am I avoidant?

Ok I have a dx of borderline personality disorder already. I know that most of the traits of that disorder, I have but today I went to a new site just for kicks to test myself again (the dx is not self, but from my PD) and got this:

Paranoid 54%
Schizoid 22%
Schizotypal 66%
Antisocial 38%
Borderline 74%
Histrionic 42%
Narcissistic 18%
Avoidant 88%
Dependent 74%
Obsessive-Compulsive 42%

My question is, do the avoidant personality traits kind of cross over with BPD also? I wonder. I don't know much about avoidant personality disorder but to be honest, I do tend to only deal with people as much as required in my own life. I always thought it was just social phobia, but is that the same thing? Anyway.. the site I went to was this: http://similarminds.com/personality_disorder.html

Truth is, if you know me online, here on PC, it would not seem so, but IRL I do tend to stay away from nearly all social contact with people when I can. Just looking for information on this.. not sure it will do any good really.

Anyway any thoughts are welcome

That all depends on the test and how it is constructed. I would stick to the professional assessment of the medical professionals. I can say this though...many of the traits I have as an Avoidant personality are similar to some of people with other disorders. It is the other factors that differ that distinguish between each disorder.

Personality disorders are a mix of negative expectations based on life experiences and inner rules for dealing with those expecations that don't work well, as far as I can see. They DO overlap, I have read it is rare for anyone to be a "pure type".

Different people will try different ways of coping with a stressor, so one type of stressor could lead to different ways of coping which psychology labels Dependent, Avoidant, and so on. For example, Avoidant and Borderline have self-discrepancy in common (ie., seeing ourselves as not measuring up to whom we want to be) as well as high rejection sensitivity.

What complicates the whole concept of personality disorders further is that many people have some component of them, and these disorders themselves are "spectrum disorders", so someone could be extremely Avoidant, a little Dependent, moderately Borderline, and so on. The disorders themselves are just an attempt to organize a bunch of related negative self-concepts, expectations and coping mechanisms into a framework that can be studied. As such, they are a bit oversimplified.

For example, I meet diagnostic criteria for Avoidant Personality Disorder, yet I don't avoid people anywhere near as much as some Avoidants do. I also can relate to SOME aspects of Dependent and Borderline, but I don't have enough of those traits to have those disorders. Google the name Theodore Millon, he's a psychologist who has proposed subtypes for each of the recognized personality disorders. These subtypes seem to nicely explain the overlap between personality disorders.

Here's some interesting info for you:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidan...ality_disorder
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori (Hikikomori is a Japanese equivalent of AvPD; check out the contributing factors, especially social and cultural stressors, I suspect many people can relate!)
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder#Millon.27s_subtypes
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depende...n.27s_subtypes
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-Discrepancy_Theory
* http://www.psychologytoday.com/artic...03/am-i-normal

I'm going to share what I've learned about myself in the hopes it will help you. After a lot of work, I've found that I have a huge fear of not being accepted (based on life experiences), which has made self acceptance difficult. Apparently I have buried this fear as a defense mechanism. Assertiveness and self-confidence have been reduced as a result. I have high self-discrepancy because I see myself acting less confident than I want to, and didn't quite understand why until recently. Therefore, I get frustrated and angry at myself and end up being self-rejecting. This is the process which for me causes things like procrastination, social anxiety, self-doubts, loneliness and depressive episodes. The most accurate label I have found for this process is Millon's "Avoidant Personality Disorder with self-deserting characteristics", and that is assuming I really understand what he's writing about.

I hope this helps you.

Thanks so much O2. I will read up on that stuff later (playing a game right now... important stuff!)

88% seems to be a reasonably high level of avoidance. I always considered myself to be a possible Avoidant Personality Disorder sufferer, but mine came out much lower than yours. Onward2wards seems to know his stuff, traits from several Personality Disorders do cross over fairly often.

Paranoid 86%
Schizoid 90%
Schizotypal 90%
Antisocial 26%
Borderline 42%
Histrionic 10%
Narcissistic 10%
Avoidant 54%%
Dependent 50%
Obsessive-Compulsive 10%