Rejection sensitive dysphoria - AIBU

[Lipido]

name changed and will have to leave this a bit vague

A member of staff has returned from sick leave (workplace stress, extended 6 months - came back the day before flipping to half pay).

Occy health have sent a recommendation that based on the self diagnosed rejection sensitive dysphoria a number of reasonable adjustments are put in place.

One of the adjustments is that emails shouldn’t include bold text or underlining as this triggers the above, not just emails from me, emails from any senior person in the organisation

My AIBU is NOT about the above diagnosis . It’s about the fact that an occupational health nurse can give this kind of recommendation (and others) based on a phone assessment for a self diagnosed issue. With absolutely no understanding of how this will play out in the real world? I cannot monitor or screen emails to this person. I cannot ensure they are never given feedback they might not like. I essentially cannot manage them at all!

I often use bold for sub headings in emails to denote the start of a new section - it helps to break up technical analysis into manageable chunks. It’s much harder to read if it’s all plain text.

Where do you stop? What about bullet points, or highlighted sections?

Yesterday 22:52

** reaction sensitive dysphoria is not a recognised condition its made up bs.

I don’t think so - I’m still triggered by things that happened 60 years ago- fortunately I was diagnosed with adhd a few years ago and now understand why I am triggered and can calmly deal with it

Should add. That calmly dealing with it doesn’t mean it has no emotional impact on me

I think it’s very easy to avoid using bold or underlining in emails so this by itself isn’t an issue, or shouldn’t be. I have a personal policy of immediately deleting internal emails which include red ink. It’s rude and unnecessary.

If you are having to put things in bold, you are probably waffling too much.

Bold/underlining/caps/red text can come across as quite aggressive. A bit like you are shouting those words. I personally don’t care but I know quite a few people do, so I don’t use them myself.

Everyone experiences some anxiety and can feel uncomfortable with criticism, that's different to having RSD. Just like everyone gets sad/low mood sometimes but that doesn't compare to clinical depression. Most people will get headaches but not everyone will get debilitating migraines. What you go through is a typical experience that most of us can just get through and get on with things. For some people it's a lot more extreme and they can't just get a grip and carry on.

My husband is autistic and prefers things in bold and underlined as it helps his brain process the most important tasks.

I’m sure everyone has preferences that work best for them but realistically how are you supposed to police that. This could become a minefield.

Recently retired, but when I was working we'd regularly get "all staff" emails that had sections in bold or underlined, presumably to make sure that people read the important bits.

I wonder what the comms team's response to a request for this adjustment would have been?

RSD is awful to live with, it was a key part in my social deficits criteria for my autism diagnosis.

Basically, it's a fight/flight/freeze/fawn response to the extreme when there is either valid or perceived criticism, so yes, the criticism can be valid, but it can also just be how I have interpreted the information being given to me, but my neurological response swings to immense and extreme distress, to the point I can get shouty, teary, scream, or just completely shut down.

Obviously not everybody knows what RSD is, or that I struggle with it and so it causes social rifts when I have these reactions.

To be honest with you, I didn't know this was RSD until I was almost 30.

When I could finally name the beast, it helped so much with managing it, because I could explain to the people around me that when they offer me criticism, before they expect a response I need to take time to pause and process the information they have given me, and put in place techniques I have learnt in order to prevent catastophising, and instead of focusing on the worst possible interpretation, I can start from the best possible interpretation and work my way back from there, but as this goes directly against the uncontrollable neurological distress it causes me, I will be quiet, withdrawn, and may even need to refer to my notebook to write down my thoughts before we can put any action in place.

This has meant small interactions like my family member picking up a spoon from the cutlery drawer that still has a bit of a smudge on it and saying "ugh, this one is still dirty" and me curling up, thinking I can never do anything right, and they just said that to get to me because they just want to get under my skin because they've always hated me and they just set me up to fail, to realising yeah that spoon has a smudge on it, it was wet, I thought I'd done a good enough job wiping it, but do you know what, I'm only human and how many times have I been to restaurants and been given a smudged spoon, realised that the person who put them in the wash was also human, and just gone back and got another one that didn't have a big smudge on it, and that I owe myself that same grace.

In the case of the OPs member of staff, if group, company wide emails, or community access data had bold and underlining on it, it probably wouldn't trigger me personally because I know it would be being sent to everybody, but if my direct line manager was sending emails specifically to me, and it had a lot of bold, capitals, and underlining then I would probably feel a little bit attacked. I don't think it's unreasonable where possible to ask that this is taken into consideration, but sometimes key elements do need highlighting in bold, or underlining, because I am also autistic, and find processing a lot of visual data at once to be overwhelming, and a big part is recognising that the text changes are for my benefit, and not for my detriment.

I had some OT sessions through the NHS where I brought up RSD, and my OT was wonderful about it, and wrote recommendations down, as well as advocacy service details if I ever get a job where I need mediation to discuss ways of working with my strengths and not against my weaknesses. I would only ask for my boss to consider these things, but I also would be able to forgive is they forgot about these things, because like me, they are human, they have a lot to manage, they are no more perfect than I am, and learning about people isn't linear.

I can’t believe self diagnosed conditions that don’t actually exist. I would make a complaint to my union

As a project manager I always bold date and time deadlines. Mainly to avoid 12345321 people messaging me on Teams saying - "so this document, when do I have to review it by" and sending me mad. I can just say "I have highlighted tbe relevant deadlines in bold in the email I sent you all".

Yes definitely, and this person has tried to get help in dealing with it. This is what the powers that be have come up with. Their decision isn't her fault.

TBH surely it would be better to help them develop coping strategies to understand that people highlight or bold text in emails to signify to the reader its importance or make it easier for busy or distracted readers to locate the key points, rather than a criticism of individual staff members.

OP keeps on dodging context questions. I want to know if someone is sending emails just to this lady with bolded underlined text, or it is is actually ones sent to the whole office that are triggering her. If whole office, is it her role highlighted in bold underlined in those messages being criticised? We don't know what the situation is.

Oh come on!
Responsibilty has to be taken at some point.

The thing is, people all deal with their own ‘thing(s)’ everyday. Most people take their own responsibility for that. This move towards pushing for a diagnosis or self-diagnosing and then expecting everyone to amend perfectly normal working behaviour to accommodate one individual (and then multiple individuals ALL with different “needs”) has to stop.

No wonder our nation’s productivity is in a pit. Companies and their employees are wasting too much time on crap like whether they’re allowed to underline something in an e-mail.

What about their ADHD suffering colleague who needs important information underlining? What about the dyslexic colleague who can read better in bold?
Stop wasting the time and energy of many, and allow each individual to find their own way through their issues. That may mean changing job if a particular print or font can trigger you.

Rejection sensitive dysphoria is not a formally recognised standalone medical or psychiatric diagnosis in the UK, nor is it listed in diagnostic manuals like the DSM-5 or the ICD-10/11. It is considered as a possible symptom of wider neurological conditions including ADHD and some mental health disorders. However, a diagnosis is not required in order for any employee to ask for reasonable adjustments at work but the key word is reasonable. If this colleague's mental landscape is such that the normal communication between professionals makes her ill then the appropriate action is not to totally change the modes of normal communication between professionals, which goes far beyond a reasonable adjustment, but to instigate the process of capability assessments which will allow for her employment to be terminated on the grounds that she cannot do the job. This has to be managed incredibly carefully to ensure that it doesn't amount to an unfair dismissal but that it HR's actual job and they are trying to pass this impossible situation to you in order to avoid doing that job. It is important that the process is followed to terminate her employment without her resigning because of she resigns she will be considered as voluntarily unemployed and not entitled to the same benefits. Terminating her employment on capacity grounds will help her to get the help she needs.

I do it because where you are responding to lots of people about various stuff it's easy.

I don't find it rude. I also get feedback that it's much easier for everyone to scan read the email.

This is what I was thinking. As RSD is often in the context of ADHD. I think it’s about being open to understanding and supporting individuals but individuals need to then also do the work to manage themselves through accessing support. If the emails are passive aggressive that needs to stop. If they are being clear on priorities then the person needs help to manage the and understand that a bold line may be there for more emphasis. It’s hard to know without the emails and context. Blanket advice from OH without context also isn’t helpful and may actually limit the person more.

I voted YABU because underlining and bold in emails is just a unprofessional anyway.

It’s not considered in the slightest bit unprofessional where I work. It’s actually quite useful when there is a lot of information to be absorbed and/or there are key points (such as deadlines) that require additional attention.

I’m ex-Big Four and work for one of the world’s leading banks (bulge bracket) so we are a long long way from being considered unprofessional. In fact we generally blow most organisations out of the water when it comes to being professional. Trust me, if we weren’t our clients would tell us (and then some!)

Same.

I love underlined, blood and highlighted emails

Me too! I deal with a couple of hundred emails a day. I like to be able to quickly look at an email and see what action is required of who and by when.

I hate long ramble emails when you have to scroll down and open attachments just to understand what the hell it’s about.

But if he does something wrong or hasn't completed something on time, does that mean they just don't use underlining or caps, but they still have to say 'the deadline for this has now passed, please can you prioritise this and finish it today.'? Is that rejection of his attempts to do the work but not fast enough?!

It sounds really weird tbh.

Public sector I’m guessing?

Exactly! If this person has RSD, the ‘damage’ will be done by the content of the email rather than the bold/underlining. Unless they don’t bother reading the emails of course but that brings with it a different issue. 😜

I have (diagnosed) ADHD and I’m pretty sure that I have RSD (I only say ‘pretty sure’ because RSD isn’t actually a medically recognised condition) and whilst I appreciate that we’re all different and have different triggers but the issue is the content/messaging rather than the typeface format.