Dear Parent,
I’m Callum Hayes, and my career in student wellbeing spans over a decade. What drew me to HAPHE was its simplicity — prevention through balance. I’ve learned that emotional awareness is one of the most protective forces we have. I write as both counsellor and parent, thankful you’re reading this.
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When Rejection Feels Like Ruin
How rejection in one area can ripple through the whole self
7 Mins
Callum Hayes
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I met Sofia (real name withheld) after she’d skipped a seminar. “It’s stupid,” she began, “but a rejection email shouldn’t hurt this much.” Yet it did. One closed door had made her question her entire worth.
He told me he’d rehearsed gratitude for rejection — “It’s fine, just experience.” But then his voice cracked. “I worked so hard for this. Now I don’t know what I’m working toward.” Every bit of validation had been tied to success; now the loss echoed through friendships, sleep, appetite. It was as if meaning had been repossessed.
I realised that disappointment expands to fill the space left for it. His collapse came from concentration — too much identity tied to one outcome. Resilience isn’t built after rejection but before, by spreading the emotional weight across more than one hope.
The price of ambition measured in sleep lost
Across research in emotional regulation, rejection consistently ranks among the strongest triggers of identity crisis. The greater the emotional investment in one outcome, the deeper the rupture. Prevention isn’t reassurance; it’s building parallel sources of meaning so one disappointment doesn’t rewrite the whole story.
If your child’s disappointment feels larger than the event, hold space before advice. Acknowledge the effort they invested and the loss it brought. Then help them separate the outcome from their identity. Your calm perspective teaches scale: one closed door doesn’t shrink their worth. Recovery begins in how we’re seen after a fall.
If your child’s disappointment feels larger than the event, hold space before advice. Acknowledge the effort they invested and the loss it brought. Then help them separate the outcome from their identity. Your calm perspective teaches scale: one closed door doesn’t shrink their worth. Recovery begins in how we’re seen after a fall.
Relief arrives dressed as quiet
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She said one rejection “proved” everything she feared. It was painful watching talent shrink to a single outcome. I realised that when identity fuses to performance, feedback feels fatal. Teaching proportion — that failure is an event, not a verdict — is quiet prevention in action.
Empathy and gratitude always.
She stopped equating rejection with identity and started treating both success and setback as chapters. “I’m practising scale,” she said. Balance, after all, is mathematical: when one variable changes, others can stabilise the equation. Prevention is simply teaching them to keep the rest of the formula alive.
She now mentors younger students, reminding them that every result, good or bad, belongs in context. “We’re more than the graph,” she says. When understanding scales up, anxiety scales down. I realised then that prevention ripples outward; healed students become steady mirrors for others.
A Few Tips
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1. Say: “What else matters besides this one result?” This helps restore perspective. When they start naming relationships, hobbies, and hopes, you’re rebuilding the architecture of resilience.
2. Encourage routines that steady them. Ask, “What small comfort from home can you bring into your new space?” This bridges both worlds.
3. Say: “If this door closes, which others remain open?” Mapping alternatives restores proportion.
4. Say, “Independence includes missing home — and that is part of its strength.” This reframes longing as normal, not failure.
Thank you for joining us in preventing trauma. With quiet respect, Callum Hayes, Student Counsellor writing for HAPHE.
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Thank you for joining us in preventing trauma. With quiet respect, Callum Hayes, Student Counsellor writing for HAPHE.
Warmly,
Callum Hayes
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