Why Does My Body Hurt When I'm Left Out?
The Science Behind Social Rejection, and Glennon Doyle's podcast episode on Left-outed-ness!
If you’re new to my newsletter, hello!
I’m here exploring and sharing my journey navigating social difficulties as a mom of two daughters. You’d think I was about to tell you about the girls, and how the social problems are among the children. Nope.
It’s the moms.
My 1st grade daughter had a great Kindergarten year (last year 2022-2023). Made lots of new friends and we had playdates with many of the children in her class. Then, over the summer one girl-mom created a text chat with all the girls moms, except me and two other mothers. So 8 moms of daughters, and 3 of us moms of daughters left out. This group proceeded to do numerous social outings over the summer, of which we were not invited. This has continued into the fall, and even though I try to mute their profiles, the pictures pop up anyway in my newsfeed and it always makes my stomach drop and my knees wobbly. Sometimes I feel dizzy or like I’m going to cry. To be excluded is very painful for me, and as i meet more moms who confide in me, i learn that it is painful for a lot of you/us.
On Monday, I picked up my other (pre-k-aged) daughter from a playdate and her mom, a good friend of mine, recommended listening to a podcast episode called “Being Left Out: Navigating that Lifelong Ache” from the We Can Do Hard Things podcast by Glennon Doyle, her wife Abby Wambach, and her sister Amanda Doyle.
I was most struck by the idea that when I’m feeling left out or socially ostracized, I’m feeling it as physical pain. That’s right! We are evolutionarily programmed to have a “brain alert” or biological warning system activated when we experience exclusion, which floods our biological system, causing physiological symptoms of distress.
….Thousands of years ago, as hunter-gatherers, our brain developed this warning system so that we would self-correct and change our behavior to “stay in the group” because getting rejected equaled death. If you were “left behind” by your tribe, you would likely starve, freeze to death, get eaten by a predator, or otherwise be killed by natural causes.
While a lot may have changed societally since then, this part of our brain is still active!
Furthermore, when we remember times we’ve felt rejected, it re-activates the whole warning system and our biological and psychological responses, such as panic, happen all over again.
In the brain, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula mediate the activity of what is referred to as our “sociometer” (Leary, 2005). The sociometer is a theoretical psychological system in every person that monitors that person’s environment for social cues, and then helps define their self-esteem based on the cues they is receiving in her relationships (Leary, 2005).
Meanwhile, these parts of the brain mentioned above (the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula) are associated with physical pain. This helps explain why people report being “hurt” when perceiving others as rejecting them (Leary, 2015).
Thanks so much for reading. Have you ever felt physical pain when experiencing social rejection? I’d love to hear what you’ve been through personally and what you’ve learned and felt.
Warmly,
-Kay M.
References:
Leary, M. R. (2005). Sociometer theory and the pursuit of relational value: Getting to the root of self-esteem. European review of social psychology, 16(1), 75-111.
Leary, M. R. (2015). Emotional responses to interpersonal rejection. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 17(4), 435-441.
We Can Do Hard Things Podcast by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle.
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