Beyond the Label: Why Not Every Human Experience Is a Disorder

In today’s world, there’s a growing tendency to label every emotional, behavioural, or relational challenge as a “disorder.” But what if many of these so-called disorders are actually expressions of a state of being,

The body and nervous system’s way of communicating what it has endured, adapted to, or is still holding?

Take for example terms like PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) and RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria). While these terms can help many people make sense of their experiences, they also risk turning a response to lived experiences and nervous system states into something fixed as if the person is the label, rather than experiencing something through their state.

The Origins of Labels Like PDA & RSD

• Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) was first used to describe a subset of behaviours within the autism spectrum, a pattern where a person experiences intense anxiety when faced with demands or expectations, even everyday ones.
  Yet, when we look through a somatic or trauma-informed lens, this can also be understood as a nervous system state of threat response. The body perceives external requests or expectations as unsafe, triggering fight, flight, or freeze.

  It’s less about pathology, more about protection.

• Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) is described as an intense emotional pain in response to perceived or real rejection. It often shows up in those with ADHD or trauma histories. But when you look deeper, it’s not “dysphoria” in the psychiatric sense it’s the body remembering what rejection once meant for survival.

  It’s the imprint of relational wounding, of not being seen, heard, accepted, or loved for who we were,

  manifesting as heightened sensitivity in the present.

When Labels Miss the Mark

Labels can provide comfort, validation, and language for shared experience. They can help people feel less alone.

At times, labels can hold us back , placing something living, breathing, and evolving into a narrow frame that doesn’t reflect the whole story.

When we name every felt experience as a disorder, we risk disconnecting from the wisdom within the experience itself.

We forget to ask:

• What is the body communicating?

• What is this pattern protecting me from?

• What does this emotion need in order to feel safe, expressed, or integrated?

Be Careful What You Attach To

We also need to be mindful of how quickly we define or attach ourselves to a label.
Often, these labels become identities and before we realise it,

we loop in circles trying to “fix” what was never broken, without truly understanding or supporting the body as a whole.

At Soulroots Therapy, we are passionate about creating a space where women can be held, seen, and supported to reconnect with themselves,

to experience and build the capacity to not only sit with sensations, but to understand, digest, and integrate them.

Through this process, we begin to find safety within. The sensations that once felt overwhelming start to flow through rather than override us. This is where true healing happens, when the body feels safe enough to soften, release, and find balance.

What if instead of saying “I have RSD”, we reframed it as:

“My body goes into a protective state when I sense rejection.”

Or instead of “I have PDA”:

“When I feel controlled or pressured, my nervous system resists to find safety and autonomy.”

This shift moves us from pathology to possibility.

From “What’s wrong with me?” to “What’s happening within me?”

It opens space for compassion, curiosity, and healing, rather than shame or fixation on a label.

Somatic and embodied approaches teach us that behaviours, beliefs, and patterns are not random. They are the language of the body, shaped by lived experience, attachment, and survival strategies.

When we listen to them, rather than label them, we begin to integrate the very parts of ourselves that once felt unsafe.

The goal isn’t to deny diagnosis where it’s needed, but to broaden our understanding, to hold both the science and the soul of our human experience.

If this feels familiar and you’re longing to move beyond the labels and into deeper self-understanding, I’d love to walk alongside you. Book a discovery chat and begin your journey toward feeling safe in your body, grounded in your truth, and free to experience life with ease and flow.