Sex Ed Before Bed Host Bex (she/her) is in the hotseat for the first time ever, interviewed by her sister Izzy (she/her) on another taboo topic: friendship breakups.

Timestamps

• 0:00 Cold open
• 3:30 Coming out late, building a queer community
• 9:42 Pursing love with a friend
• 12:00 Girlfriend breakup, crew breakup
• 15:44 The stories we tell ourselves and friendship ideals
• 18:10 Rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) and cognitive distortions
• 24:53 Transmuting pain into art
• 30:00 Accepting what is
• 33:00 Closing

Topics we discuss:

• Coming out and building community
• Role that queer families play for newly out folks
• Romantic relationships within a friend group
• Friend group ruptures in the wake of breakups
• Role of compounding factors in coping with loss
• The role of rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) in grappling with loss
• Accepting the loss and moving forward

Books

• The Other Significant Others by Rhaina Cohen
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson
• Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen or End Any Relationship by KC Davis

Tools

• Thought Record exercise to combat distorted thinking

Research

• The Lesbian's Experience of Friendship by Jeanne Stanley pgs. 43-44
• Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria definitions from ADDitude and the Cleveland Clinic
• The lived experience of rejection sensitivity in ADHD - A qualitative exploration PLoS One - Published January 2026

Theme song: "Rise and Shine" by Audiobinger, sourced from the Free Music Archive. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.