You are all very special to me and I thank you for your support. But I would like to open up a little more as to what made me into an avoidant personality. I know this should probably have been posted in another forum like sexual abuse, but since I already have this thread going I thought it would make more sense to put it here. Like I said earlier, I fear rejection like death itself, and therefore whenever a woman who was interested in me showed it, I would run from them from fear of being rejected, even if someone loved me. Instead I would always become interested in women I couldn't have for one reason or another. This is a pattern I am hopelessly stuck in and have been since the age of six. It was then my ten year older sister sexually had me experiment with her. I was blown away by the sexual feelings that were in me. Feelings that a six year old felt overwhelmed with. Magical wonderful feelings that made my close relationship with my sister into more. And feelings that came crashing down on me with heartache. Because after nearly being caught by our mom, she said we couldn't do it anymore, cause we were brother and sister and it was wrong. I couldn't understand why we had done it to begin with if it was wrong. I felt dirty, and used, and most of all heartsick. Feeling so rejected by someone who I knew loved me. This wonderful thing called sex that I felt so strongly with my sister who I really loved, was wrong. Then years later in a separate incident, my sister also grabbed my privates when I was 13.

I got my depression at age 13 also. This was after an abandonment issue with my mom in which her lying to me ended up with me being publicly humiliated in front of kids my own age, and parents. See I didn't know how to swim, and so my mom put me in a Y swim class with 4 year olds. I was 13, so of course, everyone stared at me, some laughing.

From that depression, I lost what pride I still had in myself and fell in with a neighbor bully who loved to verbally abuse. I simply had no self esteem left to stand up for myself so I simply took his abuse day after day from age 13 through 17. So instead of enjoying high school, it was hell for me. This bully controlled me by making threats against my parents, threatening to start rumors about me, (which he somehow convincingly managed to do on more than one occasion) and threatening me if I wouldn't be his friend. My deep depression made me an easy target. And dragged my self image and self esteem through the gutter. If girls in high school told me I was cute, I wouldn't believe them, as one time my so called friend got some girls to play a joke on me which hurt my feelings.

It was college before I even asked a girl out. And it was never the ones interested in me, or who I was really interested in. When I thought about approaching those, I would feel the sexual attraction I had to them, and suddenly feel like I was a six year old again. All that sexual energy simply transformed from something to possibly help me break through my fears, to instead something that simply added more anxiety to them. And so I started a pattern of asking out women unavailable for some reason or another. I know now that was the hurt little boy in me trying to overcome the barriers that kept me from a relationship with my sister. A woman I could never get to love me for one reason or another. But even after years of therapy, and knowing why I do this, I still do it!!! It is such a deeply ingrained subconscious pattern that all the cognitive thinking I can learn has no effect on my behaviors. But years and years of accumulated heart aches only add more pain to me each time I do it. Therapy has been a big help to me in certain areas of my life, but I am still so frustrated by my subconscious attractions that I sometimes lose what little hope I have.

I'm sorry I made this so long. Thanks for taking the time to read it.