Is There Any Way to Get Rid of AvPD?

I want to be able to open up to people and to make friends, but no matter how hard I try, I can't force myself to really talk to people. All I can think is "don't embarrass yourself," and if I see what I think to be a judgmental look or comment, I immediately shut down, get red, and stop talking. I know they probably aren't really thinking anything bad about me, but I always feel like they are (someone laughing in my classroom? Probably directed at me).

Like I said, I really want to be able to make new friends. I want to be able to talk to people without wringing my hands or avoiding eye contact. I want to be able to be a good girlfriend to my boyfriend, I can't even hold his hand. I just get this overwhelming feeling of 'I'm not supposed to do that!' whenever I do anything affectionate whatsoever.

Is there any way to get rid of AvPD?

I hope so! I haven't been diagnosed yet, but if be surprised if I didn't have AvPD. I have no advice, but I wanted to let you know that you're not alone. I too have no friends although I desperately want some. I'm so afraid of saying the wrong thing that my mind goes blank. I'm also afraid that everything I have to say is lame and boring. If I didn't have a fiance that pursued me and our children I would be totally alone. My family of origin are all cut off for various reasons.

I don’t know of anything specific for AvPD. But therapies are improving so there probably is something out there which will help. It just may not be obvious or easy to find.

Someone in the NPD section, I think it was, mentioned “schema therapy” and I looked that up. Looks pretty promising for PD’s in general!! Maybe you’d like to check that out?

My current (or most recent) diagnosis was PDNOS. I probably had OCPD before a breakdown 10 years ago. I’ve been concerned with the possibility/probability that I had a PD for 20 years. Unfortunately, normal therapy doesn’t usually help with most PD’s and some/lots of therapists used to take us on without knowing what the heck they were doing, IMHO. That’s also kind of an OCPD-ish harsh judgment, but I’m pretty sure I’m on the track to being well so I’ll risk it.

But I’d also like to warn you – breaking the “back” of my PD so that I could think and feel more flexibly about myself and other people has been difficult and painful. I developed my PD as a “defense” to experiencing certain kinds of painful feelings in my childhood and my therapist and I have had to get to that pain in order to rework it. I don’t know for sure that’s how it would work for AvPD but it could.

Hang in there.......sometimes it about practice and actually coming prepared. For some people its a cinch but others have difficulties. Find a good topic and bone up on it..for instance the Olympics...that helps in converstions and its a good way to start a converstion. The Olympics will end soon but its still great topics for starting a new converstion. As for boyfriend..is he your first boyfriend? New relationships are scary and difficult at first. No one really has a clue what to do. You might also look at how you were brought up and your family. What are they like? Do they show affection. Are they good at conversations...this will give you very good insight into why you are the way you are!!

Will be thinking of you!

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I hope these pics of books to read stay and don't disappear. Never can trust when you copy from a web site if pics will take. These might help!!

Sorry there is no way to get rid of AvPD... it's personality!

But before you sink your head into your hands... AvPD is controllable....most of the time!!

Now plan A. would be to first get diagnosed rather than have all your thoughts pull you down on a assumption.
(bear in mind having Avoidant traits doesn't make you an AvPD)

I have been diagnosed with AvPD and I have told a few people, and maybe getting professional help will do you as it does to me.
A few people know and it's not a issue if I attend a party for 7 minutes and quickly leave, they just know it's what I do and they take no offence and I don't beat myself up over it.

Get yourself some help and when your ready let those people close to you know what's been going on and then there's no pressure if you behave accordling to your internal feelings.

Snap

Those books are for BPD, and most of them are vicious hate books.

You can't get rid of AvPD unfortunately. Even if you recovered from it, it's still there. You just learn how to live and survive in a socially accepting way.

I don't know what to suggest to be honest.

What about virtual worlds, like Second Life, PlayStation Home, There.com? I'm not sure if your AvPD would also restrict you from talking to strangers in a virtual world online, but if they don't, or you want to try it out, you can.

I have been diagnosed with it and I experience many different degrees of loneliness with it. Oddly enough, I work in a social field of work, retail. I interact with people everyday but it is on an impersonal level. The role-playing of retail work makes it less intimate when I interact with customers day in and day out. However, I go home after work, and never go out to social events or date.

I cannot feel intimate with men because I cannot feel trust with them. I always fear being hurt by them. I cannot carry intimate chit chat with even my closest relatives. I can discuss news topics, impersonal issues such as repairs, laundry problems, recipes, but nothing about my personal daily life, because I don't have one. I work, I come home. That is all. I realize though, that by disconnecting, I am creating my own problem. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. By not going out, I have nothing to talk about. So I am creating my own hell. If I want something to talk about to my family and relatives, I have to do things worth talking about.

Are you in therapy for the AvPD? If so, what kind and do you think it is helping? Is there a particular reason why you fear being hurt by men? Looking at you from the outside, I find it very unlikely that you do not have a personal daily life -- but I do recognize that you feel like that. Personal things can be things like your likes and dislikes, sports or art that you like, books, what happened when you were on your way to and from work -- things that affect you and your feelings personally. Maybe you don't feel comfortable discussing feelings and other things which affect you personally with your family?

My family is the only group of people I trust with my personal issues, but, I was severely bullied in my youth. It occurred during a time when social skills begin to be learned through interaction with others during later elementary and junior high years. I never developed those skills due to severe bullying and taunting by not just a few people but by most of the school. So I retreated into my own world for a few years until doctors were able to help me with some of my medical problems that were the focus of my bullying. By then, I had missed some of the most important years of social development skills that most kids had learned already.

My parents had me involved in activities outside of school like girl guides, brownies, cadets, etc. These helped to a point. However, I still only developed role playing skills according to the role these positions expected of its members instead of being myself, I learned to be these roles. How to be the ideal guide or cadet or as in the work place, now...how to be the ideal retail worker. When the shift is over, I drop the role playing and go home.

Whenever I was "myself" among others, I was bullied. This developed the avoidance disorder. I learned to be whatever kind of person the immediate people around me wanted me to be. I don't know "me." I only know the roles I am meant to play when among certain groups. I tire of roleplaying by the end of the day so I avoid anymore social settings and retreat at home.

As for men....any relationship I was in...there was never love..only sex. I leanred that quickly. Men would lie, sweet talk, seduce, whatever it took to get sex. Then, once they get it..it was good bye. The only people who ever loved me were family. No man has ever loved me and been intimate. So I detached love from sex. The only love I have ever received from men have been from the platonic relationships in my life...father, brothers, sons, uncles, cousins, etc. Any man who wanted a physical relationship with me never included love with that package. So I have been celibate now for 7 years and I don't miss it. The only men to ever love me have been my sons, my brother, my father and relatives. Any men who want physical pleasure, I immediately mistrust. No man will ever touch this body again.

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?

It is possible. I often wish I could be in a social "class." Somebody there to teach me what to say or how to just deal with the dumb thoughts occuring at the time of a social occasion. I need to be taught how to recognize my own actions and read other people better. How to feel less stress around people.

My brain tells me that my cousins all love me as I am and I know that. They are all sweet to me. I just personally feel inadequate and I have no similarities in life to them. I do not have the ability to book trips for my family to go on. I do not have money to buy a new truck. I don't have the standard Monday to Friday work shifts so I can party with them on Friday nights. Heck, I don't have the income to party every Friday night. I couldn't take my sons to karate classes or piano lessons, or send them to March Break down in Florida with their friends. So I withdrew.So, eventhough my relatives love me, I still did not feel comfortable around them.

I have much education but little experience and lots of anger toward employers for that reason. I don't trust men for the reasons stated. I fear judgment of any kind...interviews, exams, assessments, application processes....anything that involves some sort of acceptance or rejection, failure or passing.

The most frustrating part is that I know what caused my distorted thoughts. I know that my thoughts are distorted. I know that my own decisions are recreating my own problems. However, I have no idea how to treat it or resolve it or control it. I am on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds....but that just covers the feelings. It does not control the thoughts. I know that not all men are out to hurt me. However, I cannot control the sense of fear and self protection that hits me if a man is simply friendly to me. I must send out vibes that say leave me alone. Men don't approach me anymore. and somehow, I feel comforted in that but still lonely...wishing I did not feel this way.

I don’t know anybody else in my area who feels the same way or “sees” the possibilities. And yet I remain very gung-ho (that’s unfortunately common among current/former OCPD’ers ) about the idea.

Would you have any interest and time to devote to developing some ideas for a pilot program or proposal? I know that’s probably a lot to ask and if you don’t, that’s OK. The way I see it – if the professionals don’t recognize or can’t respond to the need for this kind of thing, then it’s up to the “grass roots”, but in this case the people at the grass roots have PD’s and, well, we’re not so great at social action!

If you are interested, I’d still really like to continue to see if we can’t attract some others – maybe we can repost this to other subforums or something? Or PM me if you’d like. There’s a good psychiatric hospital near here that – if we came up with something – might be willing to try it or maybe even help. But I don’t have either the confidence – or the knowledge about anything other than maybe OCPD – to do it all on my own.

A social class would be great. I need someone to teach me these things. I was also bullied at school, but I was also bullied and neglected at home. They didn't teach me anything. I'm terrified of not being able to teach this stuff to my kids because I don't know it either. I'm doing the best I can, though.

Here today, you may have something. I never thought of proposals. I did a proposal for a youth exchange between rural and urban youth to bring further understanding of the importance of rural communities which are dying in our province, when I was in university, studying Sociology and Cultural Anthropology. The Rural Secretariat's Office picked up on my proposal and ran with it.

Perhaps if I try again with the Mental Health Initiative here in my city. I have contacts with the Status of Women's Council and my former Counsellor at the Western Health Addictions Clinic.

I have been fairly good at a general picture of the whole but not so good in breaking an idea down into steps on how to get there. Once again...a moment of facing rejection, but I love the idea. Now I just have to fight the defeating thoughts on doing the proposal. It excites me though.

I'll talk to my former Psych profs also.

Yes, I understand the (yuck) notion of facing rejection.

Psych profs – that sounds great!! Maybe they have a grad student who would be interested in some thesis research?

There are the DBT classes for borderline so that at least sets a precedent. I got the DBT book but it didn’t look like that would help me – although I do have strong emotions sometimes.

Do you have an idea of what you want in the classes? My thought is that for AvPD a safe, structured setting where social connection energies could “bubble up” (becoming “revitalized”) could be good. Eventually, a class in facing and dealing with rejection would also probably be an unpleasant, but required, part of the curriculum?

What is most problematic for me is that my strong energies, ideas, and feelings may be experienced as offensive, pushy, or controlling and I don’t know it, or why the other person feels that way. So what I need is a class where people, who know my typical difficulties, can give me feedback without rejecting me. If the feedback is given in a critical, angry, or rejecting manner, then I can cut the rejection feelings or reactive anger off but then I’m not able to receive the information and learn.

So these are probably different class objectives but I would certainly like to learn how people with AvPD typically respond, too. That would help me with my own “social learning” objectives, too. Does that sound too off-putting for you?

What do you think? And how would you feel about having people with other PD's in the classes? But maybe just restrict it to Cluster C?

Personally, I think many people facing many different types of social issues could support each other in this class. The main focus is that each person has interaction challenges and they are not alone. A person in the class who can read expression well but cannot face open environments could help a person how may be fine in a crowd but not be able to read people well. I think there could be support from the various people taking the class for different social challenges.

If there are enough of a demand for it, then the projects could be diversified to help more specific groups if the demand is there. In my area, this is a small city and not a lot of action in this town. funding is tight and programs tend to be small in size. Specialists are hard to get to this island and waitlists for programs and specialists are high.

and yet with so many people dealing with mental health issues....the specific mental health problems are only a few of this case a few of this illness, a couple of this one etc. It has a small population. Therefore, a program here would have to be something that can serve the broadest base of related issues.

I really like this description. Put like that, it seems like there could be a number of agencies and academics who might like to participate in developing a program.

How would you like to go from here? Would you like any help with writing the proposal itself? I don't have that kind of experience but a master's in cognitive psychology so its not entirely foreign. But maybe it would be best to see what responses you might get from your contacts there? I live in a large metropolitan area, so there are lots of possibilities but also little chance of getting my voice heard without something more substantial than just an idea.

I will call my psych profs tomorrow. There is one specifically I have in mind....and a counsellor I personally know in the system. I will let you know what they recommend for here anyway. If the system doesn't want to support it, the university Psych program might try it with their Psych Students as a research project. I just got home from work and am tired tonight. But I will try to better construct the main points of the program for the proposal so I can better present the idea.

I was looking at first having a counsellor/therapist lead with group discussion/intros from participants. Familiarizing each member with eachother's challenges and warming up to opening to the group. Identifying the common thought distortions, and misjudgements of people we experience. Errors of self judgment also. What do each of us set as a goal from the program?

Establish feeling in social settings, identify which settings most stress us. Open discussion of how others in the group handle various situations. Establish connection amongst participants...identify with others.

One could create from the beginning, certain guidelines such as common greeting practices, develop habits in reactions to stressful moments, catch phrases to help start or continue or comfortably end a conversation and move on. Establish our own rules that we feel comfortable with and drop the expectations we think others have of us.

Possibly take turns opening chat at each session to develop ease being the focus. This could be later in the last half of the class. An evaluation half way through the sessions to establish if goals are being reached or challenges overlooked.

That is what i have so far. Have tried to evaluate possible costs, or calculate time requirements, paper work required, goal setting, feasability, etc. I am not good with numbers though.