When One Door Closes, Here’s What to Do (We Asked a Therapist)

They say when life closes a door, it opens a window. What they don’t say is exactly how easy it is to miss an open window when you’re panicking about the closed door. 

Whether it’s a personal relationship, a college application, a job interviewer, a bank official, or even the IRS, we all face rejection in this life. It’s our responsibility to carry on afterwards, but sometimes it takes some real help. 

Rejection can make you feel embarrassed, lonely, and unseen. After a major rejection, you may feel vulnerable, and putting yourself out there and participating in life might feel difficult.  Can therapy help you when you’ve been rejected? And what can a therapist offer to patients who are struggling with rejection-sensitivity? 

HELP! I Wasn’t Chosen

Human beings evolved to be very sensitive to rejection. It makes sense if you think about it. Being aware and thoughtful of other people’s opinions made you a more aware and thoughtful member of the tribe. But when it comes to our minds, anything worth doing is worth taking too far. 

The manager who rejected your job application, the online stranger you asked out for coffee, and the acquaintance who didn’t feel like playing pickleball today may or may not be members of your tribe. But your brain evolved too many millions of years ago to recognize the difference. 

When a human being is rejected by their tribe, it’s natural to feel: 

• Depression. If you have experienced a rejection, it’s normal to have feelings about it. Being sad is not being depressed. However, if you find yourself lethargic, ungroomed, and lacking motivation after a big rejection, then you may be experiencing symptoms of depression.

• Anxiety. Is there a persistent worry in the back of your head? Do you find yourself making negative assumptions about your past, present, and future? Are you living in fear of the next rejection? If these worries and assumptions are distracting you from daily life, then you could be suffering from the symptoms of anxiety.

• Trauma Response. If our sense of rejection is grand enough, it can manifest as a trigger of anger, sadness, and persistent fear. There are cases where we become so wounded by rejection that we are traumatized by social experiences and fear them entirely. 

Do We Need Depression Treatment For Life’s Many Changes?

Change and disappointment is one of life’s most universal experiences. Things fall apart, relationships end, opportunities slip through our fingers. While these moments can feel deeply personal, they are also part of the shared human condition. If disappointment has left you struggling with the accompanying emotions, then a therapist could be the perfect person to guide you through.

A therapist helps by creating space for the experience of disappointment to be fully acknowledged. Many people come to counseling believing they should simply “move on” or “stay positive.” Therapy gently challenges that pressure. Instead of dismissing painful emotions, a counselor helps you slow down and explore them with curiosity and compassion.

Over time, a therapist can help you understand how your emotions interact with deeper beliefs about worth, success, or belonging. Often our most critical anxieties are our most toxic (but subconscious) beliefs that we are giving a voice to. With the right guide, you can break free of these painful assumptions and find real relief. 

How Do We Treat Depression Through Resilience?

Resilience is often misunderstood as the ability to quickly bounce back from hardship. All people see from the outside is a resilient individual who can endure hardship. The work that goes into resilience is often silent, and altogether invisible to observers. 

A resilient individual is someone who can heal when they are hurt. Self-care is not just a buzzword we can use as a coupon for the things we enjoy, it’s a symptom of resilience. The man who breaks every bone in his body and takes five years of physical therapy to recover is resilient. The woman who works all day and still makes the time to talk with her friend on the phone is resilient. 

I’m sure if you think about it, you are more resilient than you realize.

Can Spirituality Help Me Face Change?

A therapist does not impose spiritual beliefs, but they can help you explore the values and perspectives that already matter to you. In counseling, spiritual questions often emerge naturally when people reflect on loss, change, and uncertainty. A therapist may invite you to consider how your personal beliefs influence the way you interpret disappointment.

“The rituals that exist in our lives help us widen our window tolerance so that when stressful and unexpected changes happen in our lives, we are more resilient. Your spirituality can help you face the things that are uncertain or scare you. Many people  have grown up in religious organizations where certain beliefs were imposed on them, and as a result, rebelled. That’s why it can be so healing to decide for yourself what belief system (or systems) resonate with you and for your spirituality to come within you. Your higher power can be God, and / or  a connection to your ancestors, the universe, your higher self. The power of spirituality is the act of surrendering to something larger than you, and understanding that at the end of the day, you are just a human having a human experience on this earth. And you will get through it.” – Alli Cravener, Student Counselor

Does Therapy Offer Meaningful Depression Relief?

Therapy is the best treatment we have for depression other than eating three meals a day and going outside. But if you’re already doing those things, or the fog of depression has made those things feel impossible, then working with a therapist like Alli Cravener could help you access and reignite your creative spark and your ability to be a willing participant in your life again. Many people are finding that right now, they are burned out by all the chaos and uncertainty in their lives. Alli can help you regulate your nervous system so that you can move from shutdown and burnout to connection with the world around you, developing a flexible and creative mindset and compassion for yourself and others. 

DIY Anxiety Relief For Missed Opportunities

Mandi Rogers is a student counselor in St. Petersburg, FL. She helps her clients recognize anxiety in their minds and bodies, and most importantly, teaches them how to treat that anxiety on their own. 

These are a few of the coping tools that Mandi might recommend for patients seeking anxiety relief after a major rejection: 

• Stick to the facts. Our anxious minds can hype up our assumptions into stone cold facts whether they’re reasonable or not. That’s why it can be extremely helpful to keep in mind what the actual facts of your situation are. What was actually said versus just implied? When you retrace your train of thought, can you recognize any places where you made a cognitive leap? 

• Take a break. Is this a situation you can put on the shelf for now? Sometimes when we’re in the moment, our emotions can turn a manageable situation into an unmanageable one. If you suspect that this is the case, then “shelving” this subject for later can put you in the best circumstances to handle it. Take your time, soothe yourself, and come back to the problem when it doesn’t feel overwhelming anymore. 
• Accept failure. Sometimes it just doesn’t break your way. Whether through circumstance or your own error, failure is unavoidable. Lingering and wallowing in it might feel right, but it’s ultimately a reflection not of our unhealed wounds, but of our own intense self-pity. Feel your feelings, heal your wounds, and then accept what has happened so that you can move on.

How To Be Less Scared Of Rejection

Rejection can stir up some of our most vulnerable emotions. It touches the parts of us that want to belong, to be valued, and to know that our efforts matter. If we’re traumatized by previous rejection, it can close us off to new opportunities and ironically lead to further rejection. That doesn’t seem fair, but it’s true. 

Without treatment, we relive our pain over and over and retraumatize ourselves until it feels like a fixed point in our lives like the rising sun and the changing seasons. But if we face that thing that was so painful to us, we can live without fear once again.

• Recognize What Is And Isn’t In Your Control. One of the most important shifts in therapy is learning to distinguish between what belongs to you and what belongs to others. Sometimes rejection is entirely beyond your control, and it takes wisdom to hold that thought at the forefront.

• Know How You Can Help. Sometimes there really is something you can do better, and it takes courage to see it through. Even if there’s nothing to be done about it now, how could you do better in the future?
• Learn When To Let Go. Even when we’ve done everything within our power, some doors will still close. Part of you will naturally want to hold on, you’re only human and humans hold onto the things they care about with ferocious intensity. Letting go does not mean pretending the rejection didn’t hurt. It simply means allowing the experience to be part of your story without letting it dictate what comes next. 

Need an outlet to process change and transition in your life? 

A support group can allow you to connect, share your experiences, and be supported by others who are going through the same or similar struggles. 

Alli and Mandi are facilitating a support group that will allow you to release your old self, and confront fear, shame, embarrassment, grief,  and self-sabotaging behaviors that are no longer working. 

You will learn body awareness, grounding and regulating of the nervous system, and creatively envision a new path forward in a practical yet meaningful way. 

Click here to reserve your spot. 

 

Sunny Ebsary is an educator, multi-modal artist, and writer specializing in the intersection of myth and mental health. Sunny’s writing walks the line between poetic and logical, giving readers a chance to interface with the mind and imagination. Sunny’s been putting pen to paper since he was a child, writing everything from albums, novels, and plays, to essays, interactive games, and of course, many articles! While studying both psychology and writing, he realized his real passion in life was helping others unlock their creative spark. Whether he’s leading a D&D game, directing a production, or diving deep into the brain, you can be sure Sunny will be ushering you toward finding meaning in your life.