Thread by @VeroniKaboom

If publishing is serious about wanting to be a more accessible industry for non-neurotypical people, we should really be talking more about issues like this:

As an agent and as an author, I deal with this on a daily (or actually, more accurately, an hourly) basis. RSD can be distracting, debilitating—even sometimes galvanizing (sometimes in a less-than-healthy way) but it's never a non-issue for a neurodivergent person in publishing.

The thing that makes this topic so relevant to every collaborative/creative industry (IMO) is that "rejection" is a normal AND necessary part of a creator's process. "No" is educational. Creatively-speaking, you CANNOT be everyone's cup of tea. Otherwise, you'd just be...water.

BUT, that doesn't mean it's easy to convince yourself (especially if you're somone with ADHD, PTSD or another type of ND who experiences RSD by nature of your wiring) that rejection is good, actually. No amount of mental gymnastics (or training) can banish those feelings forever.

(Trust me, I have tried "training" myself out of feeling bad when rejection happens; it does not work for long.) And maybe I shouldn't be posting this thread when Mercury is in retro, because I know I'm probably neglecting some semantic qualifiers here, but: Rejection uh, SUCKS.

You can try channeling Kevin Bacon from "Animal House" all you want. You can even be a person (like me) who is in a position to be giving AND taking rejection all day, pretty much every day (there's a switch joke in there, somewhere) but it will never feel less painful. HOWEVER.

If there's one thing I have found to be helpful, so far in my travels through the land of "a pass from one means a pass from all; yes, everyone, even those who never had a chance to reject you directly; the rejection is implied" it's that pain does not always have to become fear.

TL;DR I believe rejection is necessary. I believe there's something we can learn from "no" or even "not yet." I also believe that it sucks. That it's supposed to suck. But fearing a thing does not make it hurt less when it happens. Do NOT reject yourself preemptively out of fear.