Overcoming Avoidant patterns

I'm Borderline personality disorder with some definite avoidant tendencies that I just don't know how to overcome.

I've met some really great people recently (as I have in the past) and would like to keep in touch with them. One is the real estate agent handling my new home purchase. I have no idea how to proceed once the house is ours. I suppose I can always call and invite her to coffee, but what then? Is it like dating? Do we move up to lunch, then dinner, then double dating? Movies and shopping?

I'm just so bad at making friends, being friends and staying friends and it has been so very long since I spent much time around women I barely even know how to "think" female any more. I haven't had a girlfriend to do things with since highschool, and that's 30 years ago. I feel like I'm so much different than other people, other women in particular, that they just won't get me and why go through the bother. I can't take the first step. I'm fine if someone else does, but unfortunately, no one else has in many years, which sort of reinforces my idea of I don't quite fit.

Any advice (other than "go for it") would be appreciated.

It hasn't been long since I realized that avoidant personality is a bad trait. Actually, I thought it cured most things. My childhood background involved moving at least once a year due to no choice of mine. I realize now that this was my parents using avoidance to solve their problems. I was probably one of them because I was a responsibility that they had to shift from place to place for who's own good? Certainly not mine. Anyway, I learned that when you change locales you are offered a brand new beginning, no known history, no preconceptions. A chance to re-invent yourself if you wish to.

In adulthood I still use these avoidant methods. I recently quit my job to avoid confrontations and responsibility. I have simply cut off some friends and siblings because it got so difficult for me to deal with them and withstand their insults and disapprovals. I am just about ready to leave my marriage because I don't like what it has made me become, but now I can't quite disentangle myself from the whole thing. This sometimes, in my most depressed hours, makes me want to run off a cliff to avoid life all together. How do others deal with things that they can't face?

I know exactly what you mean. But now that I know this is the issue, how do you go about learning to do things the "normal" way. How do you learn to stay in that job? The answer to me seems simple--you put on your long pants and just stay--but I don't have that difficulty.

Is each thing you avoid avoided for the same reason? Fear? fear of rejection? failure? what? Do you quit a job because you get promoted and don't believe you're capable of the additional responsibility? Do you leave a relationship because you've had an argument, so that must mean she doesn't love you any more? Do you avoid family gatherings because you were chubby as a kid, or had bad acne or whatever, and the family likes to remind you of that?

There are so many reasons to avoid a situation, maybe that's why its so hard to change it. If you know where the problem comes from you can fix it, but its much harder if you don't know where it started.

I don't know how people become friends. I truly envy people with friends. The friends I do have I inherited from my husband. They were all his friends when we got married. I didn't have any then, and haven't made any since. I'm tired of being chronically lonely.

I meet people I want to keep in my life, but don't know how to go about it. I try, but I must do something wrong, because it never works. At 48 its pretty damn hard to bother trying any more, but I've come to realize just how important a circle of friends is. Especially to me, for I am cut off from my family.

Sorry about the whiny tone, but I just had to respond to someone who seemed to know how this feels. Have you tried therapy, psychologist? Counselor?

i can totally relate to what you are sharing. i moved around alot when i was growing up and as an adult i've perfected the moving / new environment routine. in the last 4 years i've moved, 12 times and i'm in a place that is too small for me and my dog. i never related it to avoidance but i guess its true. i've not spoken with my mother over the phone for almost 2 years, speaking with her makes me feel like a rejected, unworthy little kid. i've recently relocated to the town where my son is going to school so that i could be closer to him but as it turns out even though i asked him about my moving here before i did it, he really does not want to do much with me. and i've been thinking that maybe i just need to move away and let him continue getting on w/his life. i add stress to his life and his lack of desire to hang out as often as i'd like him to or the caring that i feel i want (daily calls, pop in to see me, help w/heavy work around the apt). i also understand that the moving around has taken a toll on me and i want to settle down some where but i've not been successfull.

anyway, there's a lot more i can write on the subject, it feels good to find others who feel the same way / understand what i'm going thru. this is one of the main reasons i've been seeking therapy/support.

what can we do to helpourselfs??
thanks for sharing and listening, d.

One thing I try to do is set yourself up for success. That is, invite someone to do something small that you think will appeal to them (and yourself). Then you can try to get to know them better, and hopefully things will develop from there. One thing I think people with PDs (and/or also just people who are lonely) do is they overthink social relations, and/or place too much importance on the few connections they have (which can overwhelm the other, more "normal" party).

Another strategy which I hear recommended all the time, but which haven't tried myself, is to try to meet people through an activity which you enjoy, whatever that is, say hiking, knitting, going to jazz clubs, etc. Of course you have to figure out what those things are in the first place!

P.S. I also know what you're saying about "Go for it" advice. Don't force yourself until you are comfortable "going for it" on your terms, in your own time. You don't owe anything to anyone else in terms of being socially gung-ho and aggressive.

Hi catch,

I could have written every word of your post. I have been diagnosed with both BPD and Avoidant PD, on separate occasions. I have exactly one friend, and that is only because she persisted in trying to make friends with me. Right now she doesn't seem to want to have much to do with me, so I know I need to find more friends... but how??

I don't have a lot of answers for you, but know that you are not alone in struggling with this. I am 49 and also tired of the emotional isolation I have always lived with. I grew up in one place, same house for 20 years, but my mother would not let me have any friends. So I learned to be around people but not try to get close to them. I am very good at casual relationships, and can actually appear quite sociable, but I don't know how to get past that level of things.

One thing I do know, is that structured activities work better for me than purely social ones. An example is a book club I joined last year. I knew one of the women because we used to work in the same place. She was the one I asked if I could join. Anyhow, once a month we would get together at a member's place for dinner and to discuss the book of the month. We are on hiatus for the summer, but I look forward to it starting again in the fall. It is a place where I can get to know people and let who I am become visible slowly. I don't have to talk about myself much, but in discussing the book I am also showing who I am. I can't say that I have really developed friendships out of that situation so far, but I know there is potential there for me to do so. That seems to be a start!

I am also not a big fan of the 'just get out there' philosophy. If that were going to work for me, I would not still be writing this at the age of 49. It seems to me it is less a case of getting out there, than of letting someone 'in here' I guess that probably starts with "I'd like to hang out with you" But those are hard words to get out!

I have had the luck of having a few people "stick" to me. I have exactly three friends. And they are my best friends. I loved them from the first day and I would die for them. I used to escape my life whenever they had a problem by trying to fix theirs. Although I can't really talk to them about my deep issues, I do tell them "half truths" as I call them at times. And you know what? They still like me.
I am weird person. People have told me that. I know that. I am different from most people like many of you feel you are. But my incredible friends like me mostly because I am the way I am.
So there are "normal" people that get us. I just had to let them in. Lately I've been talking to one of them about more serious stuff I go trough and even told her that I went to therapy. It scared me so much that I almost started crying. And then she hugged me. And said that she thinks therapy rules. I was the one that started this friendship which is a very rare thing for me. And is one that I am grateful every day of my avoidant life.
I know I am not offering a solution. But maybe it reassurance that are people out there who are worth befriending . And the risk of putting yourself out there and making yourself vulnerable is so worth taking. And that you fit just fine. Everyone does. We just have some trouble realizing that.

P.S. I had no idea that moving away from problems was a avpd trait. I did that a lot too. I had times when I used to move my furniture around or move from room to room just because I couldn't leave the city I was living in. I guess I just always hoped that my life would look better trough new windows.

Thinking that you were responsible for any problems of your parents is a very common misconception that is untrue. You don't want to run off a cliff, as you don't know how that feels, and once you run off, there's no going back. I may not visit this site again, but I am interested in you and wonder if you woud be willing to PM me to answer my question, what have you become that makes you so want to end your marriage? I ask that because I ended my marriage for similar reasons and have spent many, many years regretting it and unable to move on. Alone, your APD will probably get worse. Caring About You ~ billieJ