Every once in a while, I come across a book that makes me wish I could go back in time and hand it to my younger self. Why Does Everybody Hate Me? by Alex Partridge is definitely one of those books. In fact, if I could have read this book when I was a teenager, I honestly believe I could have saved myself a LOT of heartache and probably quite a few delays in my life along the way.
About Why Does Everybody Hate Me?
Alex Partridge knows how it feels to live with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), the state of emotional dysregulation experienced by almost everyone with ADHD. Throughout his journey from successful entrepreneur to neurodiversity campaigner and host of the hugely successful ADHD Chatter, Alex has been haunted by the fear of rejection, labelled ‘over-sensitive’, and fought constantly against the desire to people-please and protect himself from emotional harm.
In Why Does Everybody Hate Me?, Alex draws on his own experience of RSD and shares how it has coloured every aspect of his life, from his days as founder of global social media brands UniLad and LadBible to his adult relationships, mental health struggles and persistent imposter syndrome. Drawing on insights from some of the world’s leading ADHD experts, he offers simple, practical steps to help you regain your boundaries, rebuild your confidence and strengthen your self-belief.
My Review of Why Does Everyone Hate Me? Book
I have always known that I have some major insecurity issues. Considering the abuse I endured as a child, I always assumed most of those issues came from that. I’ve also battled ADHD and depression throughout my life, so I’ve spent years basically accepting that my brain works a little differently and that some things affect me more deeply than they seem to affect other people. What I didn’t realize was how many of the things I’ve struggled with could also be connected to rejection sensitivity.
Learning about RSD while reading this book caused SOOOO many things from my past to suddenly make more sense.
For example, if you put me in a room with people who know me well, I can easily be the life of the party. I love talking with people, joking around, and having a good time when I’m comfortable with the people around me. However, put me in a room full of people I don’t know and you’re going to get a completely different version of me. I’d much rather find a corner somewhere and OBSERVE until I figure out who everyone is around me.
And when I say I observe, I mean I observe almost everything with a vengeance like my life depends on it. I’m paying attention to facial expressions, tone of voice, how people interact with each other, what someone says, what they DON’T say, and how people react to things. I may never say a word about something I’ve noticed, but you can pretty much guarantee my mind recorded it.
For years, I assumed I did that because of my childhood. When you’ve been hurt by people you’re supposed to be able to trust, it makes sense that you learn to read people before deciding whether you feel safe around them. I still believe that’s part of it. However, reading this book made me realize that there may be another part of my brain constantly looking for signs that someone doesn’t like me, is upset with me, or is going to reject me.
That realization opened up a whole other can of worms because then I started thinking about my relationships over the years.
I can look back now and see that RSD has cost me SOOOO many relationships. There were friendships I walked away from, people I believed didn’t want me around, and situations where I convinced myself I knew what someone was thinking or feeling about me without actually KNOWING it. I’m not saying every relationship I’ve lost was because of RSD because there have certainly been people in my life who truly did hurt me and relationships that needed to end. However, I can now see situations where my fear of being rejected probably caused me to react to something much more strongly than the actual situation called for.
I also believe it played a role in the fact that I’ve been married three times now. That’s not necessarily something I enjoy admitting, but it’s the truth. When you are constantly looking for signs that someone is mad at you, doesn’t love you anymore, is interested in somebody else, or is getting ready to leave you, it’s pretty easy to see how that can create problems in a relationship. One of the pages I photographed talks about how a small change in your partner’s mood can turn into an entire spiral where you start looking for evidence to prove what you’re already afraid of. THAT section hit home harder than I care to admit.
Luckily, Del knows me well enough now to recognize when I’m truly being myself and when I’m dealing with what I now understand may be an RSD episode. Honestly, I think he knew there was something going on LONG before I did. He just didn’t know what it was called or how to explain it to me.
There have been times when something small happens between us and my brain can turn it into something HUGE. I can convince myself he’s upset with me or that something is wrong between us, and once those thoughts start going, they can be hard to shut off. Meanwhile, Del may have absolutely NO idea how I got from whatever actually happened to where my mind ended up.
That’s one reason the relationship portions of this book mattered so much to me. Alex talks about actually explaining RSD to your partner instead of expecting them to somehow understand what’s going on inside your head. He also discusses learning what triggers those reactions and finding ways to step away and calm down before responding when you realize you’re in that heightened emotional state. I especially liked the suggestion about having your partner record a short message reminding you that they love you and WHY they love you so you have something real to listen to when your own thoughts are trying to convince you otherwise.
That may sound like such a simple thing, but if you’ve ever had your own mind convince you that something is terribly wrong even though you don’t have any real evidence that it is, then you probably understand why that suggestion stood out to me.
One of the biggest things I took away from Why Does Everybody Hate Me? is learning to question whether what I’m feeling is based on what is ACTUALLY happening or whether my brain has taken something and created an entire story around it. That doesn’t mean my feelings aren’t real, and it certainly doesn’t mean every bad experience in my life can suddenly be blamed on RSD. It simply means I’m learning that I need to stop sometimes and ask myself what evidence I actually have before I react.
That’s a pretty big wake-up call when you’ve spent almost 47 years believing you were simply overly insecure or “too sensitive.”
This book also made me realize how much I wish someone had explained all of this to me when I was younger. I can’t help wondering how many relationships might have turned out differently or how many things I might have handled differently if I had understood what was happening inside my own head. I can’t go backward and change any of that, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living in the “what ifs,” but I CAN make sure my own kids have information I didn’t have.
That’s exactly why I’ve pushed them to read this book too.
If any of them struggle with these same thought patterns, I want them recognizing it NOW instead of reaching their late 40s and suddenly realizing there may have been an explanation for something they’ve battled their entire lives. If understanding it saves them even a little bit of the heartache I’ve experienced, then it’s worth having them read it.
It also explains why it took me so long to finish this book. I wasn’t reading it like I normally read a book. I was absorbing it. I kept stopping to take pictures of pages that mattered to me specifically because I knew I wanted to come back to them. Some of them made me think about my marriage. Others made me think about friendships, my childhood, or situations from YEARS ago that suddenly looked different with the information I have now.
I don’t believe one book magically fixes decades of thought patterns, and I definitely haven’t suddenly figured all of this out just because I finished reading it. I still have work to do on myself, and I’m sure there will still be times when Del has to look at me and wonder how in the world my brain got from point A to point Z so quickly. The difference is that now I have a better chance of recognizing it too.
And THAT is why this book has meant so much to me.
I thought I was picking up a book about rejection sensitivity. Instead, I ended up reading something that helped me understand parts of myself I’ve spent most of my life trying to explain.
Talk to me in the comments:
Have you ever read a book that made you look back over your own life and suddenly understand yourself a little differently? I’d love to hear about it.
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