I have a question....

Hello. I am new here. I have a question. Does my situation sound like avoidant personality disorder or something else? I experience the opposite of what I have been reading from you guys about friendship. First off, I believe I experience social anxiety. I am shy and quiet. I let people walk all over me and try to be a people pleaser. I feel really bad when I make mistakes. The difference is, I can be knowing someone for a long time or have a good first encounter with a person and avoid them the next time I am around them. I don't know why. It's like I create awkward, anxious situations for myself and others. I believe my social issues started about 10 years ago in high school when I developed this body odour problem. It became very embarrassing and uncomfortable to be around others and deal with their responses. I began avoiding family, friends, strangers. The crazy thing is, I can be fine one moment and go out of my way to avoid you the next and it isn't everyone that I get like this with and its causing a strain in my relationships at work, with family, etc. Sorry about the flood of information. Any advice, comments would be appreciated.

i would think if you had avoidant personality disorder you would avoid people in all situations at all times. i am very picky about when i want to be social. i avoid people in most circumstances. i even become ....offended is the best word i can put to it...when people call me on the phone....it is weird but i feel like they are violating my space, intruding on me without my permission...but i have never been tagged as avoidant. like you said, it could just be remnants of avoiding people from the odor experince which is more anxiety than a personality disorder. take care.

Hi, Joe! Welcome!
I don't have much to add to Kaliope's words.
Only a thing, you say that you can know someone very well but you suddenly begin to avoid him/her. You don't know why.
Might it be because you are afraid of damaging or ruining a relation that is working well? Could it be because you are afraid of people knowing you better?
Perhaps, there isn't only a reason. I'm only giving some posibilities.

Being avoidant or not, there's something happening you are not comfortable with so have you consider the posibility to talk to someone about it, appart from us?

A hug!

I do that....where sometimes I can talk to people I know well and other times I can't. For me it has to do with energy & confidence. If I've been taking care of myself then I tend to have more energy & confidence, then I'm better equipped to communicate. If I'm running low on energy and my confidence is shot then I do my best to avoid those situations cause I know I'm just not up for it.

I've never been diagnosed as an avoidant but I seem to fit the bill. I've been formally diagnosed with clinical depression and generalized anxiety disorder. I also strongly feel like I'm social phobic. I post here cause I like this group of people , I relate to so much here, and everyone's advice does me a lot of good.

I want to say I can relate to 'creating awkward anxious situations for yourself and others'. I used to do this a lot and for me I think it has to do with over thinking things and working myself up into a neurotic confused mini storm. Too much self-reflection does me harm. Once I start doing instead of thinking then my responses to people are more natural....I hope that makes sense. But I do best if I have energy & confidence which I get from taking care of myself and adequate down time- time alone that I have to have in order to function....a classic introvert thing.

Taking care of yourself is a very sane thing to do when you have a low self-steem. Completely agree with you. On one hand, bc you will feel moré confident and on the other hand, bc it's moré probably you get a possitive feedback from people you interact with. So you're self-steem will be increased.

I also like you, Green!

Thank you all for the comments.
I just hate that I make people feel so uncomfortable and unwelcome. For instance, I have made my coworkers' friends and family feel so uncomfortable that they avoid me and I them like the plague. Just thinking about it makes me anxious. I just want to put a name to what is going on with me. I talked to my primary care doctor about my anxiety. So hopefully I will get referred to a therapist.

This sounds familiar...I know how that feels.

Good luck to you in finding a therapist I think that will help a lot.

This is a good new, Joe. It's not only for putting a name that might be helpfull but also to overcome these insecurities.
What you describe is your own uncomfortableness projected in the other people. It's also familiar to me.

My last therapy made a difference in my self-steem, in my level of confidence...i wish you the same luck.

Hi Joe and welcome

I am a lot like Kaliope in that I will just avoid all situations it won't mater if it's a large crowd of people like our local markets or a small gathering of friends, if I can't find an escape route and know where there will be public toilets I just won't go all activities are planned with maps of nearest toilets....it's exhausting!

I have a mobile so I can see who is trying to reach me although I very rarely answer much to everyone's annoyance and it's like a lifeline I can get maps on it find toilets phone my partner, T or worse a crisis line.

This is my experience, we all are different but we all share some of the same quirks I was diagnosed with AvPD middle of last year. If you feel comfy here then stay Dx or not! We don't talk much compared to other forums but when we do I like to think we just ooze awesomeness

As for your situation I can't really say nor do I want to why you seem to follow the same pattern of avoiding people as AzulOscuro said talking to a T could help and reading your last post hopefully that will happen soon.

Best of luck and let us know how your going we are here to help each other

I'm the same way. But it does depend on who it is. I'm not a people pleaser with everyone.

Hey, Joe! The symptoms of social anxiety/phobia are close to those of AvPD. A clinician should be able to give you a better idea of the issues you're dealing with. Good luck and update us...