Fear of rejection - where did it come from?

October 30, 2018
Psychology of relationships
Larisa Dranishnikova

Fear of rejection is an irrational feeling that convinces a person that people do not approve of his opinions, personality traits, values, or behavior. The fear of rejection leaves an imprint on daily household decisions, the choice of life priorities and relationships with people. Everyone is afraid of failure. For some it is a fear of losing comfort, for others it is a panicky fear of being rejected.

Fear comes from childhood

A newborn baby differs from baby animals in its helplessness. He cannot run away, feed himself, keep warm, cling to his mother’s skin and always be under her protection, bite or scare the offender. The help and care of others helps to survive, and the instinct of self-preservation suggests that they should always be nearby.

In addition to safety, a child needs love. Gentle touches and kind words calm and delight. A beloved child does not doubt his value to others.

Any child faces refusals and restrictions, this is how parents prepare him for life in society with other people. Adults choose strategies and methods for such education based on their own experience, momentary mood or desire to get a quick result. The decision to punish a child can be rash or impulsive, for which the parent always has an excuse. The trouble here is especially the perception of the child himself. When a baby thinks in terms of “loves - doesn’t love” and “I’m needed - I’m not needed,” isolation or punishment destroys his cozy world, leaving mental trauma.

Ways to protect yourself from rejection

When a child realizes his fear of being rejected, he looks for a way to live with it.

The first way is to submit and become “good.” This is a successful but short-sighted strategy. The fear of rejection remains, and the rules of the game are becoming more complicated all the time. Obedient children grow into anxious and responsible perfectionists. Their motto is: “We won’t give you a reason to stop loving us.”

The second way is to fight those who reject. This is a dead-end strategy in relationships with people. The child does not fight for fair treatment, but against any evaluation. His motto: “You don’t love me anyway, I have nothing to lose.”

The third way is to stop adjusting to the opinions of others. The strategy works for people with high self-esteem. The motto of this group is: “I am dear to myself, I don’t need anyone else’s assessment.”

Deliberately rude behavior, awkward clothing and caustic criticism of others are an imitation of an indifferent attitude towards the opinions of others. The very fact of the rebellion and its scope indicate that the fear of being rejected is such a serious enemy that all forces are thrown into fighting it.

Symptoms

Fear of rejection can arise due to various personality disorders, so the symptoms of this type of disorder may differ in specific cases.

People with narcissistic, selfish personalities tend to mask their fears with inflated self-esteem, self-idealization, lack of empathy, and excessive demands on others. This approach discourages the desire to have close ties with such a person.
People with avoidant (anxious) personality disorder will try to avoid situations that would allow them to form stronger relationships with others.
In people with a dependent personality, fear of rejection can manifest itself as a feeling of helplessness, subordination to someone, a lack of one’s own opinion, and a desire to shift responsibility for one’s actions to others. Such men and women are so subordinate to others that they cannot function independently. Therefore, their fear of loneliness is extremely strong.
Nullophobia also appears in people with borderline personality disorder . Then the symptom may be going to extremes in social relationships (from love to hate) or emotional instability, instability that always stands in the way of a happy relationship.
People with paranoid tendencies will mask the fear of rejection behind suspicion, mistrust, and long-term “encryption” of moral injuries.

Symptoms of fear can also include voluntary withdrawal from any interpersonal relationships, a tendency to live alone, and low emotionality, which prevents closer relationships with other people. This is a defense mechanism designed to protect against excessive intimacy. Paired with the fear of rejection is often low self-esteem and a lack of understanding of others. All this is reflected in other areas of life. Lack of self-confidence and motivation makes it difficult for a person to take on ambitious tasks and achieve their goals. With a pronounced nature of the disorder, such fear of being rejected, abandoned, forms a depressive personality, and can be the beginning of severe neurosis.

Fear of rejection is harmful to life

Fear is like a beacon that warns of danger. If the beam is too bright, it hits the eyes and the helmsman becomes disorientated. Paralyzing fear destroys what they are afraid of losing.

Man strives for pleasure and avoids pain. The pain of losing health, family, home and life itself is equal in significance to the suffering of losing respect, affection, money and power over people. The fear of being rejected came from the fear of losing love, and losing favor meant in primitive times expulsion from the tribe. Thus, genetic memory equates the fear of rejection with the fear of dying of hunger alone.

If a man is refused by the woman he loves, this will not cause him to die of starvation. But suicide is possible if this man has inflated the price of a particular woman’s love to the price of his own life. The sufferer is not satisfied with the real reason for her refusal, he comes up with his own - he is not worthy of the love of any woman. Thus, the fear of future failures kills him.

The essence of the violation

Fear of rejection (also called “nullophobia”, NULLophobia) is a mental disorder based on an irrational fear of entering into close relationships with other people.
Any relationship - love or friendship - from the point of view of a person with such a disorder carries the risk of being rejected and, as a result, being left alone (which is especially frightening).

People who suffer from the fear of rejection, which has developed into a phobia, usually live according to one of two patterns.

The first of them is life in a relationship, union, but with a feeling of constant uncertainty and fear that all this is about to end. This attitude to life does not give a person happiness and often becomes the cause of neurosis. The fear of being rejected is so great that the person suffering from it does everything (often contrary to himself, his nature and principles) just not to lose another person. He tries to constantly confirm his love in one way or another and meet the expectations of the other party. Ultimately, this takes the form of obsessions, which, as a consequence, becomes the cause of separation.

The second path taken by people with fear of rejection is to avoid close relationships with others altogether. Those suffering from such a disorder do not want to get involved in them and somehow try to do something for the sake of relationships, assuming in advance that they still have no future. They protect themselves from loneliness, but, on the other hand, they do not want to risk being rejected. They don’t give chances to people who want to get to know each other and get closer to them.

A number of mechanisms that are triggered in the patient’s psyche perfectly mask the symptoms of this disorder. Therefore, people suffering from nullophobia are not always aware of their problem.

How to recognize someone who lives in constant fear of rejection

At the stage when the fear of rejection controls a person, his behavior and attitude towards himself betray his victim completely. Each of these signs suggests that fear of rejection is driving the personality:

Falsity in behavior. A person puts on the mask of “a person pleasant in all respects”, demonstrates those qualities and expresses the opinion that the interlocutor likes.
Subservience. He is afraid to refuse, fulfills the requests of others to his detriment, and is ready to humiliate himself in order to preserve the relationship.
Devaluation of your needs. This is the case when “giving your last shirt away” is not a feat of self-sacrifice, but a risk of remaining naked for the sake of someone else’s approval.
Nervous behavior. Self-doubt and trembling hands reveal a person who does not know what they want from him, and low self-esteem prevents him from being himself.
Passive aggression. When they say that someone is crushed by fear, they mean that they are not a threat. But he is capable of sabotage. In order not to be rejected, a person agrees to fulfill the request, but in fact the result will be zero or negative. This is his cowardly way of saying no. Those who do not have the courage to fight openly will wage a “guerrilla war.”
Giving up competition and your dreams. If you exclude situations from life that can end in rejection, then there will be no pain. Victims of the fear of rejection talk about how their life could have turned out, and what insurmountable obstacles prevented them from realizing it. Often they only think about the possibility of changing their life, but do not act.
Exaggerating your role in the lives of others. The confidence that those around them are constantly discussing their every move, envying their successes or avoiding communication, suggests that the whole life of these people is spent with an eye on others.
Self-fulfilling prophecies. Confidence in failure leads to failure. The constant expectation of pain turns a person into a masochist who himself goes towards suffering. When trouble happens, he is glad that he was right.
Frustration. He analyzes all conversations with people and looks for words or intonations in them that allegedly insult or humiliate him. This person shares his findings with the other person immediately or during the next conversation in order to blame him for the rejection. As a result, he has fewer interlocutors, and frustration increases.
Victim of manipulators. He offends loved ones who offer help with mistrust. At the same time, he becomes an easy victim of manipulators. To gain the trust and control of such people, scammers listen to endless complaints about refusals and condemnations, stories about self-fulfilling prophecies, and a lot of praise.

How to overcome the fear of being rejected ↑

Most psychologists recommend remembering the words of Franklin Roosevelt that we should only be afraid of fear itself, and not illusory images in our minds.

The basic rules for dealing with it will help you overcome this harmful complex.

Understanding the truth that your main enemy is fear

How often do people subconsciously motivate themselves to act based on false beliefs! The person himself makes these beliefs come true.

An example might be the mistaken belief that some group of people will reject an attempt at contact, and you program yourself to have a hostile attitude towards them. Any opportunities for cooperation are killed and the prerequisites for mutual understanding are destroyed. It is not those around you who are to blame for the subsequent refusal, but your behavior based on fear. A justifying conclusion is made for oneself about the inevitability of what is happening and one’s own rightness.

Only careful observation can establish the true cause of what happened. Fear should not control you, because it only shows the negative side of the process and focuses attention on it.

Learn and force yourself to find signs of what is right and positive.

The “everything is lost” mentality must disappear

A constant state of confidence in an undesirable result becomes dominant, the thought that no one likes you, that others don’t need you, the feeling of loneliness convinces you of the absolute collapse of everything that fills life with meaning.

You've been offered a position, but you're afraid you won't be able to handle it? Read about fear of a new job. Read about the fear of motherhood here.

Look at the situation from the other side - a person cannot accurately predict the future. Ignoring conscious thinking serves as fertile ground for the strengthening of internal fear.

There is a simple but very effective way to get rid of the obsessive feeling of impending disaster:

Try to tell yourself a story about how you received a refusal, how you felt, how you were a little upset.
And then imagine the whole process of recovery and the possibility of moving on.
Write everything down on paper to use as a guide in a similar situation.
In this way, you can force yourself to relate to everything that happens more simply and minimize the fear of being rejected.

Understand what "refusal" means

If someone rejects you, don't be too upset about it. Most often, it is the one who refuses who bears the big losses. And for you, the situation should become an incentive to further advance towards your goal.

How can we not recall the classic cases:

300 refusals to invest in an amusement park did not plunge Walt Disney into a state of apathy. The result of his perseverance is the legendary Disneyland;
200 unsuccessful attempts to obtain a bank loan did not stop Howard Schultz in his quest to create the Starbucks coffee chain;
several dozen promoters refused to sign a contract with the Beatles;
Almost all his life, patrons refused to buy paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

The opinions of other people should not be overestimated. Moving forward, learn to love your essence and external image, do not allow anyone to rule over you.

Get rid of the fear of being rejected - by refusing you, a person emphasizes his short-sightedness. After all, each of us always remains unique and most necessary for harmony in the world around us.

Fear will overcome confidence

In an extraordinary situation, you should not think about unpleasant consequences. It makes more sense to focus on how we want to feel.

Your thoughts should be directed to a positive resource right now and here.

This way of dealing with emotional problems can teach you to live without feeling regret about anything, without thinking about possible condemnation. Learn to choose in any situation and your way of thinking will change.

Don't try to always be right

Without studying the cause of your feelings, it is impossible to get rid of the state of anxiety and anxiety. Your fear of rejection is largely fueled by confidence in your own rightness in all situations.

Self-hypnosis that someone treats you badly causes a deep conviction that reality coincides with fiction.

But think about the paradox of the situation - you are always right, but mistakes and failures follow you at every turn.

The solution is very simple, but extremely effective:

let things and events move naturally;
Convince yourself that no one will harm you as long as you think about people and act kindly towards them.

Learn to enjoy your individuality

The ability to combat the constant need for someone else's evaluation will help you realize your own uniqueness. In the frantic pace of modern life, find the ability not to become like others, to maintain your uniqueness.

Do thoughts about the stage make your goosebumps run and your heart sink? Learn how to overcome your fear of public speaking. How to overcome the panic fear of losing a loved one? Read here.

Read the article on how to rid your child of fear.

This will require true uncompromisingness, which will pay off handsomely. The only people who will remain near you are those who appreciate and love the real you, and not the one tailored to someone else’s tastes.

Turn fear into a way to grow

Any refusal should be perceived as a bitter but necessary medicine. There is no need to perceive the situation as yet another proof of your own insolvency and unattractiveness.

It is better to analyze the mistakes made and prove to yourself that the person did not understand you only because the sentence was not made entirely correctly.

What should prevail is not the fear of rejection, but the passionate desire to prove one’s worth. This feeling of healthy egoism feeds a person with incredible energy and is capable of performing real miracles. Know how to relax, and then even negative results will sooner or later start working for you.

The imaginary world of the outcast

A man, paralyzed by the fear of rejection, lives in a world he has invented that resembles a “personal hell on Earth.” All the inhabitants of this world are busy condemning, humiliating and rejecting him. He is ready to tolerate these people for the sake of recognition. His loved ones deceive him and abandon him. Friends don't answer the phone. Friends don't want to hear about his problems. Relatives do not understand that his inaction protects him from the pain of another refusal. He could forgive them because he is afraid to be left alone, but instead he collects grievances.

How faith helps

In one Christian hymn about God there is a line “I follow you, rejecting all fear.” If trust in loved ones is lost, and “personal hell” drives you crazy, people turn to God. Believing in it helps you realize your fear of rejection and decide to get rid of it. Religion teaches us to look for answers in our own soul and says that God does not reject anyone and loves unconditionally. Those who do not consider themselves worthy of happiness rely on faith and alleviate their mental anguish.

Why do victims of rejection reject themselves?

People with high self-esteem respect themselves and others and are inclined to self-development. They have let go of the fear of rejection and are willing to help others do the same. It is the victims of this fear who reject others. They know how painful it is to be rejected, so they use rejection as punishment.

A woman, tormented by the pangs of jealousy and the expectation that her husband will leave her, provokes quarrels and goes to her mother. She does not want a divorce, but manipulates her husband so that he swears his love for her every day and promises never to leave her. The man is afraid of being rejected and is tired of quarreling, so he takes a mistress to have a “backup option.” The circle is closed: the drama remains forever in this family.

How to change your attitude towards refusals

Now it is clear what the fear of being rejected is. How to get rid of it?

If a person finds a diamond on the ground and, through ignorance or short-sightedness, considers it a cobblestone, he discards its side. Did the diamond grieve when it was rejected? The refusal did not reduce its value in any way. Did a person assert himself by throwing a diamond? He simply walked on and looked at his feet in search of treasures.

A young man with low self-esteem goes on a first date, with one thought in his head: “I’m afraid of being rejected.” He is fixated on his fears and does not think that the girl might disappoint him. Subconsciously, he gives her the right to evaluate and reject him.

Perhaps this young man was not appreciated by his parents or classmates, and he expects the same from women. If you change the vector of your expectations and consider yourself a diamond that will become a reward for the most worthy, then the fear of rejection will lose its power over it.

The first signs of nullophobia

A person perceives most life situations negatively. He is worried that he will not be accepted into the team. It seems to him that he is uninteresting and will not be able to adequately maintain a conversation. There is a fear of being rejected.

You can determine if a person has a fear of rejection by the following signs:

starts a conversation with a question about a person’s employment at a time when he needs help;
before the meeting I am sure that the guest will not come;
afraid to make new acquaintances;
avoids socializing in large companies;
often silent;
is constantly in a tense state with heavy forebodings;
has personal unattractiveness;
characterized by low self-esteem;
constantly compares himself to others;
reacts negatively and painfully to criticism;
avoids social or professional activities if they involve interpersonal contacts;
prefers solitude.

Sentimental and suspicious people often have a phobia of rejection. They create problems where there are none. Later they begin to worry about their mental health and condition. Afraid of going crazy or losing control of your emotions.

A person with nullophobia prefers being alone

Manipulation

The patient seeks consolation from loved ones. He asks to hug and kiss him more often. Expects manifestations of affection and tenderness. To get what he wants, he goes through various manipulations:

Bribe. They ask their loved one to give up plans for the sake of spending time together. Compensation can be a delicious dinner, a gift, or intimacy.
Appeal to pity. They show their helplessness and suffering in public.
A call for justice. They do a lot of good things for others, expecting the same reaction towards themselves. Causes victims to feel a sense of duty and obligation. Not getting the desired result, they become disappointed and offended.

At first, a person does not think about what causes a sense of duty in others.

Nothing personal about refusal

People often reject others without malicious intent. 20 applicants are invited to apply for a vacancy and 19 of them are rejected. The HR manager chose one; he did not think anything personal about the humiliation of the refusal of the others, as they say.

If you consciously separate the imagined scenario from reality, leave your “personal hell” and analyze your fears, you can come to the same conclusion as Dale Carnegie: “Only a few people think logically. Most of us are biased, prejudiced, infected with preconceptions, jealousy, suspicion, fear, envy and pride.”

Fear of being rejected when applying for a job

Fear of not passing the interview.

Work in the modern world structures human life, so it is not surprising that being busy seems to most to be the greatest happiness. Of course, many people are afraid of not getting a job, especially if it's worth it. And this fear cannot be outgrown, like, for example, the fear of refusal of reciprocity. This fear can only be overcome by getting a job.

How to minimize the likelihood of refusal during an interview?

Let's start not with specific advice, but with a general discussion about why there are employees in Russia. It is not known how it is in Europe, but in Russia no one knows why offices conduct interviews when most of the “trump” places are distributed among “their own” (friends, relatives). Do you know where this conclusion comes from?

Because of the nature of the interviews, because of the questions that are asked during them. All people know the state when a person painfully searches for a topic for conversation, and this is exactly how your future manager or his representative behaves in most interviews. He turns your resume over in his hands. But why he does this and why the hell he needs it, he doesn’t know. Therefore, here are a couple of useful tips.

There is no need to worry about the bogus procedure. If a person is a specialist in his field and represents something, all he needs to do is be himself, and he will be hired, provided that the organization is really looking for someone.
No matter how great a specialist a person is, he should not come to an interview unprepared. You must bring your resume and portfolio (if you have one). In a word, a complete set. Fear of rejection comes from uncertainty, and uncertainty can only be overcome by careful preparation.

What to do if you are refused a job?

Understand that refusal has nothing to do with the person’s personality as a whole.
What if they simply needed a more qualified specialist, or perhaps, on the contrary, a less qualified one. There have been real-life cases where HR departments have turned down candidates that were too good. The current employees of the company were simply afraid that a person would take their place.
Transform refusal from a destructive force into a creative one.
Simply put, you need to be able to learn from your own mistakes. It is necessary not to sprinkle ashes on one’s head, but to analyze without delay why exactly the employers refused, was it the person’s fault? And if, after reflection, the answer is yes, then the next question is how to make sure this doesn’t happen again?
There is no need to keep your disappointment to yourself.
You can visit a friend, and if you don’t have a close enough person, you can visit a psychologist, he will be glad to see you.

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Author: psychologist Valentin Manukovsky

Advice from a psychologist on overcoming the fear of rejection

They start by analyzing their own behavior. Anyone who expects rejection is desperate for love. Instead of an honest conversation, manipulations are used that humiliate the participants in this drama and make the fear of rejection stronger.

It is important to honestly admit to yourself that such situations happen and to abandon them forever:

Tricks with pity. This is a demonstration of your suffering from helplessness. The manipulator is supposed to be loved because he cannot take care of himself.
Tricks with injustice. This is a listing of all your good deeds throughout the history of your acquaintance and hints that in return you need to give love, care and gratitude.
Bribery tricks. Here, for your love, loyalty and care, you are supposed to gain control over the life of another, so that he gives up his interests, habits and attachments.

The next step is to overcome your fear of rejection. You need to make a list of 100 small and serious requests and choose 100 different people. These could be friends, relatives, classmates, officials from various institutions, or strangers on the street. The experiment will take a week or a month - it doesn’t matter. Goal: learn not to attach importance to refusals and keep records of satisfied requests.

Further, psychologists advise to improve your self-esteem. Once a person stops rejecting himself, others will see a lot of merit in him.

Women's fears: why are we afraid of being rejected?

“I can’t get through to him for two hours. Perhaps he doesn’t pick up the phone on purpose?” thinks a woman who, more than anything in the world, is afraid of being rejected by a man.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 based on 2 votes

Why can fear of rejection so easily rule women’s thoughts and how to get rid of it?

Childhood under the sign of taboo

As children, many of us had to witness conflict between adults. If a child sees mom and dad arguing with each other, he tries with all his might to help them. He asks about the reasons for their anger and wants to make sure that he is not to blame. And more than anything else, the child wants to be sure that his parents will stop being angry with each other and everything will work out between them. Therefore, unable to contain his curiosity, the baby tries to “get into” the quarrel in order to find out all the answers to his questions as quickly as possible.

“You can’t interfere in the conversations of adults, you better go and play,” the baby hears in response. Unfortunately, they never explained anything to him, but only rejected his desire to help. The parents were so “carried away” by their emotions that they did not calm down the worried baby. And having made peace, each of them ran off about their own business, forgetting about the promise to go to the zoo with the child. The baby's wish was again rejected.

However, even if your parents had no intention of rejecting you, you, from your childhood “bell tower,” could feel unnecessary and offended even after a minor remark or educational reprimand. Therefore, often childhood naivety turns into adult bias, resulting in the fear of being rejected.

How does this happen?

Adult fantasies

If as a child you did not receive answers to “forbidden” questions, and the promised requests remained unfulfilled desires, then in adulthood the fear of rejection, alas, is difficult to avoid.

Therefore, as adults, many of us are afraid to say our requests out loud, ask clarifying questions and openly admit our desires because of this fear.

For example, if a woman cannot reach her man, she becomes confident that he simply does not want to communicate with her, and even worse, that he has fallen out of love or has found a replacement. Such a woman is driven by an inexplicable fear of being rejected by her loved one.

Moreover: such fear can not only activate wild imagination, but also block the most important desire - to love and be loved. After all, the certainty that all men are traitors and deceivers can be stronger than the need for love.

For example, after breaking up with a loved one, a woman may avoid meeting potential suitors. And even if the new man proves the opposite to her with all his appearance and actions, the ingrained fear of being rejected often takes precedence over the desire to start a new relationship.

How to get rid of the fear of rejection?

First, if you notice that you are often driven by an inexplicable fear of rejection, do not try to deny it. After all, in this way you strengthen your fear even more. Admit to yourself that you need love, attention and care and don’t “wind up” yourself that they won’t love you or won’t want to pay attention to you.

Secondly, take an example from men - “turn on” male logic in those cases where it is simply necessary. For example, instead of fantasizing about why a man doesn’t pick up the phone, look for the real reasons for his “silence.” It’s trite, but he may not hear the phone ringing, he may be at a meeting, or he may “get” under the influence of his boss’s bad mood.

And thirdly, analyze why you feel confident that you will certainly be rejected. Perhaps the reasons go back to childhood. So, for example, your parents could take care of you, but at the same time they never openly answered all the children’s concerns, about topics or lack of time.

But do not forget that the days of childhood are behind you, and in adult life no one will reject you for no apparent reason. Therefore, if you realize that the fear of rejection is just echoes of childhood, it will be much easier for you to get rid of it right now. Learn to perceive people not through the filter of your childhood memories, but through objective reality. After all, the past has nothing to do with the people who surround you now, does it?

Natalia Borishkevich, psychologist

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