Another piece of the puzzle?

My theory: Avoidant Personality traits form when a child with social anxieties and strong emotions is scrutinized, criticized, bullied and/or rejected for having these social anxieties and emotional responses in the first place.

Looking back on my life, I can see this as a reasonable explanation. It would promote self-doubts, overanalyzing everything, hesitancy, behavioral inhibition, people pleasing, people appeasing, emotional stuffing and insecurities about interpersonal dynamics. All this would form a syndrome which feeds itself due to self-fulfilling prophecies - none of the coping mechanisms I just mentioned are effective. Looking around at other people who don't have these problems to the same degree, we may well mistakenly conclude we are inferior and inept, and then neither expect much from life nor demand much from ourselves. No wonder we get anxious and depressed!

Would anyone else like to weigh in on this?

Yes, I can relate. I can fake some extraverted behaviors now...but my my tendencies are rooted in childhood for sure.

Exactly what's driving my need for others/pushing them away! My Pdoc says it's "Learned Dependence". At a time when a child is learning about the world and her relations with others from her parents/siblings, she's belittled for not knowing enough; put down and minimized when making an attempt at 'self'; and ridiculed when - if by chance - she excels at anything.

Why try? Anything. When family has taught you that anyone is smarter or better than anything you could ever be?

correction: "Learned Helplessness".