1. Rejection sensitive dysphoria

“Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria is a sensitivity to rejection and criticism that is a common experience for neurodivergent individuals, especially ADHDers. RSD causes an intense emotional response that reinforces messages to us that we aren’t good enough or no-one likes us.” (Sonny Jane Wise, The Neurodivergent Friendly Workbook of DBT Skills)
“The excruciating pain of RSD is often beyond description. Patients describe the intensity of RSD as “awful,” “terrible,” “catastrophic,” or “devastating,” but they cannot verbalize the quality of the emotional experience. […] RSD is distinguished by its extreme, unbearable intensity, which sets it apart from normal emotional responses familiar to people who are neurotypical. This intense pain is often experienced as a physical “wound;” the patient feels as if they were stabbed or punched in the chest.” (Dodson 2024, Additude Mag)

2. Privilege guilt

From this article by Monica Cheng (2022) at Compassion Canada:

“[…] guilt related to acknowledgment of our privilege, benefiting from systematic injustices rooted in reifying history. It especially comes up when thinking of or interacting with marginalized or comparatively lower-income beneficiaries.”
“For rational thinkers, it can also be helpful to acknowledge that objectively, there is a difference in suffering between ourselves and the people we serve. It is comparatively worse to be going through a pandemic in extreme poverty than it is to be going through a pandemic in my semi-suburban home. But the comparison doesn’t diminish or invalidate the existence of my own pain and struggle. It’s a fallacy to think these experiences are a dichotomy— in actuality, I can hold two realities to be true at once: that yes, someone does have it worse than I do. And that I am also struggling.”

3. FOIL (fear of information overload)

I haven’t found anybody writing about this yet, except for a few off-hand mentions on various internet forums.

I have this feeling of hesitation or fear when I think of reading or watching or talking about something that is important to me. The fear relates to not wanting to get information overload or to be faced with too much emotive or action-relevant content. The feeling isn’t the information overwhelm itself, but the fear of information overwhelm that makes me disengage from reading, watching, or talking about stuff that is highly relevant to my work or life.

This can manifest in, for example, not wanting to talk about a favourite book genre with a stranger, or feeling scared of beginning a literature review on a topic that I’m researching for work.

edit: oh, and PDA (pathological demand avoidance // personal drive for autonomy)!