{"id":332,"date":"2024-01-23T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-23T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/?p=332"},"modified":"2024-07-04T23:15:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-04T22:15:09","slug":"rejection-sensitivity-and-beta-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timothypatrickbrown.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/23\/rejection-sensitivity-and-beta-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"Rejection Sensitivity And Beta Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Update: Softening came back from beta read and I took the feedback a lot better than I though I would. My feeling was of gratitude rather than horror. This post is still relevant though, and a useful personal reminder. Positivity and robustness are so important, as is the ownership, and regular wearing of, big boy pants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Softening<\/a> has gone out for its first beta read<\/a>. I\u2019ve polished the first three chapters and I\u2019ve sent them out into the world. It\u2019s a big moment. It\u2019s changed from a personal project full of personal stories, squirrelled away on a personal computer, to being a real thing, read by real people, with real lives – who alarmingly may give real feedback. Not the feedback that I secretly want – that it\u2019s amazing – but real feedback; the good, the bad and the ugly. And that might be a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m very rejection sensitive. That\u2019s not my opinion – that\u2019s the opinion of my psychiatrist. He calls it Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria<\/a> (RSD). I know this because I got him to print out his notes about me and it was detailed there, in very plain hard to take medical language, along with a lot of other plain, hard to take, information. It\u2019s a feature ADHD<\/a>. I\u2019m truly awful at taking feedback. I immediately feel tense, defensive and under attack, and that\u2019s the best outcome. The more extreme reactions are disassociation, a feeling of unreality, and a complete inability to act – I go to bed and can\u2019t do anything. RSD was the symptom of ADHD that triggered the medical intervention. It\u2019s the symptom that I find most crippling. It freezes me in place. I get stuck and it\u2019s hard to see a way out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the beta read feedback might be a problem. I knew this would be the case when I started writing, but I never thought I\u2019d get this far, so it was a non-issue. But I have got this far, and it\u2019s become a non-non-issue. It\u2019s something I\u2019ll have to face if I\u2019m going to continue and improve. I need the feedback and I need to be able to take it. I need strategies and mental reframing. I need to take the long view. I need to hear the feedback, really properly hear it. I need some mottos and mantras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mottos and Mantras<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Mottos and mantras useful for any sensitive soul, not just the fraction of the population whose psychiatrist has told them that they are properly terrible at taking feedback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n