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here today · Aug 19, 2012 at 10:53 AM

I had family pressure to be good/perfect, probably had obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and developed the same sort of social adaptation, “being” what was expected, performing according to what I thought my role was.

I did have a wonderful friendship with my late husband – he was probably schizoid so we got along just fine, without many complicated social emotions. I really loved him, though, and I think he loved me. Two grown kids.

Nevertheless, that time has passed and I’m not interested in men except as friends – there are several in my in-person support group, but I don’t feel particularly mistrustful of them. On the other hand, I’m not looking for a man either – so I’m not going to be tempted to do anything that might get me hurt. I’m sorry you have the residue of feeling used. Does that still hurt a little?

Can you think of how you would like your life to be different? What would you like?

Here’s my agenda (please forgive my straightforwardness, I don’t have very good social skills

.) I’m wondering what kinds of therapies can help us get over the developmental stalls or whatever that result in PDs. I don’t think the mental health profession has been very effective with that yet, so I keep looking for other folks with PD’s who aren’t satisfied with their condition. One book I have said that OCPD was a “strategy” to forestall fragmentation, and when I melted down 10 years ago I did kind of fragment. Also a therapist 20 years ago thought I might have DDNOS, so the notion that OCPD kind of holds pieces together feels right to me. I believe that with my current therapist, a specialist in dissociative disorders, I have developed a more normal and effective “self”, but we shall see. The only way to tell for sure is if I can live my life more effectively.

The same book views AvPD as a kind of “devitalization”, a withdrawing from the world in order not to be hurt, as is clear in your story. I don’t know of any – but if there were a therapy that could help you “revitalize”, would that interest you? Being in an accepting support group has helped me a lot. I’m not sure that would be sufficient for AvPD, though. How about a safe group where natural social processes might “revitalize”? Does that sound like something you might respond to?