Everyone, and I mean everyone, no one is immune, experiences both open (obvious) and closed (not so obvious) rejection in their lives, through all stages of their life, starting in the very earliest years.

The reality is not everybody likes and/or loves you, but there will be some who do. The secret is to focus on those who do, and inoculate yourself from those who don't, thus removing their power to hurt you.

Examples of open rejection are:

• Owner of a small restaurant saying they are closed when they are full of customers at lunch time.
  
• A person that you thought was 'friendly,' "turning on you," followed by their friends, without cause.
  
• A clique or clan excluding you.
  
• A doctor writing you a letter saying they no longer want you as a patient, without good reason.
  
• A beauty school refusing you service, without good reason.
  
• A family member humiliating you in public.
  
• A person changing their seat to avoid sitting with or near you.
  
• A person sitting in the back of the bus so that they can see you but you can't see them, without turning around.
  
• A note left on the soda machine by a tenant moving out calling me a pig, accusing me of drinking all the diet soda (which I rarely drank, but requested the management to provide the diet soda).
  
• People making disparaging remarks or noises as you pass by in a public place.
  

Examples of closed rejection are:

• A big, wad of chopped up fat placed in the middle of my taco.
  
• A person urinated on my blanket at the dry cleaners.
  
• A person broke ink pens all over my blanket at another dry cleaners.
  
• Continuous difficulty in making an appointment at a doctor's office (one "glitch" after another).
  
• A party guest deliberately spilling her coffee on my carpet when no one else but me was looking, and when I tried to clean it up, said it was rude to clean it up in front of guests.
  
• People turning their noses up at you because they think they are better than you.
  
• Your disability questioned by government workers because it is invisible.
  
• Ignoring you or looking "through" you, as if you do not exist.
  

The best defense is an offense: remember that this reflects on the hater, and not on you. The best response is no response at all: by not answering back, they end up making a fool of themselves. HOLD YOUR HEAD UP HIGH; YOU HAVE NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF!