45 Times People Got Brutally Rejected

Rejection rarely—if ever—feels pleasant. It’s something that everyone goes through in life, whether they come from a privileged or disadvantaged background. Often, rejection is less about you and more about the other person’s circumstances. Even if it sometimes feels like the opposite! A healthy perspective to have is that rejection, just like failure, is an opportunity to grow, mature, and improve as an individual, rather than taking the criticism incredibly personally.

Of course, not taking things personally and protecting your self-esteem is easier said than done. Especially when you can’t read someone’s mind and figure out the exact reasons why they rejected you. However, the more risks you take, the more you put yourself out there, the more new things you try and people you meet, the more accustomed you become to hearing ‘no.’ You develop a thicker skin. You become more resilient. And getting through a bunch of ‘nos’ is how you get to the ‘yes’ you want and need both in business and in relationships.

According to Indeed, rejection has an unavoidable, deeply social element to it that is a core part of the human experience.

“From an evolutionary standpoint, pain is necessary. When humans were hunter-gatherers, they lived in groups to maximise their chances of survival. Being ostracised from the group was dangerous, as individuals would have to fend for themselves. This created an innate fear of rejection that encouraged them to change their behaviour to ensure they could stay in the group.”

Some healthy, positive ways of handling rejection include:

1. Taking the time to process your emotions
2. Looking after yourself
3. Analysing the situation, instead of just yourself
4. Not assuming that the rejection was personal
5. Considering the possibility that you weren’t actually rejected
6. Protecting, building up, and nurturing your sense of self-worth
7. Talking to people you trust about your experience
8. Seeing the situation as an opportunity for growth
9. Making alternate plans to reach your goals

Indeed explains that rejection can make you feel angry, ashamed, and disappointed. In that extremely emotional context, it’s easy to slip up and make decisions that make the situation even worse.

So, it’s best to take a break, step away from the situation, and cool off.

It’s only then that you can begin to process the situation calmly and make rational decisions about how to respond adequately.

In the meantime, it’s incredibly important that you take proper care of your physical and mental health.

Give yourself the tools and the space to react to stress in a better way.

That means getting plenty of rest, moving and exercising frequently, eating nutritious food, avoiding unhealthy habits, spending time with people you like and love, meditating, being grateful for what you have, and spending time on your hobbies and passion projects.

While rejection can feel devastating if it derails the awesome plans and goals you’ve cooked up in your imagination, it’s hardly ever fatal.

So long as you get back up and dust yourself off, there are always other opportunities in life.

“Use rejection as a process of elimination and keep trying new routes until your plan is successful,” Indeed suggests. “With an alternative plan, rejection doesn't seem like the end of the world but simply an indication to pursue a different route. When you prepare for potential rejections, you can handle them much more effectively, as you're ready to achieve your dreams or goals in a different way.”

Verywell Mind points out that rejection can be emotionally intense to the point that it hurts physically, not just mentally.

"Research has found that the network for psychological pain overlaps to some extent with brain regions involved in physical pain. In other words, we can literally feel something like rejection as physical pain."

Meanwhile, one danger of rejection is that it might make you make wrong, large-scale conclusions based on very isolated incidents.

Rejection may not be as bad as it seems.

For instance, if you get rejected by a romantic interest or a large corporation, you might suddenly decide that you’re bad at relationships or not qualified for that particular job industry.

In reality, however, you might have simply been a bad fit in that specific situation.

As per Verywell Mind, if you want to cope with rejection in a healthy way, you should:

1. Let go of blaming yourself and avoid rumination
2. Focus on self-care
3. Allow yourself to feel your emotions instead of bottling them up
4. Remember all of your past successes
5. Stop comparing yourself to others
6. Persevere and don’t give up

Which of these rejections were the most painful to read, Pandas? Which ones made you physically wince and feel outraged? What is the very worst rejection that you’ve ever faced, and how did you get over it?

We’d love to hear your opinions, and all about your experiences. If you’re in a social mood, feel free to swing by the comments section at the bottom of this list to share your thoughts!