What's the difference between AvPD and chronic social anxiety?

I ask this as an outsider who has a friend with the latter.

I mean, the symptoms seem almost identical...

I've taken a quote from here: Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD, APD)

"Along with the well-recognized overlap between avoidant personality disorder and generalized social phobia, evidence shows the distinctiveness of avoidant personality disorder. According to Millon (1996), avoidant personality disorder is essentially a problem of relating to persons, in contrast to social phobia, which is largely a problem of performing situations. Others have suggested that the one defining trait in avoidant personality disorder might be interpersonal sensitivity, whereas in social anxiety disorder, it is avoidance of social situations (Perugi et al. 1999)."

I really view it like that. Social anxiety is more situational, but AvPD is more intrusive(wrong word!). Like... with social anxiety, there are probably more situations that will cause the anxiety - like public speaking or asking someone for help in a store... anything specific (and there might be a lot of those situations for one person!). But AvPD is like... even when you're alone and no one's watching, you still feel like you're worthless and someone is going to find out and criticize you for it. It doesn't matter where you are, you don't have a safe-spot or situation.

That's sorta my take on it.

I think that's true for the DSM-IV diagnosis of social phobia, but the DSM-5 diagnosis is now called "social anxiety disorder" and has slightly different criteria:
But yeah, I see where you're coming from.

If you're so well versed in the definitions of each disorder in the various iterations of the DSM maybe you didn't need to post this.

I think Red Panda's interpretation was legit. People with "social phobia" (also commonly/interchangeably referred to as "social anxiety disorder") may experience anxiety in more particular situations while AvPD may be considered more all encompassing so as to cause avoidance behaviors in nearly all social situations. Intrusive was a decent way to describe it but I think maybe the word/phrase Red Panda was really looking for was "all-encompassing".

Someone with AvPD might be apprehensive about walking to the corner store for a gallon of milk rather than only in a public speaking situation or going to a dinner party or whatever. I certainly interpret SAD/SP as less situation-specific as Red Panda has described.

You might consider that to just be a more severe version of SAD and that is certainly debatable. The line between the two and whether AvPD is different or only represents the more severe version of SAD is a matter of debate among mental health professionals. If you google "avoidant personality vs social phobia" you will surely turn up a lot of information about this ongoing debate and the difference that various professionals/studies/etc. do or do not perceive between the two.

nowhere: all-encompassing was PRECISELY the word I was trying to think of!! It was right there at the tip of my mind but I couldn't get to it!

As I said in my first post... I view social anxiety as situation-specific. I did not say performance-specific, although that is what the quote said. Quite frankly, it's a lot easier to find information from DSM IV. With social anxiety, there are situations (sometimes many, sometimes few) that cause someone anxiety. With AvPD, it is more invasive - there isn't really a let up.

With AvPD there's more issues in the core of the person - their entire self-concept is basically faulty. Inherently AvPD believes that everything about themselves is wrong and worthless and that no one would ever care for them. Social anxiety is more a fear/anxiouness over what other people will think of whatever it is the person is doing.

I think it's more of a slight difference in thinking.

SA: "What if I trip while on the dance floor? Or step on someone's foot? Or bump into someone's drink? People will think I'm such a klutz! I'm never going to be able to that club again if I do!"

AvPD: "What if people see me dancing? I'm going to be the only person there who can't dance, and no one will ever like me. Anyone I'm there with will hate me because they'll see what a horrible person I am, because I don't know how to do something simple like dance. No one would ever want to even get a drink with me again!"

That's basically how I view the difference. SA is more of a fear of being viewed negatively in a certain way. AvPD associates pretty much everything with the same reaction - that they'll be exposed as a human being who is always inferior.

Not sure if that makes sense. It's clearly easy to swap the two around hence the debate with the diagnosis.

But you are asking for our opinions, and not for the interpretation of a professional. If you already know so much then I'm not really sure why you're asking. It's hard to put out my own thoughts and interpretations, and I'm rather freaked out about responding a second time as you decided to take the quote I gave you and twist my own words around....

ETA: I will also go through and tell you my thoughts and feelings about myself while writing these two posts, which is pretty close to how I feel about every post I ever make:

- I'm an idiot for even trying to help
- everyone else will have much better responses
- I will never think of the right words to express what I'm trying to say
- the other person must think I'm rude and *****y for saying something
- I don't know what I'm talking about
- I shouldn't waste someone's time with writing to them because nothing I say is going to be good
- I'm annoying
- I write too much/too little - I should be able to explain my thoughts concisely
- someone will be mad at me for saying something that disagrees with them
- I should delete my post
- I should delete my account so that they'll never have to see me again
etc etc

And I did mean:

"I certainly interpret AvPD as less situation-specific as Red Panda has described."
or
"I certainly interpret SAD/SP as more situation-specific as Red Panda has described."

I'd understood that