Paris Hilton is opening up about her diagnosis with rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD), a condition she likens to having “a demon in your head.”
The hotel heiress sat down for a conversation The He & Her show, with Lauryn Bosstick and Michael Bosstick’s podcast on Dear Media, for an episode airing Monday.
Hilton explained that she was diagnosed with ADHD in her late 20s before learning she had RSD.
“It’s basically any thought of a negative perception, if you think someone is rude or if you feel something… You’ll feel it like it’s physical pain and it’s not even real,” she said.
The 44-year-old continued: “It’s exactly this, almost like a demon in your mind saying negative self-talk to you.”
RSD is “when you experience severe emotional pain because of a failure or because you feel rejected,” according to The Cleveland Clinic.
Hilton, who shares two young children with husband Carter Reum, said people with RSD feel negative feelings “at such a deep level” that they have to train their brains to know if it’s “the RSD kicking in.”
“I’ve been through so many things in my life and especially in the 2000s, just everything I went through with the media,” Paris said.
She continued, “I’m obsessed with learning more about it and spreading the message because I want people to know that it doesn’t have to be something that’s holding them back in life; it can be something that they can use as a superpower, to really pursue their dreams in life.”
The Simple Life star also revealed a shocking fact that she was not diagnosed with ADHD as a child because society and the medical community were not focused on the condition at the time.
“No one talked about it when I was a teenager – especially not to girls and women,” she said, adding: “You know, everyone was just like, ‘Oh, this is something that little boys have’ … and then everyone always just said the negative aspects of it.”
Paris said the undiagnosed ADHD affected her education, saying, “I was always so confused, and school was so hard for me.”
“No matter how hard I studied, I could never remember anything. I was always failing my tests. I was just always in detention and getting into trouble. And it was always just really hard for me,” she remembers.
The socialite confessed that she feels she has reoriented her mind well to adapt to the circumstances and thrive. That’s why she wanted to “really reshape” the public discussion on this topic in an effort to help people.
“I see this as my superpower, and without it I wouldn’t be the entrepreneur I am today. It was me, this drive, and always being in the future, and there are hard sides to it – very overwhelming,” Paris Hilton concluded.
