Where/how to get help for avoidant

I haven't been diagnosed yet but I can't stick feeling like this anymore. I've always thought I was different ever since I was young and a couple of weeks ago I took about 10 personality tests and was so shocked by what I found. Reading the avoidant personality type was like reading a book about myself, I didn't even know it existed but now I do I want to get help. I can't stick always feeling so scared and worthless, everything I do I do with severe caution and I just can't make decisions which I really need to at the moment. I've just been diagnosed with a muscle wasting disease and I'm just about to go to uni so I have alot of important decisions to make. I just feel like I'm ruining my own life and making myself miserable. I come off awkward, shy and hostile , I struggle to show affection and blush when any affection is shown towards me. Even my own mother thinks I'm cold because I can't even hug her. All my life I've just felt like I'm not good enough. Just throwing this theory out there but I think it's because as a child I was always the weak vulnerable one. I could never keep up with my friends and they would always kind of pick on me in a playfull way because they knew I was basically the one in the group who was the pushover. Even my teachers would pick on me and make me feel inadequate, for example I could never run as fast as everyone else and my physical ability was poor (This is obviously because of my underlying disease, which we did not know about) but I could never do what everyone else was doing and therefore felt inferior to everyone. How can I get help???

I am working with a therapist who does somatic experiencing; she says that will lower my defenses and that I will become more natural around people. I think it is starting to help.

therapy i think is the only thing... or the best thing...
also i think i read that it gets a little better as we get older...
i have gotten a little better compared to when i was like... 5-10 years younger...
im 26 now...

can you get into therapy?

Seeing a therapist to help with somatic experience would be a good step forward. However, You can’t force someone to get treatment for this personality disorder, but you can take steps to improve communication, set healthy boundaries, and stabilize the relationship with others.

S Cande

Lately I have been doing "brain spotting" with my t. It's weird, but it works. I am feeling better and being actually somewhat social.

Avoidance will always default therapy.
Therapy is important and I fully encourage it but you can't change who you are.

I'm grateful for the kindness my psych has shown me but strongly believe therapy is used as a way to understand AvPD and to pick you up when you fall.... But you cannot change your personality.
If you can default your personality, well then you don't have a personality disorder.

Pyschs tend to have what I guess would be a different role in our life (guessing)
I think they are someone who we need or a replacement of what we need as in support/ love or even a friendly face. Basically they are filling a void in our life... Plus we learn about AvPD.
Once you have gone as far as you can in therapy, simultaneously you slowly push away defaulting back.

I can't understand what somatic experiencing is. Can you explain it a little bit more?

Hey. I can totally relate to you. This is how I've been 4 months ago when I discovered about this disorder and felt like all that I've been, all I've felt, all I've done. My entire life was written on that page. For the next week or so I read all that I could on internet. I too am not clinically diagnosed. Then I got frustrated, I couldn't go on in life like this. But I was too embarrassed to ask help from anyone. Whenever I try to open up or leave subtle hints about my condition I end up punishing myself for being too dumb or wasting other's time on someone like me. So yeah. It's been definitely more than 4 months and I haven't been able to do anything about this. I too am soon going to have to take some really important decisions and go to Uni but I don't think I can do anything.
I really hope you could do something about this and not end up like me. I wish you all the very best. Just try. After all, that's all we can really do.

Sorry for not answering about SE. Somatic experiencing is a technique that was developed to help people deal with trauma. The idea is that when bad things happen, that informations can get stored in your body and can continue to cause difficulties later in life. The treatment involves figuring out where stuff is stored in the body and releasing it.

The combination of SE and brain spotting has been so hugely, amazingly helpful for me! I am still in treatment, but I am more confident, less avoidant, less dissociative, less depressed. I am off most of my psych meds. It's been a long process but I am making progress.

I have trouble showing affection to my mom and I have this condition too. But I've literally never seen anyone else say they have this problem with hugging before too. What's it like for you? Maybe we could help each other understand it, no one else seems to, and I don't either lol but I can tell you what it's like for me.

As for where to get help, you can try a therapist and try Exposure therapy or CBT. Both help me a little bit. You could also get some anti-anxiety meds if you're comfortable with that.

I've done a bit of Somatic Experiencing and it seems like it could be really helpful if I stuck to it.

My teachers picked on me too. That's not a good characteristic of a teacher.

I have just found out about this disorder as well and it seems to accurately describe how I have felt all my life. At this point I am thinking in terms of coping. As this is a personality disorder it will be a consistent as all my other personality traits. I am trying to learn my boundaries and what I can do comfortably be some what social. I would love to find some good books or resources on the disorder but all the books I am finding on Amazon are over $30 for even the Kindle editions.