Your childhood

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend (an avoidant) about childhood.
Her childhood, on the contrary to mine, was horrible.
She knew soon what being an outsider meant. It's sad. Children shouldn't suffer for anything.

I, on the contrary, was a normie. Yes, I can say that there was a part of my life when I was a normal person.
The only strange thing that I can remember from my childhood is that I was very reluctant to give my grandad a kiss. He was so carefull but I wasn't able to see a man like this bc my dad was the oppossite. Distant, serious...
I have these memories fixed in my mind bc I really wanted to show my grandad carefull but I didn't daré to do it.

I'm curious to know how was your childhood.

First I would like to say that your childhood can be "normal", but you will develop AvPD because all the treatment you get from parents and peers will not be interpreted by your brain as a "normal" persons brain would. My guess is that yours was more genetics while your friends was less genetics and more upbringing.

Mine was generally "normal", except for heavy criticism from my father and mother. My father and my sister ganging up on me and teasing me. My parents being busy with work not being too close to me.

Any form of compliments were awkward to me. Any form of care, love and attention my aunt gave me when I was staying with them was also weird to me. She worried whether I did my homework and helped me with it... my parents just left me to deal with it by myself. They didn't care if I clipped my nails or took a shower. They only cared if I held a broom the "right way", when I did not, they got upset, criticized me and yelled at me. When I didn't do things like they wanted, they always had something to say about that.

My dreams are still plagued by all this. I dream about being criticized by my father. There are of course other things like children in gym class criticizing me for not being able to play Basketball.

You can have problems accepting compliments but I think you are intelligent. What you say about genétic and up bringing avoidance makes sense to me, but I wouldn't ever think it.

It's familiar to me the fact that you only got the attention from your parents when they want to correct a bad behaviour.
My brother and me were the nicest kids in the world if not, my father looked at is with this terrible sight he had. There is a big difference between fear and respect but some people seem to unknow it.

My T said during the first session that you shouldn't think too much about these things... your genetics and your childhood are things you can't change, but you shouldn't just forget about it, just accept and deal with what you have.

I agree with her. I talked to my first therapist about all this stuff and he helped me to understand and forgive other people's behaviours. So, I don't judge my father or my mother. They did the very best according to their background and circumstances.
The most part of time, people are overwhelmed by their circumstances and act in a way without knowing that can affect other people.

Focuss on the present is the best way to build something productive.

My family life definitely had an impact on my AvPD-like thoughts and behaviours.

My dad was relatively absent and my mom ran our family like a business. There wasn't any affection shown, there were high expectations set for behaviour and achievement (add to this a level of sexist gender roles so expectations for me were much higher than for my brother), no praise (only time I've heard good things about myself has been when my mom talks to other people about me and basically is using me as a trophy of herself and how great she is...), my mom and brother are both rather explosive and aggressive, I didn't have the same sorts of interests as my peers, my family was essentially the 'black sheep' on both sides of the family for different reasons, etc etc etc.

It's just how it went.

Then we have a lot in common... my father ran and still runs the family as a business. Expectations were always higher for me than my sister, except I wasn't much of a trophy . All that pressure destroyed me, I developed a fear of failure. Had a lot of problems in college. I couldn't study even when I tried very hard, but I pulled through somehow.

When I graduated, my father bragged to people about me getting a degree. He only had good words about me and my achievements. When we were alone he would say the worst things about me. My father bragging about me IN FRONT of me felt REALLY AWKWARD. I always just stood there like an idiot not having anything to say because of his lies.

Edit: I didn't mention this because I forgot about it. These things just pilled up over the years... difficult to remember so many things.

I think I might have been taught to avoid. Being the baby and the only girl; shy too with a shy mother. I was sheltered and reigned in when being a playful kid and naturally testing adventure. Also mistakes, mistakes in my family where always a reason to kind of withdraw from whatever it was and to avoid it the next time around. I think the healthy way of regarding mistakes are that they are necessary to learning. I still have trouble when I make a mistake in internalizing it.

But I often wonder... is there anyone that can say they got through childhood unscathed? I see with some of the young people I work with too much praise and coddling can lead to a rude awakening when they reach adulthood, in that not everyone is going to reward them for everything they do. Or they are very self-centric and not considerate of others. Is that just a thing with US children?

This is why the parent has to take the childs personality in mind. I was always a really good and quiet child and yet they criticized me heavily.

Don't know about US children but rewarding children can be good depending on the reward. If the reward is not material is ok. I mean carefull. But, I'm not a can of material rewards. I think that the unconditional affection whether the child is right or wrong is the best. So, (s)he won't be scared of failure and feel confident enough to explore world in his own.
I can't avoid the teacher I have inside me, surfaces from time to time.

Yes. The parent has to take extra care about the healthy level of criticism and rewards. Both are necessary for a balanced individual. Also, love of course... love means some physical affection and caring about their their life, hygiene, help with homework(only until some point)... etc.

I just remembered that my father promised me a notebook if I had good grades, but the only thing the child hears is "I won't love you if you don't get good grades".

Interesting background stories...I struggle with where I'm at as far as a diagnosis goes. I first heard of AvPD last year and thought 'That's me exactly!" My therapist, who has way more knowledge than me, diagnoses me with social anxiety, a close relative to AvPD. I wonder if he's trying to make me feel better. Either way, I see my childhood having a close relationship with a overly-critical mother but a father who was detached, self-absorbed and probably social anxious. This is the combination that got me to this point, not sure how far I can get to "normal" at my age, but I'm trying...

You are right, but I'm a little bit radical than you. I don't believe in the effect of criticims. You can teach a child with careful and patience how to act in the right way: with an explanation or better with your model, but we shouldn't critisize a child bc in the end, (s)he is learning.

I see it everyday in my classroom. They learn in the way I explain above, and at the same time they are happy learning and feel safe in relation to what they can do and what you can do for them.

But, Orvel, our parents lack of experience and they didn't know that they were wrong.

I've read "The road less traveled". It was recommended by my therapist. It is interesting. The book says that there needs to be a healthy level of criticism, I also believe this. Classroom on the other hand is a different thing. You can't really know every child.

Well, my sister turned out fairly well, but then again ... she always was "daddy's little princess". If things don't go the way she wants, she goes to him and cries. If she does something wrong, he generally gets angry just a little bit. I do something wrong, it's the end of the world. She fights with mom and can't win, so she goes to dad so that he can defend her and reason with mom. I always got all the pressure from him... even today... "you should go out and find a girl!". I've never heard him say "you should find a boyfriend!" to my sister. My sister teases me in a painful spot, I fight back. He says "Hey! Children you should get along". Why didn't he defend me when she attacked me? Because he from time to time added to the teasing together with her, like I deserve it! I called him out a few weeks ago on this, he laughed cynically. When he saw that I was being really serious and hurt for this, he was a bit sad and tried to make jokes to somehow save the situation.

Yes, I understand ... they think they know what is best for us FROM THEIR POINT OF VIEW.

Maybe our parents are trying to avoid the shortcomings of their own parents. I think the majority of parents wish for their children a better life than they themselves had. Hopefully each generation gets a little more things right. Hopefully

It's curious, Orvel. Our stories are very similar with the only difference of gender. It was my brother, the one who was the prince in my house. I'd never was anyone's princess. My mother always wanted a baby boy as her first child but she had me. So, 11 months later, my brother was born.
Anyway, my mother was always very caring with both but my godfather whose wife couldn't have a baby, wanted to adopt me and my mum was the only one who recused this posibility. My father didn't say anything. He even had doubts.

My father treated both, my brother and me, in such a different way. All I did or talked was wrong. My brother was always right.

But, it doesn't matter. I'm content with what I am. I don't need to be the princess of anyone. I don't believe in blue blood.

Thank you for the reference to the book your therapist suggested it. I'm open to learn each day.

Changes take place in a very slow rate but I also hope for them.

On the topic of 'proper amount of criticism', I think this is something my parents (dad especially) did very wrong. Because, they (mostly my dad) were extremely critical when I did something wrong, and then, they were overly praising and loving when I did something right. I think it ****ed me upa bit.

My case was different. When I did something good didn't count. My dad has a special ability to see only the negative.

There another posibility, doing a criticim by praising. I think it's the best. It's the hardest to do it but I think it's the fairest way. In the end, not everybody know what we know and not everybody have to do the things in the same way as us.

This is a very interesting discussion.
It's even more interesting to see how much parental criticism plays a part in all of our lives and the effect it had on the way we now view the world.
In my house it is my mother who is the criticizing one.
She is a very anxious and and somewhat agressive person, she expects things to be done the way she wants them and when she wants them.
If something isn't done according to her wishes she uses some very colorful words to express her anger.
My father used to be the one to defend me. Especially when I was still in high school and was going through a rough time... he's somewhat more avoidant and socially anxious himself, so I might have learned that from him.
I find it natural to become avoidant and self concious and always on guard when all you've learned through life is that not setisfying other people will get you anger, criticism or even regection.

My childhood was alright. The first 5 years I was a happy normal kid. 5-12 was alright. I was shy. The older I got, the harder it was for me to play with other kids. From the age of 6 till 10 I didn't want to walk to school without my mum. From the age of 10 I got more and more insecure. I thought I was fat and ugly. I started to avoid things. Arounf the age of 15 it got really bad and I didn't hung out with other kids. And then I started to miss school.
My parents were alright, but from the age of 12-15 I was bullied by my younger brother who's totally different from me. He still isn't that nice to me.