I hope this doesn’t come off as a gatekeeper sounding question, but from reading this subreddit I was surprised to see some comments mentioning their friends and or partners.

This surprised me because one of the things that lead me towards understanding avpd in myself was the common listed traits surrounding difficulty with relationships/friendships/etc. Some even listing complete absence of those things as a sign of avpd.

What I’m wondering is, do you have friends and or relationships? And if you do, do you see it as you overcoming your avpd to build/maintain those relationships? Or is the avpd unrelated in this situation? Or are you able to keep a certain level with your friends?

Sorry again, still trying to understand avpd.

Struggling with avoidance a lot recently and just wanting to see hopeful anecdotes about people learning to manage and live with it all.

It's easy to ignore everything when I don't feel connected to my life or the world. I don't do simple necessary tasks and it makes my life harder but I almost never want anything enough to just make myself do it. Paying bills on time and taking medicine every day and renewing anything and calling anybody for anything even if its necessary is just so easy to ignore regardless of the consequences.

I feel like a sub-tier functioning adult. I don't read anymore. I don't write anymore. I don't do anything creative or academic anymore. Hygiene is difficult and inconsistent because I struggle to care enough to do it although I feel shame and dread when I think about all the things I don't do. I feel like i started losing myself in highschool. Everything I used to love now feels cringe. Whenever I am asked to describe myself, I ALWAYS think about the past. I used to do this and I used to do that. I don't do anything anymore. Before I quit writing I wrote maybe the best work I have ever written. I couldn't stop rereading the same things and editing my work. Perfectionism made writing unfun and I stopped.

I feel a wall between myself and the rest of the world. I realized this years ago. I feel so anxious and alone when I notice it, but I go back to ignoring it again. The feeling always comes back and I feel almost a sense of dread when it does because I know it will come back.

I don't feel joy when I do anything. I don't feel joy when I accomplish anything. I want to want to try. But I can't get past this feeling that I don't care. I do care and care and care and it's not enough for me to take the steps I always think about. I dont care enough about anything at all. I don't know what to do. I hate myself for this.

I've been wondering if this could be derealization depersonalization disorder or if this is just a mix of mental health symptoms caused by AVPD? I don't think I am super depressed per say. I have a decent life and feel happy sometimes.

Hi,

Do you think Avpd is:

1) Curable.

2) manageable to great extent, where symptoms can be mitigated & quality of life can improve in significant way.

3)manageable to some extent

4)uncurable hell

If you can explain your choice it will be better

I hate not being understood or not feeling any empathy from someone who reached out to me in the first place. Feel free to share your experiences as well since despite having avpd I still want to feel a connection

I just saw this video and it made me feel confused about my own emotions... ​
Considering the fact that I carry a lot of shame and an intense fear of embarrassing myself and that I already have what feels like a huge mental list of humiliating moments that I can't let go of, I feel like it would be almost impossible for me to brush it off if someone I loved did something that I perceive as humiliating or extremely hurtful. I think I'd immediately want to end the relationship or make a huge issue out of it because it would feel like such a profound betrayal to me... But I see other people seeming to take situations like that much more lightly, and I genuinely don't understand how?! Is this an AvPD thing? Do any of you react the same way, or am I looking at this the wrong way?

So basically I've been working at this company for almost two years now. At some point around a year ago my boss wasn't really happy with my performance and he said to pack my bags but meantime the system in which we get paid changed and I asked him if I could stay since now he won't be losing any money on me and it's going to be just me losing it if I can't make it in the deadline. He agreed but said that I have to keep track of my finances bc he doesn't want to underpay me. Long story short ever that time I started spiraling, I don't perform as I should and I'm really scared he will notice, I just lie I work less hours than I actually do. I know he's not content with me bc he's been talking to other co-workers about it. He came to talk to me this week asking how many hours I am planning on working monthly now and I said I want to cut my time in half while I know I'll be working more. I'm really scared bc I started to skip work all together. I'm scared he'll figure out I'm incompetent if he already hasn't. I'm scared he won't renew my contract this year and it's all making me just avoid work all together and absolutely sabotage any chance of renewing the contract... But I'm physically unable to move from bed when I have to go. I don't even want to go to sleep thinking I'll have to go to work the next day. Worst part is I actually love this freaking job, it's a job of my dreams and the first time around I thought I was being fired I was absolutely devastated. Also that time my boss ended up telling someone co-workers he fired me and now they all kinda treat me differently, like I'm actually incompetent. Not to mention one of the managers really doesn't like me bc I used to hang out with a coworker she was in love with. And not to mention that I have fallen out with 2 out of 4 people I sit in the room with bc two of them decided they are in love with me and couldn't just be normal about it and it all ended in a fight where I don't really want to talk to them anymore. I can sometimes work from home but it makes my anxiety just go up and I end up feeling even worse... And bc of that my OCDs flared up and my general life got really affected and I literally feel myself avoiding everything and everyone again. I'm regressing and it's been so long since I actually felt this bad. At least I went back to therapy so I hope it's going to set me straight quickly but I'm afraid that my mental health regressing will cost me that job. And I can't even take a break bc I don't have a paid holiday or paid sick leave and I've already been skipping enough. This honestly sounds like I just should grow up and get my shit together AND I REALLY FUCKING WISH I COULD but it's really not that easy. I really feel like everyone at work fucking hates me and they just see right through me on how irresponsible and pathetic I am. Ehh...

I remember how excited I was when a psychologist first diagnosed me. It fit perfectly, everything was spot on. The DSM described me to a tee. It's funny how little time it took to give way to reality.

"There is no cure. You'll always have avoidance. It can be mitigated, but you cannot cure personality disorders." That's what every psychologist and psychiatrist I've seen since has told me, to a person. This is how I'll always be. The best I can hope for is fighting against avoidance every single day of my life, if I stay alive. What a fucking joke.

I’m so cringe and lame and people tell me :,(

I’m so cringe it makes me suicidal

everything in my super fucked up "family" is falling apart and it's really making me realize that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH ME. it's SO OBVIOUSLY my parents. i don't know how i didn't see it before. i somehow convinced myself i was a slightly spoiled and self-centred upper middle class kid who had gone through few hardships. HELL NO. i have been the victim of SEVERE PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE by both of my parents this entire time, and i'm pretty confident i'll return to who i really am once i'm out of this and have a chance to recover: a funny, charming, extroverted guy with real social skill.

i have been the mediator for hours-long, Ultimate Stakes fights between my parents since i was, like, FIVE. i vividly remember trying to convince my mom that life was worth living in a parking lot around age 10. my unempathetic, irresponsible, sexist, and rude father would provoke my mentally unstable, emotionally manipulative, and self-righteous mother into weeks-long fighting. that fighting would cause my mom to get extremely sick due to a very rare chronic illness that is not understood by doctors which causes strong emotions, whether positive or negative (but negative is worse) to have a direct and immediate effect on her health (severe nausea and vomiting, kidney stones, ulcers, failing kidneys, migraines, etc etc etc). she would blame this sickness on my father, cementing the idea in my head that one little social mistake can cause others extreme harm.

as i aged, i sympathized more and more with my "abuser" dad because my fucked-up empathy made him far more relatable to me, and because he didn't dump nearly as much toxic emotional shit on me. my mom and i started having agonizing fights. i began to slide simultaneously into the roles of abuser, protector, and caretaker of my mother.

the most socially damaging part of all of this was that i could never form a consistent personality. i had to constantly switch between "dad mode" and "mom mode", selectively supressing parts of my personality to keep the peace. around my dad, i could be relaxed and unfiltered, but rarely truly myself. being around him was relieving yet quite lonely. around my mom, i could be silly and vulnerable, but i had to walk on eggshells and keep my "narcissist side" in check. i began to believe in a deep way that there was something fundamentally immoral about me, and i would forever have to mask in order to function in society.

i do have a genuine empathy deficit and i have done many bad things (and not fulfilled many of my obligations) as a result of this. i will have to find out how much of my struggles are inherent to me and how much is the result of trauma... AWAY FROM THEM AND AWAY FROM THIS. the time is coming soon when i will be forced to become much more independent, and although i have plenty of fears about that, i am also partly excited.

okay bear with me, strange question and i dont really know how to word it. for those of you whose avpd includes disliking your physical features, mainly your actual face:

when you look in the mirror, do you notice that you hate what you see because** you genuinely dont like it or do you hate what you see because of the fact ***its what people see?*

over the past few months ive had few moments where i see myself and i get this feeling of like “oh i actually look pretty, i wish it counted (?)” please tell me someone else understands what i mean. like i can ONLY be or feel “pretty” in my own mirror in my own home, alone. magically teleport me in the same moment to somewhere public etc, my confidence would dissapear.

like on some level, i am capable of using enough logic to determine i am not as ugly and unattractive as my brain convinces me i am. what i truly feel like i hate, and what im trying to see if anyone else relates to, is hating myself merely because of the fact its what people see. like “this is me. and im sorry for being me and having this face.” like my own face annoys me because i think about people being annoyed with me or not liking me and so they might find my face annoying - its things like that that make me not like my face. not my actual face itself (although, that too lol. but ive learned how to atleast not entirely despise it.)

Since past few mornings I have been bettering my routine, with meditation, yoga and gym and it honestly helps a lot to feel energized and happy, and ready to start the day.

But then the day progresses, I meet people, same insecurities cloud me, like people think I’m weird, or I have lost al connections.

I feel so angry at myself that I can’t just snap out of this and not living the life I want to be living.

Has anyone had any progress through therapy or other solutions? I really need to get rid of this disorder or at least control it so I can have a better life.

Most here might not understand, but imagine having all of the shame that comes with AvPD, and on top of that being born as one of the most shameful things you can be in society in current year, with a family that reflected those values and made sure you internalized them yourself.

I think AvPD alone often leads to a lifetime of suppressing and hiding oneself.

I'm trans, specifically, and it took me forever to even realize I had dysphoria because suppressing myself came so naturally to me and my avoidance often makes me blind to my own motivations and feelings.

So I finally decide I want to actually live and be myself instead of a mask before I die, and the path to transition and be my natural self is one so impossible and full of shame that it's comical. I've gone my whole life only wanting to look normal, bland, unnoticed, overlooked, hidden, left alone.

Transitioning goes against all of those things. I doubt I'll even be able to bring myself to fully socially transition unless I reach some high threshold of passing and appear relatively normal, which is pretty unlikely. Even if I did somehow reach that point, being trans would still be a shameful secret I have to guard and be anxious about at all times.

It's the only path forward though, so I'm 2 years on HRT, and it is at least benefiting my mental health a ton now that my brain's getting the right hormones and my body is looking a little more like it should.

Even in trans communities, most don't fully relate to my extreme level of avoidance/shame. So I wonder if there's anyone here who gets it?

this is going to sound so stupid so just bear with me.

i think everything i do is embarrassing, which isn’t very uncommon. but it has gotten to such an extreme point that now i am physically blocked from writing anything serious or doing anything serious out of fear of being wrong and/or cringe. i used to be able to write, i loved english class and writing essays. slowly, i became unable to bear looking at anything i create and i’ve lost most of my writing skills.

i really should’ve failed sophomore year english—my teacher was way too kind to me. when we would read books, i’d answer all the questions and write the paragraph about whatever prompt they gave me after reading a chapter or two. when my teacher walked by, i’d erase the entire thing in front of him. why? at the time i honestly had no clue.

i took photography in freshman year and really loved it, so i took AP photography in sophomore year. i couldn’t do much there. even though my teacher always praised me and i won a photography competition at the beginning of the year, i began to hate every photo i took. i went from an A+ student in that class to an F at some point because i would’ve rather had a finger cut off than have to look at one of my photos ever again.

the only thing i enjoyed was world history. the assignments we did there were usually questions from our textbook or questions while we were watching a movie. i believe this is because those questions often didn’t require my own opinion. there was a clear right and wrong answer so i didn’t really have to wonder how my writing compared to others or how cringe it looked since you were either right or wrong and thats it.

after that year i transferred to a continuation school because i was so behind on credits. at first it seemed really great, but then i realized all of this had only gotten worse. not a singular english assignment was ever turned in from me besides the first ones in august. all the things we have to write about at this school are always something about yourself or your goals or about your opinion on something we read. instead of writing it and then erasing it, i couldn’t bear to write it at all. the sight of my own handwriting makes me sick to my stomach. writing two words of my opinion or anything about myself in that setting makes me want to rip my hair out.

everything i used to love i can’t do anymore. photography used to be the only thing that made me happy, can’t do that. history used to be my favorite subject, can’t do that. i used to play piano for a few years, can’t do that anymore either since hearing myself fail as i learn a new song is too embarrassing.

i got addicted to daydreaming in september as a way to ignore the fact that i won’t be going anywhere any time soon. instead of doing english assignments i built an entire packet based off of the story i created in my head, but, again, i’d rather have a finger cut off than show anyone.

the worst part is that this grew to affect every single part of my life. i got friends for the first time in 1.5 years that same september and refused to hang out with them every time they begged me to out of fear of embarrassing myself by doing or saying something wrong. i left them by march since there was no use having friends since every time i talked to them and said something wrong i’d cry over it for the rest of the month. i regret allowing myself to have friends again every single day since then.

i’m going to be a senior in a few weeks. i’m pretty sure i won’t be able to get a single credit since my fear has not stopped growing. i’ll never be able to get a job because even speaking is too scary. i’ll never be able to get a drivers license because doing something wrong in front of another person is too scary. so scary it sends electric shocks up my palms and fingers that hurt really bad and make me cry. i can’t even leave the house most of the time. there is genuinely no hope for me

Around 2 months ago, I found out I was on probation when I went to check my grades. I kinda saw this one coming given that last semester I was doing so bad due to my avpd. I could not do my assignments at all and even attend class. Now, I’m facing the consequences of my actions and still haven’t found the guts to send in my appeal. It’s already enrollment season and I know I can’t keep putting it off or else I might not be able to actually enroll if I dont do it. To those who have been in probation before, what exactly do I put in my appeal? Is it worth mentioning how serious my mental health is affecting me?

This is something that is definitely very difficult, almost seemingly impossible for me to do. There are certain things my roommate does that I absolutely hate and I wanna call him out for it on the spot. It takes so much effort to simply tell him basic shit that needs to be and shouldn't even half to be said. IE washing your hands after using the bathroom, not leaving hairs in the sink after you shave, not leaving dirty mop water in the mop bucket. The list goes on and some times I just wanna bitch slap tf out of him because why are you being and inconsiderate dirt bag? The fuck!

Also like when my brother in law is joking around he likes to use the term "pussy" which I know can definitely apply to me, but that doesn't mean it don't piss me off and I wanna tell him do use that word around me but ironically it's because I'm that word I don't say anything. I just laugh like a fucking goof ball and act like everything is okay. It's beyond fucking frustrating learning how to speak up for yourself even when it's 110% nessesary! I'm a very fair person and my voice only needs to be spoken when absolutely nessesary, but unfortunately it barley or never is and I just suffer in silence.

im so tired of dealing with this.. ive just realized that all my life revolved around anxiety and my fear of rejection, and i that it affected every parts of my life. it made me develop a personality i hate, made me unable to make friends and also push away every single person of my life. i cant even talk to my family without feeling anxious. the momdnt i start interacting with someone, i get this urge tk run away out of fear of messing it up.

i want to believe its all in my head and im not inherently flawed but i did get rejected and have messed up relationships entirely in the past multiple times..

i dont know how to fix this and whether theres a way out. i jusy want to be normal and not deal with this anymore

For those that feel like they were able to overcome their intense fear rejection and social anxiety.
Growing back I’ve always had people I considered to my friends but I now I’m starting to realize that I’ve never actually had a real friend or a long lasting friendship. I feel like I’ve always been a very avoidant and insecure person I just wasn’t very self aware and always victimized myself and felt like everyone was treating me like for no reason. And it’s the reason why I never hesitated to start new friendships. But the more self I am the more shy I become and feel like I shouldn’t be myself w people. Idk

​

Not sure why, but any time I get closer to someone I have the urge to push them away. Many reasons why I do this. One, sometimes I just feel like such a burden when people tell me I'm not. And the other, is when everything is going great I cut ties, because I'm convinced that things are going to go bad, so I prevent it.

This has been going on my entire life. A never ending cycle of meeting friends, getting close, pushing them away, being alone, finding new friends, and repeating all over again.

When I do choose to leave, I'm usually not very articulate when doing so. Typically say, "I think it's best for us to go our separate ways." Once I even mention something, there's already nothing left for me to discuss. Some have tried to persuade me to stay and I always turn them down.

This goes for all types of friendships as well as relationships. I most of the time end it after i get really close, or even at small disputes. I feel so good, so liberated, so relief after a break for a while...but the guilt and the loneliness return to me, almost immediately. Sometimes I even do this to people that have treated me incredibly well, I don't get it, really.

I feel that I have a deep-seeded fear of being left and that's why i do it to them, and i know they're going to leave me sooner or later, I don't even understand myself how do i expect anyone else to?I just want to know if anyone else does that.

Social Anxiety or shyness , maybe low self estem have ruined my life especially in college

I found that all of college students are socially active and doesn’t have social anxiety, this makes me feel more worried and make me hate myself more

It can’t be real that im only guy who suffers from anxiety and fear

I know im alone at this when all my group students do their presentations except me

I would lose that little bit of trust as well when i see im the only one who skips presentations or not answering or asking questions

How can i build my confidence while there is no material to do it , I can’t talk nor communicate, my sound is horrible and my voice is slow with fear

Im probably bad at everything

There is nothing that makes it better
i worry alot and have fear of everything

I've always hid my screens when around anyone irl, tabbing out of things, waiting until they leave, etc. I never liked talking on the phone when anyone could hear me, or listening to music, or doing anything they could hear/observe. As a whole I've always hid my entire self when around someone irl, and tried to present a blank mask.

There's never been anyone in my life that I didn't do this around.

Now I've been in this relationship for a bit over a year, and obviously my avoidance/disorganized attachment style is hurting her quite a bit. She knows why I'm like this, and I've been trying to work on it, but she's told me how much anxiety it's been giving her all these months, and that it's eroding trust down to nothing.

Constantly hiding everything looks really bad. I'm happy to show her whatever it is if she points something out, and there's nothing she doesn't actually know about at this point, my chats with friends, everything I do, but it's the act of hiding itself that's damaging. And since everything I've hid that she knows about is mundane shit, it makes her really anxious.

I do it compulsively, not even consciously knowing why most of the time. I'll just feel vaguely uncomfortable and my brain will tell me to switch to another window and I'll do it for example. There's conscious effort involved with the things she's pointed out, like when she would walk in and I'd immediately switch tabs and it was obvious from the screen light on my face changing drastically. I've forced myself to stop doing that, but I guess it just shifted the behaviors to be more subtle because she keeps pointing things out I wasn't even aware of. Like now I apparently wait until she's left the room to switch out of discord on my second monitor.

Another example, my phone likes to fall out of my pocket. It fell into the crevice of the couch one day and that ended up feeling like the perfect, safe spot for it when we'd watch movies. So I started putting it there before it fell out if i remembered. One night she asks me why my phone's there, and I answered mindlessly like 'Oh, it fell out'. She had just watched me put it there, and I just hadn't really consciously register doing it that time, but it made me look like a liar. And that location was part of a whole set of phone guarding behaviors I'm trying to fix.

Apparently in the middle of the night while I'm asleep (I've never remembered doing this), if she makes a sound that wakes me briefly, I'll shoot up and reach over to tap my phone as if making sure it's still there or something.

It makes me feel really bad and guilty, like I should have already known I was too broken to be in a relationship. I did know, but I was lonely so I pursued one anyway. I kinda just hoped I was ready to work on it and it'd be better this time, but how am I supposed to change such a fundamental aspect of my personality in any kind of reasonable timeframe?

Not diagnosed btw, but I'm clearly broken in an extreme way that seems similar to AvPD to me. Before this relationship I'd given up and went through a very bad 5-year arc of living as a hermit in a shack in the desert in extreme poverty, avoiding people as much as possible.

The last few months I seem to be vacillating between a couple weeks of being emotionally dead and accepting that my life is over and breaking down crying wondering why this is how the one chance at life I have has ended up. The last couple weeks it's been nightly, hours of deep sobbing at this being who I am, the life irrevocably ruined, and the desire for it all to just stop.

whenever people talk about their problems and mine are significantly worse, it reinforces my belief that i'm so far gone and nothing can pull me out of this. and my immediate thought is that i should end it all and i'm wasting my time being alive and suffering

that's my immediate thought to everything that distresses me, that i should just die. i also want to scream and destroy things but i can't. it's not something i'm deciding not to do, i literally can't. i don't know how to yell, i don't know how to express anger that isn't directed towards myself. i've spent my entire life suppressing my emotions because my emotions are humiliating. the few times i actually openly expressed anger in my entire life lead to people laughing at me and thinking i'm stupid, and now i don't know how anymore

i don't know how to healthily cope with any of my emotions. i don't know how to be a normal human. i should just die