Concerned more about others than myself

Anybody else have this problem? Is it a problem?

I'm always worried about inconveniencing people. I care more about their feelings and opinions. I'm live the way I'm expected to and not how I want. I make my decisions based on what other people will think.

All the freaking time!

I don't know if it's a problem or not. I've never thought of it as a problem. The weird part is, I have trouble expressing empathy or that I care for someone. Yet, if I'm close to the person, I'm always concerned about inconveniencing them.. or about their opinions. Sometimes,I find myself making decisions I think they'd want me to make. That's rarer, though. Mostly, I just obsess over their opinions and feelings toward me.

Same here. There are so many things that I can't do or say because I am worried about how it will affect someone else - will it make them sad, or angry, or will it take up their time that they could use in other ways... will they think I'm selfish or lazy?

I spend loads of time helping other people out or at least offering to. But asking someone to help me is very difficult.

And I live as close to society's general expectations as I can. Not necessarily because I want to... just because I don't want to stand out. I don't want people focused on me.

I feel the same!
I always try to help others, so that they will not reject me. Asking others for help though, is really difficult for me. I'm obsessed with people's opinion and worry about what they think about me. Which forms a problem for me about talking with others as well, since I usually prepare the possible conversations I would have, and also spend hours on writing simple posts, like this one.

I feel the same. I dont have stats to prove one way or another. But I suspect that this is common to Avoidants.

I always want to please people. I am a people pleaser. I think this is a positive thing. Being a people please is a good thing, but its easy to get taken advantage of in our society. I often allow others to take the lead and have their way.

This is because of inadequacy. I think that others are better than me and have more value than I do.

This is wrong. We all have value. In fact I find that we have just as much to say, and perhaps more, than anyone else. And what we have to say is just as valuable and important as anyone else.

In fact, what we have to say is perhaps more valuable because we have been silent for so long. We have been spending a lot of time thinking and just sitting back and watching life.

We have amassed a wealth of knowledge and wisdom that needs to be shared. We just need to be brave enough to share it.

You are not alone here. It's part of the trigger of my social anxiety, and I've always thought of it as a sort of...'over-empathy' or 'empath' kind of thing, where it feels like I feel what they do. Like sensory overload, so people become mostly avoided, especially intense people.

Does this make sense?

Over empathy huh? I like it. I have always thought of the Avoidant like a king that thinks he is a pauper.

Avoidants think they are no good and worthless. But the truth is that we have just as much value as anyone else in this world

In fact, I will go one step further than that.

I dont have any stats on this, but from all the Avoidants I have talked to, it seems that most, and perhaps all, Avoidants are pretty high functioning and thinkers.

I wonder if Einstein was an Avoidant.

Maybe Avoidants are actually geniuses and this Avoidant thing is a careful plot to keep us under the thumb of the enemy.

Maybe the fact is that those that are Avoidants have a lot to offer. Maybe more to offer than most.

But we cant offer it because of this fear of rejection.

Yes. Both myself and my best friend/room mate are avoidant. Empathy can be a blessing and a curse. There's a fine line between being considerate of others and being a door mat. I haven't seemed to learn that after three decades. Old habits die hard.

Example: We moved recently to a community where the neighbors are in close proximity. Daytime or not, I'm fed up with hearing loud, drunken fist fights, booming cars and having to pick up nasty beer cans off of my lawn. How do I approach that without being 'that person'? What if they find out that it was me? What if they retaliate? Why hasn't any one of the other 40+ neighbors complained? What to do when, technically, they're not breaking any laws because the noise is during the day? Do I have a right to encroach on their lifestyle? We can't move because we're locked into the lease for a year and my poor room mate can't get transferred to another location. If we move, does that mean the loud, inconsiderate neighbors win? That's just one example among many going on right now.

I have left the house twice this month. Last month I left once; both times, only because I had to. I used to be so strong in my 20's.

My room mate has it worse. Case and point: He's been working for a retail chain for a decade (a whole decade) and hasn't been able to make it to management yet. He gets terrified if he has to make phone calls and will put it off for weeks until it's too late and the consequences are sometimes very costly and cannot be undone.

Me too!!!! omg. -rehearsal for just about every possible conversation, yes! Now, I don't feel so alone about it. Thank you. You know, I spent 14 hours last night making double/triple/etc. sure that one of my other posts was not going to incite any arguments or offend anyone. I ended up not even posting it

Hugs and thanks all around! I ended up liking everything everyone said on this thread lol. I went on ahead and subscribed since avoidant/obsessive is also something I'm dealing with.

I'm an AvPD. I'm always worried with others, especially when people are around me. It's very painful that I can't relax and be myself like others do. But YEAH, avoidants are not wothless. They're modest, gentle, and they don't make others feel sick.

I do this a lot. Reading and rereading my posts. Making sure there are no mistakes. Quite often not even posting it. It's weird. This forum is anonymus. I don't know anyone here in real life. Yet somehow it matters to me what I write here and what people respond.

What would happen if we change this behaviour? We might have a very active AvPD forum.

Ha ha. Reading and re-reading! That's what I was doing when I was making my first post. So again, I'm not alone at all. Not very unhappy being an avoidant

I think, for me, it's that I don't want to end up in a nasty online confrontation. I know that I am anonymous, and the person wouldn't know anything about me, but the potential harsh words will still send me into a panic attack, and I generally like to avoid those as they are very miserable. When upset, I stay upset for weeks, sometimes months (in rare cases years) at a time, obsessing about the injustice and how I did everything to try to compromise and be fair, but some people won't be satisfied unless you get down on your knees and beg them for forgiveness (for slightly disagreeing with their POV) with tears in your eyes. Yeah. I'm not into appeasing a narcissist's need for intellectual superiority. While most people are pretty reasonable, you're going to run into the asshole every once in awhile. I understand that this cannot be avoided, but the amount of stress confrontation puts me through is enough to make me at least act like an impossible people-pleaser. It doesn't always work. Case and point: I gave a condolence to a friend of a friend once, after he did something that he regretted. I was trying to make him feel better and was soon taken by surprise and shock when I was being called all sorts of terrible names. When I refused to argue, the guy frikin' chased after me for two weeks! First, harassing my email, then my phone, then my game account. I had already began discussion with a police officer about getting him served with a restraining order but, no surprise, was too afraid to follow through with it. THAT... was stressful, and all over a genuinely kind condolence. Stuff like that makes me terrified to go out into the world. I was stronger when I was younger; strong enough to work retail for years but the older I get, the more I can't take it. -and yeah, my poor new doc has seen, first hand, the nasty panic attacks that I have almost every day (fire drill at the doc's office... yeah. loud noises, too). He's working a solution but the appointments are spaced too far apart.

I posted something, the other day, as in defense to a very insensitive comment made about an inquiry. The comment that the person made, in and of itself, let me know that they didn't really read the inquiry carefully enough, as they used a present-tense term about something that I had clearly stated was no longer an issue, or even currently applicable. I just wanted to know if anyone else knew or had experienced the same thing. In my defense, I was nice. I was fair. That is not going to stop the wave of hell headed my way. Why did I even stand up for myself? Bad me!!! Bad bad bad! I wish I had never started that thread. Virtually every other response was helpful and understanding, then another, which was incredibly inconsiderate and uninformed. I just know that it's going to lead to something ugly and it has made me consider completely removing the entire account. I don't know why I sign up for this online stuff. Granted, just as there are people on this site who struggle with too much empathy, there are also those who have too little. Who is correct? Who's to say? But we clearly cannot coexist.

You were right to defend yourself in the thread. Everybody else reading the thread probably thinks that guy was a d*ck and is on your side. I know you (logically) think that too, but it doesn't help so much does it, haha. These are the sound logical conclusions we come to that still don't seem to help how we feel about things.

I read through (and add, remove, change wording, etc.) my posts a bunch too, funny to hear other people say that. Let's all just agree to post things all willy-nilly and not think too hard about it (not going to happen). I have changed at least 2/3 of the sentences in this post and written then deleted probably 5 more sentences. Good times!!

I worry about others more often then I do myself but then I will turn around and not keep in contact even with my closest friends for like several days. I like having a mix of being social but not being too overly social......

I don't really understand it I have a boyfriend I adore and I am very happy with how things are going for me and him....but at the same time my two closest friends that I have known for quite a while and even had intimate relationships with, now that they are single and one of them might be possibly getting a new gf I feel out of place hanging out with them. I will hear them talking about these potential partners and what each other thinks of them. And even though the sexual side of my relationship is not there with them any more. Its hard for me not be sort of physical sort of flirticous around these people and I am afraid that, this is going to end up pissing someone else off without aiming to.

so this probably could be one reason why I avoid these people or at least try to.

Nice to know I'm not the only perfectionist out there!!

When I got a job as an Editor at a newspaper - "You mean you people want me to sit here and proofread... edit.... and be a grammar Natzi... and you're going to PAY ME for it???!!" I thought I'd died & gone to Heaven!

But, yeah. It really wears you out seeking approval ALL the time, doesn't it? I just wish that sometimes I could be brace and say, "Frigg it!! I'm gonna do this MY WAY so y'all just SHUT UP!!!"

Oh, the freedom. Couldn't you just imagine?? But then, no, I could never ever in a million years imagine actually doing it. Even if I wanted to with every fibre of my being.

Alas, it sucks being so dependent on others' opinions.

You are so very right in the fact that, as 'people pleasers' we can be & are taken advantage of. Many times right in our own homes by the people who are supposed to love us the most.

That is my situation.

I was raised by Southern parents with highly conservative Christian values - in fact, my father is a minister (you should be able to identify with that, right?! So, you've got a built-in "people pleaser" right there as a 'Pastor's Daughter'. My older sister was the 'perfect one': she epitomized goodliness and was obedient to the core. She was & is a good person. However, there were two brothers in between us, the younger of those two abused me from as long as I can remember until I was in HS. It was a horrid, horrid existence. When I tried to tell my parents, they told me to "go & pray about it", refusing to believe anything except that he was a 'mean & sometimes violent boy'. I remember him laughing at me in the hallway. His face was twisted in a devil's sneer. I was scared to death of him. I had never felt so alone & betrayed. I was 7 years old.

I have so much residual 'muck' from trying to deal with all of that on my own - feeling alone & helpless; abandoned; forced to stay & 'perform' my duties; being looked down on by my parents for 'acting out'; and the endless, endless pain. I became obsessed with seeking the approval of others. Even to the point of setting aside my own dreams/plans and 'doing what I was told' for my life. I attended the university they chose, majored in the field they wanted me to, dated the guys they picked.... Three kids, 28 years & what seems like eons of depression later, I can now realize how damaging the whole 'seeking approval' mantra has been on my life. If I had been able to break free of that belief system long ago, I would have been able to escape the chains of someone else's plans for my life, someone else's dreams and the demeaning control of an ungrateful, disparaging & abusive spouse.

Yet I am not bitter. I simply want to go on from here and make the best of what I can. You are so right when you say that 'what we have to say is perhaps more valuable because we have been silent for so long'. I could not have said it better myself.

There is no god and no devil. Praying won't help you. Just you staring life in the face. Kill or be killed. Make a move.

Wanted to apologize for my previous post (can't delete it apparently). I was feeling especially ****** when I posted and it was unwarranted and rude. Apologies to Siftnsand.