View Single Post
 
Old Jan 14, 2011, 07:14 PM
Connor Connor is offline
Member
 
Member Since: Jan 2011
Location: Northern New England
Posts: 26
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunsetsunrise View Post
Hi
I am curious what other peoples experience is. Do you admit the AvPD to other people? I finally accepted the dx. But I am not admitting it to people. I feel very ashamed. I did admit it to one person. She dropped me pretty quickly. I have not heard back from her since, even though I have left messages. I finally know I fulfilled the "benefit of a doubt" and stopped contact.
I don't talk about things like this to the vast majority of people I have to deal with. In fact, I don't talk much, period. This is at once a symptom of my AvPD and a coping strategy. I'm sure a lot of the people who know me think I'm unfriendly, but I find that (at least for a guy) it's better to be considered cold than to be judged weak. And that's exactly how most people interpret shyness in men. To make it worse, shyness in the ordinary sense is still a step above AvPD. I remember being shy back when I was a teenager but that was a long time ago, and I was better then....

Another issue is that, in my experience, most people don't know (or want to know) anything about psychology. Any actual diagnostic term that goes in their ears is automatically translated into some variation of "weird" or "loser". Educated people seem to be no different from the uneducated in this regard, just less honest about it. Sure they'll give the correct, ritual response when asked directly about tolerance for people with disabilities, but when they're not being put on the spot, their attitudes are identical to everyone else.