caught in self-blame — "What if you did absolutely nothing wrong?" — opens the floodgates. Alongside it: a running critique of "at least" phrases, toxic positivity, and how women are groomed, from menstruation to perimenopause, to blame their own bodies for whatever happens inside them.

Whether you're grieving a loss, coping with rejection from your own body, or sitting with someone who is, this is a clear-eyed reframe of what grief is actually for.

In this episode they explore:

• "What if you did nothing wrong?" — the question that unlocks the grief

• Why "at least you can get pregnant" needs deleting from the zeitgeist

• Coping with rejection when it's your own body: grief, self-blame, magical thinking

• "I'm going to swim in it" — refusing the cultural push to get back on your feet

• "It's like a murder scene in here" — the words grievers never forget

• How #IHadaMiscarriage started with a calligrapher's sign and went viral

• The Beef scene and the shame of "the one thing women are supposed to do"

• Groomed from menstruation to perimenopause — where self-blame comes from

  
  

Connect with Dr. Jessica Zucker: 

Website: drjessicazucker.com 

YouTube: @ihadamiscarriage452

Instagram: @ihadamiscarriage 

Books - wherever books are sold!

Chapters: 

00:00 Miscarriage statistics and why the topic stays silent 

04:14 How Jessica's miscarriage differed from the typical experience 

09:16 The home miscarriage: cutting the cord and getting to the doctor 

13:07 Hemorrhaging, the clot, and choosing an unmedicated D&C 

15:30 Toxic positivity, "at least" phrases, and what to say instead 

24:52 Research on self-blame after pregnancy loss 

30:12 Writing the viral op-ed and starting the #IHadaMiscarriage movement 

38:14 Cultural conditioning: shame from menstruation to perimenopause 

42:46 The clinical question Jessica asks patients caught in self-blame 

50:26 Identity beyond motherhood and the role of community 

This episode discusses genocide, war, racism, death threats. Listener discretion advised.

What if the rejection that cuts deepest isn't a stranger's hatred — but the silence of the people who swore they loved you?

Alice is joined by Lena Derhally — licensed trauma-informed psychotherapist, bestselling Palestinian American author, and a white-passing Christian Palestinian who ended friendships of forty years when the people closest to her went silent about Gaza. Lena grew up the daughter of a Bethlehem-born father and a small-town Indiana mother, with a message about her Palestinian identity: be careful who you tell. What makes her story impactful is her refusal to hide.

Lena's reframe: the sharpest rejection she's known came not from enemies but from friends of forty years who went silent when it mattered — what she calls "the great betrayal." She traces the messaging that first taught her to disappear (a father whose name changed from Odeh to Eddie in high school), and the day her son asked her to take the signs out of the yard. Her answer to all of it: "Integrity is bearing witness."

Whether you've hidden a part of yourself to fit in or watched people you trust go quiet when it counted, this is a raw reframe of what solidarity looks like.

In this episode:

• "The great betrayal" — why Lena ended friendships of four decades over silence

• Being "white passing" as both privilege and burden

• A father nicknamed "Camel," and how internalized racism is handed down

• Intergenerational trauma, defined plainly

• The sign in the yard — a son's fear, a stabbed child in Chicago, and a mother who wouldn't take it down

• The neighbor who rang the bell — "where can I get a sign like that?"

• "This is child's play compared to Gaza" — the sentence that still makes her emotional

• "Do you think I'm a monster for bearing witness?"

• How to fact-check a war — interrogate the source, read first-person accounts, weigh both sides, trust your gut

• Christian, Palestinian, white-passing — and the judgment she got for marrying a Muslim

• "Nothing is permanent" — her advice for anyone being othered in a place they can't leave

• Her books — and whether the Iraq War would have happened with social media

Connect with Lena:

*Author website

*Books 

Chapters:

00:46Welcome, Lena Derhally

01:06A Bethlehem-born father, a small-town Indiana mother

04:51"Be careful who you tell" — white-passing and living undercover

05:55A nickname, "Camel," and a name changed from Odeh to Eddie

06:52Intergenerational trauma, defined

08:25The pull to assimilate — and the defiant streak that refused it

10:43"We have to be out and proud right now"

11:23Owning your identity: freedom, isolation and becoming a target

14:00When your children pay for your visibility

14:39The "full ceasefire in Gaza now" sign

16:11"I'm afraid someone's going to come to our door" — a son's fear

16:53Why she wouldn't take the sign down

17:23The doorbell — and the neighbour who wanted a sign

18:18Tracking down the "prank"

19:04"This is child's play compared to what's happening in Gaza"

20:31October 7th and the friends who didn't know the history

22:07"The great betrayal" — a best friend of 40 years and one Instagram story

24:51Do they see Palestinians as people?

27:04"Do you think I'm a monster because I'm bearing witness?"

31:44Alice's fact-check method — sources, first-person accounts, equal weight

33:12Gaslighting, and trusting your gut

36:23The Instagram Maps exercise

37:09A Christian Palestinian — privilege and leverage

38:26Solidarity across faiths — and judgment within the family

40:12The psychology of being othered

41:33White passing: "they think I'm like them"

42:03Black families, white schools and always being othered

45:58Parenting children through othering and racism

48:34Where to find Lena

49:31Her first book: what if there are no red flags?

50:49Gaza, social media and the limits of protest

52:02"Liberation takes a long time"

What if the person you can't stop craving after a breakup isn't a lost love — but a drug you're still detoxing from?

Alice is joined by Dr. Cortney Warren — board-certified clinical psychologist, TEDx speaker, and the researcher who studies self-deception, love addiction and coined the term "exaholism." Alice opens with her own pandemic situationship: the man she'd never met in person yet couldn't stop texting at 5 a.m. But her real gift is the reframe underneath — falling in love is an addiction, and a bad breakup is withdrawal.

Cortney's core idea: your ex isn't a person you lost, they're a stimulus your brain is still craving — "the non-relationship relationship." She explains why romantic love evolved to be addictive, why intermittent reinforcement (breadcrumbing, love-bombing, the on-again-off-again) hooks us harder than consistency, and what it takes to stop using your drug of choice. If you've ever wondered about the truth about situationships, or found yourself stuck on emotionally unavailable men/women, this is the neuroscience behind why.

The turn comes when she argues the goal of a brutal breakup isn't to get over someone — it's to see both your ex and yourself in "stark reality," until the relationship becomes "just a version." Forgiveness, she says, isn't letting them off the hook; it's the ultimate act of self-love, including forgiving yourself for the values you compromised.

Whether you're deep in a no-contact detox or you just want to build emotionally healthy relationships, this compassionate reframe explains the purpose of heartbreak and is essential listening for anyone thinking about relationships in the 21st century.

In this episode they explore:

• Why falling in love is biologically engineered to be addictive

• "Exaholism" — being addicted to your lover after it's over

• The rat study, slot machines, and why breadcrumbing beats consistency

• Why situationships matter: love-bombing, breadcrumbing, and emotionally unavailable men

• Why we're drawn to people who mirror our wounds — not the secure ones

• Journaling your way to "who am I?" — learning how to be an adult in relationships

• The symptoms of an exaholic breakup

• Cutting off your "drug of choice" — no contact, no 2 a.m. scroll

• A trigger plan for the birthday, the holiday, the urge to text

• Thought logs: catching the "my life is over" lies and testing them

• Forgiveness as self-love — apologizing to your ex, and to yourself

If Cortney's approach resonates, her relationships book Letting Go of Your Ex (New Harbinger) is the deeper dive, with free downloadable worksheets — a practical companion for building healthy relationships, whether you loved your situationship or you're finally ready to leave it behind.

Connect with Dr. Cortney Warren: 

Website: https://drcortney.com/ 

Instagram, TikTok & YouTube: short mental-health and dating videos [@drcortneywarren] 

Book: Letting Go of Your Ex (New Harbinger)

Books: https://drcortney.com/published-books-publications/ 

Chapters: 

0:00 Max, 5 a.m., and a man she'd never met

01:53 Meet Dr. Cortney Warren — what love addiction really is05:09 Does all love come with this? The evolution of craving

 08:03 Breadcrumbing, the rat study, and intermittent reinforcement

11:32 When it isn't toxicity — love addiction as a natural process

13:29 Cortney's own dating history

15:52 Concluding as a kid that relationships aren't safe

 18:26 "For no reason except me" — insecurity vs. projection

21:44 Start here: journaling and the pause before the reaction

25:23 The hero's journey of a breakup

 26:53 What an exaholic breakup is — and its symptoms

29:24 Relapse, remorse, and the text you regret

30:32 Identifying and planning for your triggers

35:34 "We compromise our own values" — the bachelorette she skipped

37:05 Thinking clearly: how thought determines how you feel

43:27 You have more power over this breakup than you think

45:00 Overcoming loss through forgiveness

50:28 Where to find the book and free worksheets

What if the deepest rejection isn't one loud "no," but the quiet ones that pile up until you stop noticing them?

Alice is joined by Tiffany Yu — CEO and founder of Diversability, three-time TEDx speaker, and author of The Anti-Ableist Manifesto — who was nine years old when a car accident took her father's life and permanently paralyzed her arm. She grew up being picked last in gym class every single day, and internalized a quieter verdict underneath it: that she wouldn't get chosen in the rest of her life either. But what makes Tiffany fascinating isn't the résumé — it's the reframe underneath: that the deepest wounds don't come from one big rejection, they come from "chronic exclusion," the micro-exclusions that stack up until you seat yourself on the sidelines before anyone else can.

Tiffany's reframe: exclusion is rarely loud. It's the party you weren't invited to, the captions no one added, the comment asking if your hand "can be fixed" — one remark is fleeting, but at the scale of 7 million views it starts to rewire how you feel about your own body. Her way out wasn't toughening up; it was community. She traces how co-founding a Taiwanese American club at university gave her the template that she then rebuilt as Diversability, and how one member's adaptive climbing invite became the start of a "redemption journey" that now includes the USA Paraclimbing team, a half marathon, and a surfing lesson she took the day before recording.

In this episode they explore:

 • "Chronic exclusion creates irreversible trauma" — the line from her 2018 TEDx talk that keeps finding people, and why micro-exclusions do more damage than any single "no" 

• What a microaggression actually is — the subtle "I don't think of you as disabled" that quietly props up much bigger structural inequities 

• The gym-class wound — being picked last every day, and sitting on "the sidelines of the gym and the sidelines of life" 

• How a TikTok about her paralyzed arm hit 7 million views

• Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, ADHD, and the research that a child can absorb 20,000 extra negative messages by age 10 

• Assimilation as erasure — hiding her Taiwanese American identity, and how co-founding a culture club unlocked her courage

Connect with Tiffany Yu: 

Website: https://www.tiffanyyu.com Book

(The Anti-Ableist Manifesto): https://www.tiffanyyu.com/book  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imtiffanyyu

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@imtiffanyyu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffanyayu

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imtiffanyyu

Chapters:

00:00 "Chronic exclusion creates irreversible trauma"

00:57 The car accident at nine, and the gym class that became a core wound 

03:29 What a microaggression really is

06:00 7 million views and "can it be fixed?" — comments that rewire self-image 

08:25 RSD, ADHD, and 20,000 extra negative messages by age 10 

09:11 Assuming friction everywhere — and being surprised when access is seamless 

11:20 From the sidelines to the redemption journey — surfing, half marathons, paraclimbing 

12:05 Assimilation, erasure, and the Taiwanese American club that started it all 

15:00 The climbing wall, January 2016

16:48 Internalized ableism and the friction of just showing up 

19:42 Searching a Facebook group for "surf"

21:10 The oxytocin of being in the room — why proximity reduces fear 

22:57 Defining assimilation as erasure — not acknowledging what makes you different 

25:02 Three things that made it easier

28:00 The message is bigger than me — the surgeon who added a mental-health provider

34:32 The 10-minute story vs. the one-sentence version 

35:22 NATO — not attached to outcome — vulnerability vs. oversharing, and small wins 

41:24 Creating your own opportunity — disability, hiring bias, and a "jungle gym" career 

43:00 Getting fired, the "March 3rd anniversary," and the shame we don't talk about 

47:43 Building community from nothing

51:33 Where to find Tiffany, the book, and Diversability

What if the loneliest rejection isn't losing a partner but losing a friend?

Alice Draper is joined by Dr. Kimberly Horn, internationally recognized research psychologist, public health scientist who spent nearly 30 years studying addiction and health inequalities, and author of Friends Matter, For Life: Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship (endorsed by Mel Robbins). After the pandemic, Kimberly watched her own research play out in real time: people suffering less from the virus itself than from deep loneliness. But what makes her fascinating isn't the credentials, it's the reframe underneath: friendship isn't a nice-to-have, it's the most accessible tool we have against a crisis the US Surgeon General declared a public health emergency in 2023.

Kimberly's reframe: rejection is data, not a verdict. Friendship loss is real grief but because we choose our friends, with no scripts, no casseroles, no paid leave, it's a lonely, invisible kind of pain society hasn't learned to hold. She and Alice unpack why social atrophy since COVID has left us more sensitive to rejection, why "accessible" doesn't mean "easy," and how self-friending becomes the antidote to the stories we tell ourselves.

Whether you've quietly let a friendship fade or you're still stinging from one that ended without explanation, this is a clear-eyed reframe of what friendship is actually for.

In this episode they explore:

• Social atrophy and rejection sensitivity — how losing our social "buffer" during COVID made rejection hurt more

• Why belonging is a biological need, and fear of the tribe casting us out is wired into rejection

• The 11-3-6 friendship formula — 11 interactions, 3 hours each, over 6 months — and why it's so much harder to reach as an adult

• "Accessible doesn't mean easy" — Kimberly on why she wrote the book precisely because friendship is hard

• Micro connections — the neighbor, the grocery clerk, the person who delivers your Amazon packages — and why they count

• How to normalize the awkward phone call and the 10pm voice memo in a "not-a-phone-call society"

• 2026 as "the year of analog" — bringing back inflection, tone, and the nuance texting flattens

• Acceptance as one of the eight tenets

• Recalibrating friendships without ending them

• The Blue Zones question — do communal societies live longer because they can't just opt out of each other?

• Why we "turn over" friends roughly every seven years — and why a faded friendship still counts

Connect with Dr. Horn: 

Website: https://www.drkimberlyhorn.com 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkimberlyhorn 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.horn.182 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-kimberly-horn-862b3ba5 

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/kahorn 

Book: Friends Matter, For Life: Harnessing the Eight Tenets of Dynamic Friendship  on Amazon and whichever platforms books are sold

Chapters: 

00:00 Social atrophy — did the pandemic make rejection hurt more? 

02:31 Wired for the tribe: why belonging is biological 

03:31 Meet Dr. Kimberly Horn and the loneliness crisis 

06:10 30 years of research, and the one factor that kept rising to the top 

09:09 "Accessible doesn't mean easy"

10:53 The 11-3-6 formula and the adulthood time problem 

13:00 Micro connections: the neighbor, the clerk, the Amazon driver 

15:22 How long until we're actually friends?

18:38 Normalizing the awkward call — and the 10pm voice memo  

24:46 Acceptance as a tenet — have we gotten less accepting?

28:01 Drawing tighter boundaries as we age — growth or loss?

31:26 Recalibrating, and letting friendships fade without failure 

36:55 Recalibration doesn't always mean ending 

39:57 Disenfranchised grief: the rejection society won't name 

43:06 How to get support when no one brings casseroles 

45:31 The shame of friendship rejection and low self-worth 

46:32 Self-friending — turning rejection into data, not identity - where to find Kimberly and her book

What if the plan you're clinging to for safety is the very thing keeping you stuck?

Alice is joined by Anne-Laure Le Cunff — neuroscientist, founder of the newsletter Ness Labs, and author of Tiny Experiments — who was thriving at Google until the morning she woke up to find her entire arm had turned purple. A blood clot threatening to travel to her lungs. Her first reaction in the ER? "One second, I need to check my calendar." That was the life quake that made her question everything — and eventually walk away from the job her immigrant mother saw as the family's hard-won safe spot in society.

Anne-Laure's reframe: certainty is a survival instinct, not a strategy. Our brains haven't changed much in a few thousand years, so we still cling to the illusion of control and quietly close doors to growth, connection, and self-discovery. Her answer isn't another blueprint — it's an experimental mindset: small, time-boxed actions run out of curiosity, measured by what you learn rather than the outcome you demanded.

She's honest that she didn't handle the uncertainty gracefully — she bolted back into old patterns and started a startup "for all of the wrong reasons," just to have something impressive to say. It was only when that startup failed, which she calls one of the best things that ever happened to her, that she admitted she was lost — and found it liberating.

Whether you're stuck in a job that pays the bills but doesn't fulfill you, or already mid-leap into the unknown, this is a candid, science-grounded reframe of what uncertainty is actually for.

In this episode they explore:

• The purple arm and the calendar — the health scare that exposed a life built on saying yes to everything

• Why "I work at Google" was an identity, and what losing it does to your sense of self

• Why your brain treats uncertainty as a threat to survival

• The startup she started for all the wrong reasons, and why its failure was liberating

• The hero's journey as a mental model for real life — and why we live through it more than once

• Tiny experiments explained — starting from a hypothesis, not a blueprint

• Measuring inputs over outputs, and why changing a million things at once tells you nothing

• Intentional imperfection — why running at 100% everywhere is a recipe for burnout

• The one conversation with your partner that prevents pointless conflict

• Self-compassion over self-awareness in "do it all" culture

• Toxic productivity vs. mindful productivity, and Peter Drucker's fiftyfold stat

• Becoming "an anthropologist of your own life"

  
  

Connect with Anne-Laure Le Cunff:Website: nesslabs.comInstagram: ⁠@neuranne⁠Book: Tiny Experiments, https://www.amazon.ae/Tiny-Experiment...

Chapters: 

00:00 "One second, I need to check my calendar" — the purple arm

00:43 Meet Anne-Laure Le Cunff, author of Tiny Experiments

01:04 The yes girl at Google — imposter syndrome

02:00 The blood clot, the ER, and quitting

03:40 Life quakes and shifting priorities

05:17 Why the brain treats uncertainty as a survival threat

06:47 Clinging to the illusion of control

07:29 Losing the Google identity

09:02 The startup that failed — and why it was liberating

10:18 The hero's journey, explained

12:12 Why we live through multiple hero's journeys

13:09 Tiny experiments as the tool for climbing back up

14:32 Measuring inputs, not outputs

16:13 Intentional imperfection and executive function

18:53 Self-awareness vs. self-compassion

20:39 Toxic vs. mindful productivity

22:02 Anthropologist of your own life — where to find Anne-Laure

What if the first person to reject you and the hardest one to recover from,  was you?

Alice is joined by Selena Rezvani, Wall Street Journal bestselling author, leadership and confidence speaker, and creator of the viral newsletter that became the Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership series. This episode is a masterclass in overcoming the fear of rejection at work: Selena has half a million followers teaching self-advocacy, yet the rejection she keeps circling back to isn't from a publisher or an online hater. It's the self-rejection that began in a turbulent childhood, where she learned she could earn love by achieving quietly and never needing anything.

Selena's reframe: rejection from other people is a moment of contact, self-rejection is the quiet, corrosive one that whispers you're not worthy unless you're in "conquer mode." She traces how trauma-driven overachievement became perfectionism, guilt around rest, and showing up as "the diet soda version of yourself." Then she unpacks how to build confidence at work one rep at a time, naming her inner critic (hers is called Marjorie) and swapping "what if I fail?" for "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn."

The sharp turn: success doesn't end rejection, it amplifies it. She's blunt that eight publisher rejections for one book turned out to be a gift, the idea was a "should," not a "want." Her antidote to the shame spiral is disarmingly simple: "share is a way to repair," because sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Whether you're dealing with rejection at work, rebuilding confidence after a setback, or weighing a career risk in a frozen job market, this is a candid, practical reframe of what rejection is really for.

In this episode they explore:

• How to overcome the fear of rejection — and why the first rejection often comes from yourself

• Trauma-driven overachievement: the survival strategy that later becomes the wound

• Why success and visibility amplify rejection instead of ending it

• The "diet soda version of yourself" — how fear makes you show up watered-down

• How to build confidence at work using rejection as exposure therapy

• The regret-minimization framework for deciding whether to take the risk

• How to quiet your inner critic and catch all-or-nothing self-talk

• Recovering from a bad review or a lower-than-usual score

• How to handle rejection as a leader — and why eight publisher rejections were a gift

• "Share is a way to repair" — how talking openly steals rejection's power

• Job hugging: taking career risks and negotiating in a tough job market

• "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn"

Connect with Selena:

Website: selenarezvani.com

LinkedIn / Instagram / TikTok: @selenarezvani

Books: Quick Confidence and Quick Leadership

Chapters:

00:00 "The first rejection I remember came from me" — self-rejection

04:31 Trauma and overachievement at work

09:15 Confidence, self-advocacy, and self-leadership

11:29 Why success amplifies rejection

15:47 Fear of rejection at work — the "diet soda" self

21:34 "Write the book you wish existed"

29:00 Recovering from a bad review — the keynote that stung

35:56 Quieting your inner critic and black-and-white thinking

44:01 Eight publisher rejections — the gift

49:00 Job hugging and career risk in a tough market

53:59 "I'm either going to win or I'm going to learn"

This episode discusses ADHD, rejection sensitivity, and mental health. It is educational and not a substitute for professional care.

What if being "too nice" was never a personality flaw — but your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to stay safe?

Everyone who loves Alice has told her the same thing: be more assertive! Nobody ever explained how. In this solo episode she chases down her million-dollar question — how a self-described self-sacrificer with ADHD and rejection sensitive dysphoria actually learns to speak up. 

Alice's reframe: people pleasing isn't a moral failing, it's trauma-driven behaviour. The link between ADHD and people pleasing runs through rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and masking — the quiet acceptance that turns "I guess I'll do the dishes" into years of swallowed resentment. She walks through what took her from being the roommate who never said a word to the woman who now asks a table to move over.

She's clear she's not a psychologist, so this is the research talking: a 2024 study linking ADHD symptoms to higher rejection sensitivity, a finding that over 90% of adults with ADHD mask socially, a 2025 Lancet Psychiatry review on medication and emotional regulation, Russell Ramsay's work on perfectionism and emotional reasoning, Steven Hayes' acceptance work, and Marsha Linehan's DBT — including a line-by-line ride through the DEAR MAN script you can use in a hard conversation.

Whether you've never once sent food back, or you're mid-recovery and still get the RSD flare-ups, this is a practical, research-backed reframe of what assertiveness is actually for.

In this episode Alice explores:

• Why "being more assertive" is useless advice without a method

• The roommate era that broke her go-with-the-flow approach

• Is people-pleasing a sign of ADHD?

• Rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and masking

• The 2024 study tying ADHD symptoms to higher rejection sensitivity, and why RSD makes criticism land harder

• Why over 90% of adults with ADHD mask

• Calm the storm first: the 2025 Lancet Psychiatry review on ADHD medication and emotional regulation

• Catch the lie your brain is telling you — Russell Ramsay on perfectionism and emotional reasoning

• You don't have to win the argument with the thought — Steven Hayes and the ACT reframe

• DEAR MAN, decoded line by line — Marsha Linehan's DBT script for asking and saying no without fawning

Sources:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12888-022-043566https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165178125001994https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-020-10115-2

https://www.cbt4adhd.com Source: 2025 ACT systematic review(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09727531241300741).Source: Linehan (2015) DBT Skills Training Manual; controlled DEAR MAN study (https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/742/).Neff self-compassion research index (https://self-compassion.org/the-research/).

Connect with Alice: 

Website: hustlingwriters.com

Instagram: @alicedraper

LinkedIn: Alice Draper

Email: [email protected]. 

Chapters:

00:00 "Be more assertive" — the advice with no instructions

01:05 The roommate era: going with the flow curdles into resentment

02:30 From silent to the one who asks the table to move over

03:20 Is people pleasing a part of ADHD?

04:10 Rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and the 90% who mask

05:15 Step one: calm the storm — medication, DBT, psychiatric care first

06:40 Step two: catch the lie — Ramsay on perfectionism and emotional reasoning

07:45 Step three: don't delete the thought — Hayes and the ACT reframe

08:40 Step four: get a script — Marsha Linehan and DEAR MAN, line by line

11:20 Why a script feels terrifying at first — and stops feeling that way

12:15 Step five: be kind to yourself after the no — Harvard on self-compassion

13:10 Repetition over getting it right: still flaring, doing the hard thing anyway

14:00 A note to the listener: this room, and reaching out

What if saying "no worries" a thousand times was never politeness,  but a survival strategy your brain built to dodge rejection?

Alice wants the answer to be yes: is people pleasing a sign of ADHD? First she reframes herself,  not a people pleaser but a "recovering self-sacrificer." Pleasing from love is a gift. Pleasing because you're terrified of being a burden is something else. If you've ever wondered whether pleasing people is part of ADHD, this one's for you.

Alice's reframe: the science on ADHD and people pleasing is messier than the internet admits. People pleasing isn't in the ADHD criteria, and no study pins it directly on the condition, so "is people pleasing an ADHD trait?" doesn't have a clean yes. But ADHD is tied to a stack that can build a self-sacrificer: rejection sensitivity, emotional dysregulation, and masking.

The stack: a 2024 study links ADHD symptoms to higher rejection sensitivity. Dysregulation makes feelings hit harder and linger. Over 90% of ADHD adults mask,  the ADHD masking and people pleasing overlap is real. Add thousands more negative comments before age ten, and appeasing looks less like a flaw than a rational way to limit the hits. For a lot of ADHD women especially, pleasing people becomes the default long before anyone names it.

Whether you're living adult ADHD and people pleasing, exploring the RSD and ADHD people pleasing link, or trying to understand someone who is, this is an honest, uncertain look at where the evidence stands, grain of salt included, therapist's blessing pending. Next week: how to stop pleasing people when you have ADHD.

In this episode Alice explores:

• Why "recovering self-sacrificer" is a truer label than "people pleaser"

• Is people pleasing related to ADHD — or something else entirely?

• Why the confident online take — "people pleasing is just ADHD" — outruns the science

• Rejection sensitivity, and the 2024 study linking it to ADHD symptoms

• RSD, ADHD and people pleasing — how rejection sensitive dysphoria feeds the cycle

• Emotional dysregulation — when feelings hit harder and take longer to settle

• ADHD masking and people pleasing: the study where 90%+ of ADHD adults hide themselves socially

• Why ADHD women and people pleasing so often go hand in hand

• How "yes, that's fine" becomes a survival mechanism when disapproval feels catastrophic

• ADHD and people pleasing in relationships — where the pattern shows up most

• The overlap with trauma-world "fawning" — and why some of this may be childhood, not ADHD

• Does ADHD cause people pleasing? Where the honest answer lands

• A tease for next week — how to stop people pleasing with ADHD

  
  

  Connect with Alice:

  Website: hustlingwriters.com

  Instagram: @alicedraper

  LinkedIn: Alice Draper

  Email: [email protected]. 

  
  

  Chapters:

  00:00 "I am a people pleaser — and it might be because I have ADHD"

  01:00 Why "recovering self-sacrificer" is the better term

  02:00 Pleasing from love vs. pleasing at your own expense

  03:00 The research deep dive — and a messier answer than expected

  04:00 Rejection sensitivity and the 2024 study

  05:00 Emotional dysregulation and masking (90%+ of ADHD adults)

  06:00 Stacking it up — when appeasing becomes survival

  07:00 RSD and 10,000 negative comments before age ten

  08:00 The fawning overlap — ADHD, or early childhood?

  09:00 Where this leaves us: a pattern, not a proven fact

  10:00 Next week's episode, and one ask for listeners

What if the kindest thing you can do for someone is reject them clearly, and the cruelest thing is to keep them hoping?

In this solo episode, recorded from a Poddster booth at the 1 Billion Followers Summit in the UAE, Alice makes the case that a clean "no" beats a soft maybe every time. She opens with the situationship hot and cold, days of silence, then something romantic and the research that ambiguity hurts more than a clear rejection. She calls it the Ellsberg paradox: we prefer known risks to uncertainty.

Her reframe, from client Kelli Thompson: "clarity is kindness, but clarity is difficult." Saying no hurts, but leaving someone to wonder is worse. As an entrepreneur of six years, she's grateful for the "it's not a fit" email. Rejection resilience is a muscle: start small on salespeople, reframe every no as self-respect and respect for the other person, and listen to your body before answering. She cites Gabor Maté's "When the Body Says No" on how yes-saying leads to burnout, then closes with her own housemate story how conflict avoidance eroded a friendship.

Whether you fade dates out or wait on replies that never come, this is a sharp reframe of why a clear no is the kinder gift.

In this episode Alice explores: 

• The situationship and the Ellsberg paradox — why ambiguity hurts more than a clean rejection 

• "Clarity is kindness, but clarity is difficult" — Kelli Thompson's framing 

• Why the "sorry, it's not a fit" email is a gift, not a snub 

• Building the rejection-resilience muscle by starting on salespeople and insurance cold-calls 

• Practicing assertiveness with people who can take it before the people who can't

• Reframing every "no" as self-respect AND respect for the other person

• The coffee-with-someone-who-doesn't-want-to-be-there test

• Listening to your body: intrigue, dread, and "good nervous" as decision signals

• Gabor Maté's "When the Body Says No" and yes-saying as a path to burnout

• The university housemates story — how conflict avoidance eroded a friendship

• Why never setting boundaries is unfair to the people who care about you

Connect with Alice:

Website: hustlingwriters.com/templates. 

Instagram: @alicedraper

LinkedIn: Alice Draper

Email: [email protected]. 

Chapters:

00:00 Situationships and the Ellsberg paradox

01:30 Clarity is kindness, but clarity is difficult

02:30 Getting ghosted by leads — why a clear no saves everyone

03:30 Start small: practicing on salespeople and cold-callers

04:30 Reframe the no as self-respect and respect for others

05:30 Setting emotional boundaries by listening to your body

06:30 Gabor Maté and yes-saying as a cause of burnout

07:15 The good nervous: knowing when a yes is right

08:00 The housemates story, when conflict avoidance erodes friendships

09:15 Why boundaries are fairer to the people who care about you