My AVPD experience!!!

This thread is about my AvPD experience. I am not sure why I am doing this. Perhaps it will help others, or perhaps it will help me. We shall see, but I will try and add to it as things come into my head. That's how I intend to to write - as it occurs to me.

Where to start? At the beginning? I have always felt that I was playing catch up, really. That I had to work really hard to be as clever, funny, interesting, attractive and all that as other people. I guess I have always felt that I had to work harder than everyone else to achieve these qualities. This is difficult to reconcile with the assumption that my thought processes were normal, but I guess I felt deep down that everyone had to work as hard as I felt I had to socially to achieve these qualities.

Hindsight would be a great thing. I always felt that despite my best efforts I failed terribly; I was an uninteresting, unfunny and unattractive idiot who people regarded as a kind of limpet on their social circles. The crazy thing is, in my teen years at least, I didn't care too much about this. I accepted it as a fact ands got on with it. As a result, with hindsight, I was quite a relaxed guy and had a lot of friends. It just didn't feel like it at the time.

Fast forward 15 years later, and things are greatly different. I don't know what changed my attitude, perhaps one of life's events (future update!!) but these days, I do care. I still feel like a bit of a useless moron but this time I really care about this and try extra hard to not be this way. The result is, predictably, I struggle with relationships (both partners and friends) and I am not nearly as popular as I used to be, and also I struggle in other areas such as my job.

These days it's more of a self fulfilling prophesy - I feel this way, and I care, and I try too hard to change my ways, and I end up being rather unusual. I don't think I can change these thoughts, but I would love to get back to be good old days when I didn't care so much, and as a result it wasn't actually so true.

One unfortunate thought for me to close with tonight is that I do love a good drink. I try and keep a lid on it but it does help to suppress those constant negative thoughts that stream through my mind.

Future updates may feature one or more of the following: wife, kids, divorce, family, and of course a lot more negative thoughts about myself!

I never had good social skills and I come off as quiet and awkward. If I'm not quiet in a given social settings then I end up feeling stupid about the way I acted or saying something dumb so this reinforces me to keep my mouth shut and stay away. I think I used to not think so much about it either... like I would just kind of go with it and think "whatever, who cares" and I also had friends and stuff. In retrospect I view myself as the limpet of the social circles I found myself a part of... I purposely avoid all those people now. It's gotten worse for me over the years... think I used to just have poor social skills and manageable social anxiety, but now I am avoidant.

I have also always been fond of the drink. Do try to keep a lid on the drinking like you said, because nowadays I drink a six pack of IPA (7%, double alcohol to something like Budweiser) every night and smoke a pack a day. It started as a temporary band-aid but now is a problem of its own so I don't recommend it... it will not help you in the long run, trust me.

I don't even want to put myself out there because I feel I will fail socially, look and feel stupid, etc. At this point in my life I really am confident that I will not succeed socially even if I try. I've tried to optimistically "put myself out there" so many times in the past so I don't like to try it any more. I know plenty of people who are goofy and weird as hell, but don't seem to care what other people think - they just do their thing. That is what I need to learn to be like.

Thanks for your post and I hope mine was of some value to you. Good luck, man.

Nowheretohide and Aldude,

Do you think AvPD people would make good mutual friends in a social context? I've never met any so I don't know. But at least there would be that understanding between them, don't you think?
Or would the evening be a disaster...?

I've wondered if I have AVPD. I am terrible in social situations and I avoid them whenever possible. However, I do have a job that requires me to interact with people. I feel like I put on a mask and I play the part when needed. I think if I was around others with AVPD that it might be a little easier knowing that they suffer from the same anxiety as I do. Maybe we'd all help each other feel more comfortable?

Every day, I am expecting to be called into the front office and asked why I avoid getting on the phone to vendors and basically doing my job better. If I can't contact people by email, it goes on the back burner. Not good...

I avoid making friends and family gatherings. I come home and go to my room. I really don't want to die here and become a tragedy.

I think it could work... we would suck at small-talk though so we would have to agree not to make obligatory small talk or it could get weird because we would all be faking it.

I don't think having a job that requires socializing means you don't have AvPD... almost every job does and I think a lot of AvPDers do the mask thing you refer to because the other option is being homeless or living in your mom's basement. I fake it most of the time, but I feel that I still come off as awkward and strange because people can naturally sense that I'm faking it. I wish that all my social interactions were one-offs and I never had to see people a second time.

For me, writing helps a lot. I keep a blog that I have been writing in for about 3 years now. Its not only beneficial for me, but lots of others read it as well and gain some insight into themselves.

You mentioned a self fulfilling prophecy. I think you are not too far are the mark here. Though I tend to refer to it as a curse.

People try to put curses on us all the time. Curses like;
You are not good enough
You will never marry
You are no good
You are crazy
You are an Avoidant
You will never be good enough
and on and on

It is a bit though like self fulfilling prophecy. We tend to become like what we are told we are, or should be.

The good news is that we dont have to. We can deny all that and be the person that God told us we are. Sure there are issues due to us living in a sinful world and us being in this fallen state. But that does not mean that we have be defined by it.

We are good enough
We can get married
We can have relationships
We can be successful
We can have friends
We are interesting
We do have much to offer
and on and on