Danielle RalstonFounder, How Capacity Works · Founder of ND Hive | Building the productivity hub where work actually gets done | Execution spaces, body doubling & community accountability

Your label doesn’t define you YOU do. 💪

27 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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A person diagnosed with "mentally retarded" as a child describes earning four master's degrees and pursuing a PhD to prove the label wrong. They discuss how rejection sensitivity dysphoria drove them to seek education and better strategies, and why being sensitive doesn't mean being incapable.

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I was diagnosed as mentally retarded and my family, even in some ways to this day, still treats me like I'm mentally retarded. And yes, that is actually a diagnostic term, people. So it's not just me being horrible and negative. Right. But my family still treats me like that. And, and I think this is part of why I have 4 master's degrees and working on my PhD and I've built businesses and sold them and done all of these things. Because I'm trying to prove them wrong. And that is a form of rebellion in me. I'll tell you, my RSD has made me get 4 degrees and working on my 5th. Like, but it's, it's made me figure out how to do life better because I didn't want to live in that.
It's pushing back against that, that stigmatism of, well, you're just too much, or, well, you're just so sensitive and, and you can't handle life. No, we can handle life, but the reality is, is that we handle it differently.