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Hi, I hope you dont mind me asking you, but do you know anything about agoraphobia caused by avpd? Bc I have avpd and am increasingly becoming more and more scared to leave the house, I cant go to school and yet I have to. Im not sure what to do
Hi there! Sure, I’ll share what I’ve figured out.
This word is often used for “anyone who doesn’t leave their house.” But it’s actually connected to panic disorder. It’s about avoiding panic attacks, or places it’s hard to escape from – where panicking would be especially rough.
People with agoraphobia feel unable to deal with (or cope with, or ride out) their panic and anxiety. Which is why instead, they try to prevent the attacks by avoiding triggers – staying at home.
So here’s how agoraphobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder are linked.
Uncomfortable emotions – fear for agoraphobia, shame for AvPD – get the same solution every time: Avoidance. Anytime we feel bad, we avoid more.
If this goes unchecked, all other coping mechanisms gradually fall away and are forgotten. At first, avoidance seems like the only choice that works; later it seems like the only choice that exists.
This is how people get stuck.
In short: The more you avoid something, the more you’ll fear it.
This is a huge part of basically all anxiety issues; it’s why anxiety tends to get worse and worse. Here’s a link (TW for eating disorder mention).
If you avoid something for long enough, doing it feels scary, even if it wouldn’t have been scary otherwise. (Ask me how I know!)
This anxiety builds fast, as soon as you start avoiding something. But luckily, when you start doing the thing again, it decreases quickly too.
There’s a definite tendency to stay at home – for AvPD, too. Why?
I think people feel more able to cope with things, when they’re at home:
There’s no extra embarrassment, no need to hide how upset you feel.
Access to most or all of your best coping resources (like distractions).
(for agoraphobia) Fewer adrenaline triggers – the arousal of your nervous system, which is interpreted/experienced as panic.
(for AvPD) Fewer situations where someone will try to connect with you, risking visibility and rejection.
So when you leave home, you have fewer coping resources to use, and you get more stressors to deal with.
With both disorders, there’s this terror of being defenseless to your emotions.
People with agoraphobia feel helpless to control their anxiety and panic.
People with AvPD feel helpless to control their shame when criticized.
There’s no way to buffer or shield yourself from what you’re experiencing.
You’re at the mercy of your emotions – they seem out of control.
Being unable to trust your emotions is actually traumatic. That’s why in therapy, one of the things people learn is how to cope with and tolerate their feelings. (DBT specializes in this! Here are some basic lessons.)
Reliance on just avoidance, rather than a flexible variety of coping skills
Neglect of other coping skills, and other areas of your life/identity
Inertia due to anxiety reinforcement (more avoidance = more fear)
Learn how to deal with your feelings. If you can, find someone who will teach you DBT, or study it on your own.
In particular, learn to cope with anxiety. For instance:
breath and relaxation practices,
“worst result, best result, most likely result” reasoning,
planning and preparing for likely outcomes,
reframes: “Today I am practicing. No matter what happens, I’m going to learn something from it. So even showing up is a win.”
Find and try lots of different coping techniques. Experiment!
But – you don’t have to choose the perfect method. Often, what helps you get clarity is the act of stopping to do some self-care.
Identify what your big stressors are.
Look for any adjustments or tools to make it more bearable.
Set aside time, before and after, for self-care.
Start observing yourself.
Don’t judge, just take notes about your reactions to things. There’s no good or bad data – it’s all just useful.
This is especially hard but especially helpful during a crisis. It gives you something to do & focus on – so you don’t feel as helpless.
Getting out of the house is so, so difficult when it’s something you haven’t done in a while. I’m in the same boat, and I’m still figuring it out myself.
Hopefully this gives you some clues about what you’re facing & what you need!
Much love <3
Sorry for being vague. Well, I have a pretty good relationship with my parents, but they get irritated and sometimes angry because of my sensitivity and how hard it is for me to approach someone and hold a conversation, or do something simple like order food. They tell me that I need to get over it and act appropriate for my age. I want to talk to them about my AVPD so that they might better understand why I act like this and possibly be able to help, or at least not put as much pressure on me
Thanks so much for clarifying! I’m glad you did, because this turns out to be a very different post than I was planning to write.
First of all, here’s some really good clinical descriptions of Avoidant Personality Disorder: Cleveland Clinic, and DSM.
You don’t experience the world the same way your parents do.
You live in the same world, of course. But the way you perceive, interpret and experience it, is very different. It’s like your brain applies a different filter.
You have certain specific needs, ones that your parents do not have.
That means they can’t rely on “what works for them” as a guide to what will work for you.
(Further, excellent reading: the Usual Error.)
The fact is, certain things are actually harder for you than for most people. And certain things are actually damaging to you, even though they might not damage others.
It’s a real issue. Your parents need to understand that you can’t turn this off.
It got built-in, which is the whole problem; everything grew around it. It’s integrated with your entire personality and the way you exist in the world.
You can’t choose which parts of your life it affects or doesn’t. By definition, a PD harms almost every aspect of your life, whether you want it to or not.
And this fact doesn’t change just because someone is mad at you or is being inconvenienced by your difficulties.
Becoming un-disordered is a very, very intricate and painstaking process, and it does not happen by force.
AvPD is part anxiety disorder, part codependency/boundary problems, part emotional dysfunction; and like other PD’s, it’s viciously self-reinforcing.
(Social anxiety could be a helpful frame of reference for your parents. AvPD is like social anxiety, but different & more complex, so it’s tougher to deal with.)
It is very hard to get out of the PD cycle. That’s why every one of us needs a lot of help before we can find our way out.
Part of that is, we take the same approach to all kinds of different problems. Even when a different solution would work better, we cling to avoidance.
Other people can watch us do the same thing over again, even though it was a disaster the last three times, and wonder why we can’t learn.
It’s not that we don’t know how things “should” be, or how we “should” act. We’re already perfectionists! We don’t need you to tell us.
And when people announce that we’re failing, or point out what we’re doing wrong, or how to do it better, that makes it worse.
It directly feeds our perfectionism, our fear of criticism, and our avoidance.
It’s not that kind of problem.
That’s why nobody can “snap us out of it” or make us “get over it.”
What we need is, to be given the chance to heal and grow.
We need to be cared for, accepted, and supported.
People with AvPD especially need help to get out of it. Avoidance keeps us in an ever-tightening loop of limited experiences. And then we have fewer opportunities to try new things; fewer chances to become more flexible.
Recovering from a personality disorder is a process of slowly untangling all the messed-up stuff in our head, and learning good useful stuff to replace it.
It’s kind of like “remedial” emotional education.
This is where therapy really shines – that’s what it’s for. A therapist can teach you about emotions, how to deal with them, and how to get your needs met.
But even further than that …
The things that led to this disorder, whatever they were, happened in the dimension of relating to others. You have emotional learning from that. It can’t be changed by thinking about it, or by willpower.
It has to be overwritten, by a new, healing connection with another human being.
Great therapy can do this. Certain great friendships or other relationships can too, if you approach them consciously and carefully.
But again: This doesn’t happen by accident. Your parents need to know that they can’t just ignore this problem and hope it will go away, because it won’t.
… the very best thing you can do for them is make sure they know that you accept who and how they are; that you support whatever they want to do; and you love them unconditionally – there’s nothing they can do that will end your positive regard for them.
And then, prove it in actions. Even when it is not easy for you to do.
Having one little safe corner in our lives can help us cope, a lot.
And, Anon, that sounds like what you’re asking for. Hopefully, your parents will be patient and sympathetic enough to give that to you. <3
(Some more stuff specifically for/about them, under the readmore.)
So, your parents need to know that this isn’t new.
The fact that you’re only now telling them about it, doesn’t mean it just started happening.
This is a thing that has been there for a very long time. It is your “normal.” The only difference is, now you (and your parents) know there is a name for it.
Denying the name or denying that you have any problems …..isn’t going to remove the problems.
Your parents are probably going to have a lot of feelings about hearing this.
It’s hard to learn that your kid is struggling, that they have a real problem and you can’t make it go away. It is normal to wonder if it’s your fault or try to figure out what you did wrong.
It’s OK to have emotional reactions to this news. Absolutely fine.
But your kid needs you to be present with them right now, and they need you to listen to them, and take them seriously.
They need you to believe them.
If you need to go sort out your own feelings about it before you can do that, tell them so, go do that privately, and then come back to continue the discussion once you’re able to be supportive.
Be patient. Try very hard to be open-minded. Be willing to learn.
It is a huge act of trust for them to tell you about this stuff. Don’t let down that trust. Honestly, you’ll probably never get it back.
Here are some typical reactions when somebody finally gets diagnosed, or discovers there’s a name for what they experience (self-diagnosed).
Understandably, when you find out that your problems are a Real Thing, you’re pretty delighted. And you want to share it with the people close to you.
You are like, “yeah, woo! Finally, there is a name for this! There is vocabulary to express how it feels! There are other people who have this thing too! It’s not uncharted territory! I’m not alone!!!”
And then you are like, “Wait. People have gotten mad at me for the things I’ve done because of this problem, and that wasn’t fair. That hurt me. It wasn’t my fault, and I’m not a bad person. I’m not broken or defective. I’m not lazy. I’m not selfish. I’m doing the best I can to survive my own mind.
“How can they complain about getting splashed from standing next to me, when I’m the one getting the bucket of water dumped on my head?”
These are all, totally normal reactions to finally getting a diagnosis/finding words for what you’re dealing with. They are OK to feel; they’re just feelings, not moral judgments; and they are not anybody’s job to fix.
Generally, there’s two basic things you want to hear from your family.
First: “Wow, I had no idea you were experiencing this. That must have been so difficult and lonely. These issues aren’t your fault, and I never should have blamed you for having a hard time doing things. I’m sorry. What can I do to help you now?”
Second: “I am so happy for you! You’ve had to work so hard just to get by, and now you know the reason. Now you can actually figure out how this works and how to have a life and be happy! This is amazing, we are so proud! Tell us how we can support you so you can have an awesome life!”
And then you tell them what you need, which often comes down to: “Right now I just need to be reassured that you still love me, and then I want to discuss this again once I’ve figured out what to ask for.”
It’s a hard adjustment for a family (or a couple, or whatever) to make. And it’s scary, for everyone.
But if everyone remembers to breathe a little, to not assume the worst, and try listen to each other – you can get through it. And it can turn out to be a really good thing.
Hi! Sorry to bother you, but I'm almost certain I have AVPD and I'd like to explain it to my parents, since they've gotten upset over symptoms of AVPD that I've expressed and I want to tell them why I act like that. But they don't really think that PDs are a thing that exists. so how could I explain it to them so that they understand? thank you in advance !!
Hi there anon!
Wow, there’s a lot to unpack here. The most important is probably:
What you want to accomplish by telling your parents
What your relationship with your parents is like
Would you mind sharing a bit more about the situation?
Below are some helpful tips that will help you if you know someone or a group of people who have AVPD!!
•Be careful in conversations, they shut down easily and become self-loathing. Don’t be anxious around them, it is easily sensed and misinterpreted.
•Find an area of common interest to establish a bond of reassurance. They can and will trust a person over a long period time and given enough patience.
•Don’t minimize their feelings or self-doubt, they feel very intensely. Their social distance is often mistaken for a lack of feeling, but in reality they are very sensitive.
•Don’t try to make it better by saying something. Listening is the most effective tool.
•Listen to the words said and not said. Note changes in body language to gauge important points.
•They don’t like conflict, so make the environment as non-confrontational as possible.
•Pay attention to all of what they are saying as they frequently don’t say all of what they mean.
•Ask questions, don’t jump to conclusions or make assumptions. Many times they will think they have said something when they have not.
•They are awkward in social settings so expect it.
•Don’t intentionally put them in uncomfortable environments without prior permission. This is not a person who likes surprise parties.
•They already know they are different so don’t bother telling them. Rather, learn to appreciate their independence.
•They have a tendency to believe that they are more intimate with a person than what might actually be the case. Those married to an APD should be very careful with words and body language as APDs tend to take offense easily to the slightest infraction. They truly see their relationships as having more intimacy than it might actually have.
I hope these help!!!
Part of Avoidant Personality Disorder is like … a failure to regulate social experiences. Like we don’t properly integrate or process what we feel.
Interacting with someone means feeling visible, connected, and like you are a self-among-selves: you’re existing as a person, in the presence of others.
Most folks, of course, can handle that effortlessly. They even seek it out.
People need social ‘background noise’ and social stimulation.
They reach out easily and often, just because it feels good to them.
Socializing gives them a sense of comfortable connectedness. And relief from isolation – they don’t “exist in a vacuum.”
It helps smooth out their inner experiences, thoughts and feelings.
But with AvPD, I don’t think we process social input normally.
The sensations of interacting don’t feel like how most people feel them. Being visible, connected, a person – it just seems dangerous and harsh.
And we can’t put these feelings into context.
We can’t step back from them, or control how much they affect us.
We don’t have the ability to regulate what we’re experiencing.
That means nearly all social stimuli are negative to us, whether friend or foe. Being-in-contact-with-people is all it takes to distress us.
It’s overwhelming and de-stabilizing.
It provokes more big feelings, and reactions we don’t feel safe facing.
Our inner experience is turned into chaos.
We’re left feeling helpless, afraid, inexplicably ashamed.
We want positive connection. But we usually end up with painful chaos instead.
And it’s a thousand times worse if you’re having an actually negative encounter, like facing someone who’s angry or criticizing you.
Social perfectionism is about trying to escape this:
“I might be able to enjoy this thing… but only if nothing goes wrong ever.”
Perfectionism is a great misdirect. Because “every possible problem” is not the issue that needs solving.
What we need to do, is learn how to experience social input in a positive way. And un-learn all the bad habits that have grown instead.
(more here!)
Avoidance as social perfectionism.
“This relationship will be doomed from the start … so there’s no point trying to make friends.”
“I’ll inevitably say stuff wrong and make things awkward … so there’s no point in starting a conversation.”
“I might be having a good day, but I won’t always be energetic, clever and likable … so there’s no point in reaching out.”
These examples share some common links:
negative self-esteem
avoidance of anxiety/discomfort
seeking control and certainty
trying to meet others’ expectations, or avoid disappointing them
Thoughts, anybody?
(more here!)
Part of Avoidant Personality Disorder is like ... a failure to regulate social experiences. Like we don’t properly integrate or process what we feel.
Interacting with someone means feeling visible, connected, and like you are a self-among-selves: you’re existing as a person, in the presence of others.
Most folks, of course, can handle that effortlessly. They even seek it out.
People need social ‘background noise’ and social stimulation.
They reach out easily and often, just because it feels good to them.
Socializing gives them a sense of comfortable connectedness. And relief from isolation -- they don’t “exist in a vacuum.”
It helps smooth out their inner experiences, thoughts and feelings.
But with AvPD, I don’t think we process social input normally.
The sensations of interacting don’t feel like how most people feel them. Being visible, connected, a person -- it just seems dangerous and harsh.
And we can’t put these feelings into context.
We can’t step back from them, or control how much they affect us.
We don’t have the ability to regulate what we’re experiencing.
That means nearly all social stimuli are negative to us, whether friend or foe. Being-in-contact-with-people is all it takes to distress us.
It’s overwhelming and de-stabilizing.
It provokes more big feelings, and reactions we don’t feel safe facing.
Our inner experience is turned into chaos.
We’re left feeling helpless, afraid, inexplicably ashamed.
We want positive connection. But we usually end up with painful chaos instead.
And it’s a thousand times worse if you’re having an actually negative encounter, like facing someone who’s angry or criticizing you.
Social perfectionism is about trying to escape this:
“I might be able to enjoy this thing... but only if nothing goes wrong ever.”
Perfectionism is a great misdirect. Because “every possible problem” is not the issue that needs solving.
What we need to do, is learn how to experience social input in a positive way. And un-learn all the bad habits that have grown instead.
(more here!)
Avoidance as social perfectionism.
“This relationship will be doomed from the start ... so there’s no point trying to make friends.”
“I’ll inevitably say stuff wrong and make things awkward ... so there’s no point in starting a conversation.”
“I might be having a good day, but I won’t always be energetic, clever and likable ... so there’s no point in reaching out.”
These examples share some common links:
negative self-esteem
avoidance of anxiety/discomfort
seeking control and certainty
trying to meet others’ expectations, or avoid disappointing them
Thoughts, anybody?
(more here!)
Among everyone I know with Avoidant Personality Disorder, I’m one of the happiest, most outgoing, and most emotionally secure.
I have strong, positive, intimate relationships in my life.
I feel comfortable interacting with strangers.
I even make friends easily.
(The secret they don’t tell you is that even when you’re good at it, not everyone is a good choice to try it with!)
I still turned off my phone to avoid a dreaded phonecall.
I was crushed by a moderate disappointment.
I genuinely worry that my friends have stopped liking me, and that I’m not welcome in my social groups anymore (“they’re finally onto me!”).
When someone confronted me about something, even without any overt hostility, I had an anxiety attack before I could respond. And after the conversation I cried in bed, so hard that when I got up, I had tiny fresh bruises around my eyes.
Most days, I have the impulse to take down posts that feel too personal, too confused, too me.
I doubt myself and everything I’m trying to do. Sometimes I still feel like hiding in a closet for the rest of my life would be a better idea.
And I obviously still struggle with all my usual avoidance problems -- like the effort it takes to leave the house.
...the thing about having a personality disorder -- or any mental illness! -- is that it’s always there in the background.
It’s usually always under the surface. It can affect everything in your life.
And even when someone seems to be doing really, really well, this is still something they have to be aware of and careful with. Sometimes, if you’re recovering, it feels like it’s always waiting to take over again.
There are always triggers. There are always situations that will prompt a disordered response. Sometimes you’ll be able to choose away from acting on that response, and sometimes you won’t.
And there’s never a time when self-care stops being important.
Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you, and it doesn’t mean you’re worse than everybody else. Because everybody has times where things are hard and awful.
It’s okay to talk about how much it sucks. We all need validation and support.
It’s also okay to deliberately focus on what’s good and what successes you’re having, if that’s helpful for you.
You can even do both at the same time. In spite of all the things I listed up there:
I turned my phone back on and called them back! I used my self-talk skills to cope with the disappointment! I kept showing up to my social group! I had the confrontational talk and survived! I didn’t take down any posts! I learned some things!
Most of us tend to downplay our victories and emphasize our faults and mistakes. Consciously doing the opposite of that can help us change our thought habits.
There’s no wrong way to heal. There’s no wrong way to get better, or learn what you need to learn. And you can get stronger and grow as a person, even when you have lots of bad days.
What works for you is good enough, and that’s all that matters. <3
I can probably help out here =) I’ve experienced a decent range of dissociation, because mine has gotten less intense over time.
So when dissociation is really severe, it can feel like the whole world is dead. You’re completely inert and still. It’s like your consciousness has become just a small floating thing in your head -- not connected to your body, your feelings, your environment, or anything that’s happening around you.
When mine was at its worst, I couldn’t speak. I often couldn’t move, I couldn’t respond to people who tried to talk to me or get me to notice them. I was AWARE they were there... I sort of heard and saw what they did... but I just couldn’t care or engage with them at all. Like watching a movie with the volume on mute. And just being stuck there... helpless to change it.
Over time, though, I stopped needing to defend against my feelings that strongly, and my dissociation eased up.
“Mild” dissociation is kind of like just turning the volume down, instead of muting it entirely.
Nowadays, for me, I’ll realize I’ve been staring off into space, or more often playing a really simple game on my phone (like 1010) for an hour or more. I’ll tune out of my environment somewhat. I normally have a constant monologue of thoughts in my head -- when I dissociate enough, those will go quiet. Sometimes my thoughts go completely silent, sometimes just vague and wordless.
(For me, the effects of my ADHD, sleep disorder and depression can overlap a lot, because they can all make me unfocused and disconnected. So it’s hard to tell exactly what’s what, but hopefully this is still useful for you to hear about.)
When you’re slightly dissociated, input is less demanding. Everything is a little further away, muffled. It matters a little less. It’s easier to go on auto-pilot. It’s much easier to forget things -- often, thoughts I'm having (“oh, I should do this thing”) will just slip away and disappear.
You don’t really care about anything, although you want to; you just can’t. And you probably don’t feel much of anything.
I used to shut down like this (completely!!) every time I got really, catastrophically upset. Then it happened only when I felt threatened, facing conflict etc. or basically when I needed to escape. Lately, it seems to happen when I’m struggling with really powerful emotions, like if I’m very lonely. I can’t turn off the emotion, but I can dampen my experience of it by not really feeling anything.
It also used to last for days at a time, until someone else interrupted it; now it lasts maybe a few hours, before I notice it and act to take care of myself.
So, all this to say: Dissociation can vary a lot, and it can definitely be a lot more subtle than “catatonic zombie”. I know people who function almost normally, and you even wouldn’t realize they were dissociated if they didn’t tell you.
It’s more about how you feel on the inside -- it’s numbness. Whatever that looks like for you.
Hope that helps =)
hi im really sorry if this is annoying or stupid or anything but a while (idk how long) ago you made a post asking whther not getting stuff done is an avpd thing and i just want to say dissasociation and fantasy living can both be symptoms of avpd that might stop people from getting stuff dine in the real world?? idk sorry sorry sorry sorry ignore me
omg thank you for sending me a message it’s not annoying at all i promise dw!!!!
yeah it probably is something to do with that. i’ve been curious about dissociation recently bc i think that might happen to me but i’m still kind of confused/unsure. is there anyone else who has avpd that experiences it that can kind of explain to me what it is/feels like?? whenever i look it up it seems like it’s way more extreme than what i experience.
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder. You can read part 1 of this post here.)
When you have a safe person in your life, that relationship becomes really important. Here’s why.
With a safe person, I am welcome. It’s okay to exist.
They’ve demonstrated that they won’t hurt me, even when they have the chance. (They prove this by just literally not doing it, over time.)
They don’t react in the ways that I fear.
They’re consistently kind and supportive of me.
They’re actively considerate of my feelings.
They really want to know how you feel, and they want to make sure you’re okay. How you feel actually matters to them.
And this is SO important for us -- because with AvPD, we are not good at dealing with our feelings. We’re not good at standing up for them, expressing them -- or even sometimes being aware of them.
So when someone proactively cares about how we feel, and maybe even encourages us (gently!) to open up ... it’s like they’re creating a space where our feelings are OK. It’s OK to have them, and to feel them, and to talk about them. And that’s something I don’t think people with AvPD get to experience much.
This could happen as subtly as you having an anxiety attack, and them acting calm and accepting instead of freaking out. You just get the sense that it’s okay. You’re okay with them.
Because our feelings are “allowed” in a relationship with a safe person, we’re able to let our walls down and let them see who we really are. It may only be a tiny bit of visibility, but it’s often a lot more than we have in any other relationship.
And when they respond positively to our self-revealing, we get emotional affirmation, and we can feel accepted. Which is hugely healing.
When we’re with them, we feel more like a whole person.
And that’s why it’s so important to us. We have the same need for acceptance, friendship, and being liked as anyone else -- it’s just so much harder for us to receive it.
So with the rare person who can soften our defenses and let us feel safe being close to them ... that’s a treasure we never take for granted.
I do think there’s some potential overlap with being dependent on someone (like with DPD or codependency). I became absolutely obsessed with my first safe person, and it wasn’t good for me or for them.
But I also think it's natural to value a “safe person” type relationship very highly, and to want to be close to them, and I don’t think that’s automatically unhealthy. This is just something we need to be aware of, and it’s a good idea to check on boundaries and comfort levels once in a while.
Just like people without AvPD can have more than one positive relationship, people with AvPD can have more than one safe person. It’s just equally rare to find a second person you “click” with that way. But there’s nothing automatically exclusive about it, and it can be nice to have more than one person to talk to.
It’s also a spectrum. Each relationship is unique, and it changes a little with every interaction. You might have one safe person who you’ve known for a long time, and then another one you’re still building a relationship with. The important thing is whether you get that sense of emotional support and acceptance from being with them.
And who knows? Eventually, you might just start calling your safe people “close friends” -- because that’s pretty much what they are for us.
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder.)
I realized recently that I tend to try and categorize every relationship I form. Here’s how that breaks down.
The quantity of time I spend feeling safe vs. scared with them
Past evidence of them being judgmental or trustworthy
How possible intimate connection seems
How rewarding intimate connection seems
“Scary” person:
someone I usually feel frightened around
they’ve shown frightening behavior: they’ve treated me or others negatively in the past (acting critical, judgmental, rejecting, or cruel)
Intimacy is impossible.
I will never choose to be vulnerable with them, for any reason.
“Friendly” person:
someone I feel comfortable around
who has NOT shown frightening behavior
Intimacy is possible, but even if I achieved it, I think it has a very low chance of turning out well.
I could choose to be vulnerable with them, but I usually won’t, because it’s not worth the risk.
“Safe” person:
someone I feel comfortable around
who has shown trustworthy behavior in the past: I have been vulnerable with them, and they responded in a kind, supportive, accepting way
Intimacy is definitely possible, and I think it’s likely to have a positive result: they’ll probably be kind and supportive again.
I will probably choose to be vulnerable with them as often as possible.
It’s not this clear-cut or this conscious in real life. But looking at the patterns in my relationships, that tends to be how it divides. When I’m with some people, I feel really, shockingly good; with others, I feel okay; and with others, I feel really bad/afraid.
For me, I assume most people are “friendly.” Acquaintances who have never frightened me go here. Strangers go here -- for me -- because why would they bother judging me? What are they judging me against?
People who are abusive or who violate my boundaries go in “scary,” of course. But, for me, so do people who are just really opinionated or blunt, because I have such a low tolerance for conflict and hostility. (People vary! Your criteria for “scary/unsafe” or any other group might be totally different, and that’s okay.)
Because finding someone who’s basically never frightened me, who I’ve risked being open with, and who responded to me in the exact right way to put me at ease and make me feel heard and accepted -- well, that just doesn’t happen very often.
For me, the chances are better if they’re naturally mild and considerate people. And the chances are really good if they genuinely like me.
For more about safe people, you can read part 2 here.
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder.)
AvPD disconnects you from others, from yourself, and from your feelings.
And that hurts. A lot.
It’s okay to try and fix it.
It’s okay to want to feel better.
And it’s okay to notice your feelings, even if they’re unpleasant.
When you feel judged on all sides, make a safe space for yourself. Find somewhere you can be totally alone and free of observation, like a private journal. Feel what it’s like to not have anyone looking over your shoulder -- maybe for the first time.
Explore your feelings. Get to know what you really think and want, when your opinion is the only one that matters.
When you can, be nice to yourself. Try giving yourself the benefit of the doubt.
Do things that feel good.
When you’re upset with yourself for messing up, consciously decide to look for things that you succeeded at instead. Make a list of wins.
Here’s how this relates to self-esteem.
When we describe what it feels like to have AvPD, it sounds like, “Everyone judges and hurts me.”
But people only have the power to decide how much we’re worth, because we aren’t taking charge of doing that ourselves.
When you reconnect with your feelings, create a judgment-free zone for yourself, and learn to treat yourself nicely, you’re giving value to yourself. You’re saying, “This matters. My feelings matter. I’m worth taking care of.”
Esteem means “favorable opinion or respect.” In the throes of AvPD, we survive on other people’s esteem for us -- it matters what they think, because that’s how we determine our self-worth. But when we shift to relying on self esteem, we can finally heal and begin to thrive.
When we give respect and value to ourselves, no one else can take it away.
And that’s why practicing self-care and self-kindness is so powerful and important.
(You can read more here, in the long version of this post.)
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder.)
AvPD isolates you from being truly connected, being part of the world.
It keeps you from creating trust-filled, satisfying relationships.
It also keeps you from connecting with yourself, like I wrote about in another post.
It keeps you from truly feeling -- and even sometimes recognizing -- your own emotions, your own wishes.
Avoiding our feelings and being detached from ourselves is not normal.
And just like the pain of a physical injury, this pain is a reaction that comes from seeking wholeness. It’s calling attention to a real problem.
It’s okay to try and fix the problem.
Even if it’s negative.
Yes! Even if it’s absolutely terrible.
Ignoring bad feelings is sometimes necessary for survival. And if it is for you right now, you probably already know it. That’s okay, and you can probably still do a lot of these things.
Remember: There’s no right or wrong way to heal.
A place where there isn’t anyone who will judge you or make fun of you -- a place just for you, like a private journal or sketchbook or blog. Even the best option will probably feel kind of uncomfortable, so don’t obsess over finding the perfect outlet for this!
Do whatever you can to make it feel safe and out of reach from everyone.
And then spend time there, regularly.
Once you get used to it, try noticing what it’s like to not have anybody looking over your shoulder.
Can you even imagine it? It’s a terrible contradiction that we spend so much time alone, but so little time feeling un-watched. Free of observers and judging eyes.
Within the protection of your solitude, try writing about your feelings. Or drawing or singing or collaging about them -- whatever works for you.
It doesn’t have to be pretty, and it’s okay if it doesn’t feel natural. It’s a skill, and you have to gain proficiency just like with any other skill. You'll get there; it doesn’t matter how slow or fast that happens.
As long as you’re trying, you’re making progress.
If you learn one tiny thing about yourself, or if you get a little more used to expressing yourself -- then it’s a success.
This is so, so hard, and it’s okay if you’re not ready to try.
But when you are, just try being kind to yourself. Try being gentle. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt once in a while.
And if you can’t do it, try not to hate yourself too much for failing. It’s OK -- if "official permission” existed, this would be it: You don’t have to punish yourself.
Just because they feel good. It’s OK to do that.
In particular, look for things that just sound like they would be nice, right about now. Something that you just ... feel like doing.
Even if it’s only a tiny thing, like making yourself a cup of tea, or taking a nice bath, or re-reading your favorite book.
Learn what it feels like to want something, and learn what it’s like to give yourself something good.
After doing anything, if you find yourself retracing your mistakes, blaming yourself, or feeling sick and anxious and guilty -- take a minute to redirect your thoughts.
Ask yourself: what went right? In what ways did I succeed?
It doesn’t matter if your brain is throwing lots of fails and embarrassment at you; that’s like a TV channel that never turns off. You don’t have to pay attention to it all the time. Just, when you have the energy to, deliberately focus on the good anyway.
The smallest success still counts: “Hey, I remembered what building my class is in! I was basically on time! I didn’t trip over anyone! I learned something!” Even if you have to name truly silly things for “wins,” start with those.
The point is giving yourself credit, instead of bringing yourself down.
And you might be surprised at how well things actually went -- when you start looking at how well they went, instead of how badly.
...in my opinion, and in my own experience. Because this is how you recover your self-esteem.
The simple way to see AvPD is that other people judge and hurt us.
But the more complex truth is that their judgment only has the power to affect us that much, because we’ve never claimed the right to judge for OURSELVES.
We never learned to like ourselves, or to be kind to ourselves. We never learned to take care of ourselves. To own who we are, as human beings. To decide OUR OWN value.
That takes some intense courage. But you don’t have to do it all at once.
Every single thing I listed here is about:
reclaiming your inner life for yourself,
finding your feelings and wishes again,
practicing taking care of your feelings.
Taking care of yourself means healing shame. It means giving yourself value.
We all need to be validated, listened to, cared for, and given positive value. We need dignity.
But when you can give those things to yourself in abundance, you don’t have to rely on other people’s scraps for your self-esteem.
And that’s how you get free. The fear will still be there. But it won’t control you.
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder.)
AvPD is focused on controlling anxiety, like an anxiety disorder.
It's self-reinforcing, like an anxiety disorder.
That’s what I wrote this other post about. But it’s more than just anxiety.
Because it also affects your life universally -- in practically every situation.
It affects your self-perception universally.
It prevents you from forming healthy relationships.
It affects your ability to feel your emotions.
And it’s rooted in shame.
A fear of being seen or known by others. You fear that happening because you feel inadequate, flawed, defective. Ashamed.
If someone sees who you really are, what you’re really like, and they mock or devalue or criticize you -- if they point out how flawed and messed up you are -- you’ll be thrown right into those feelings. It will (says the disorder) “become true.”
And experiencing that shame is so excruciating, you distance yourself from all your feelings in order to escape. (Feelings are an all-or-nothing deal.)
But as a result of being detached from your emotions, it’s hard for you to relate to people normally.
You feel like a fake, like you are just simulating what a Real Person™ should be doing in this situation. This is exhausting beyond words. Interacting doesn’t come naturally, because you don’t quite feel anything.
If you’re anything like me though, you are lowkey suffering 100% of the time.
You might feel like at any moment, you could explode and start screaming and never stop.
You want someone to notice, and care that you’re hurting and so so lonely, but you also want no one to pay attention to you ever because it is so agonizing to be seen.
And if you manage to get past that, you probably think your feelings are so unimportant, you shouldn’t bother anyone else with them. Trying to tell someone about what you’re experiencing just makes you want to cringe.
Or worse, it makes you want to slip into a terrifying blankness, with a vacant smile and deflection: “so how are you?”
This feels like dying. Which is not really so far from the truth.
But possibly the worst part is, you might not even be able to express what’s wrong. You just know: it hurts. You’re miserable. You want it to stop.
(Which doesn’t sound real or reasonable enough to tell to another person, for goodness’ sake. So you don’t.)
It means exerting all your energy to make yourself an un-person. To make yourself so passive, so still -- so inert -- almost invisible, like the clearest water: all an observer can see is a slight reflection of themself on the surface. Everything about you is neutralized.
And this is the opposite of what we are here to do. What we’re here to be.
We’re meant to be vivid, powerful people -- we are meant to be connected.
And that is how we can recover, to reconnect with ourselves. Believe in wholeness!
Every part of AvPD is just the most rational, sensible reaction to believing that you’re fundamentally flawed, and that connecting with others isn’t safe.
And (while people debate about whether or not you can “recover” from a personality disorder) I firmly believe that the things you’ve learned, can be un-learned.
This is where it starts!
(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder.)
So in anxiety disorders, there are “safety behaviors” that are things you do to manage your anxiety.
Like when people with social anxiety are around other people, they’ll play with their phone,
or stay in the bathroom longer than necessary,
or avoid eye contact,
or only go somewhere with another person.
See also: compulsions in OCD.
It’s something you do while you are in the presence of your Feared Thing, to make it less scary/more tolerable. It’s like a buffer.
But I’ve had a hard time figuring out what is the safety behavior in Avoidant Personality Disorder. So much of its actual presence in people’s lives (or at least in mine) seems to be: “terrified of being seen/rejected by others.” And where you have anxiety, you should also be seeing safety behaviors, right? But it’s not really talked about.
Obviously you can just AVOID people as much as possible, and not have to deal with it in the first place. (Like, clearly. I myself am a shut-in, because AvPD.) But what if you’re actually in it, facing this anxiety/threat? What do you do? How do you buffer the fear?
I bet MOST of us have a kind of hierarchy of “how scary/how close is this type of interaction.” And if something is too scary, what do you do? Bump down the closeness a step.
You stop touching, step away, put a barrier in between you; you reduce the level of contact, from phone, to chat, to text, to email. (This is my hierarchy; yours might be different.) If you’re in a group and their scrutiny is freaking you out while you try to talk to someone, you go off and talk alone. Or if being alone with someone is too scary, you get somebody to go with you.
Online, maybe you size down the chat window or minimize it entirely between replies. You silence the notifications. You fullscreen something else over it. (Maybe you compulsively glance over to see if they’ve responded, like I do.)
If you’re trying to share something about yourself, maybe you choose to give it to them long-form all at once, so you can’t lose your nerve halfway through. Maybe you edit out select details that are Too Revealing, too unique, too you. Maybe you only share it with them when you've both agreed to discuss it immediately, so it isn’t hanging in the air between you.
It’s about this:
controlling how much access (ability to disturb) they have to you
controlling what they get to see
and monitoring how they react
The “safest” situation is one where they have very little access to you; where you only allow them to see a bare minimum of personal details about you; and where you can watch and try to mitigate how they are responding to you/what they think of you.
The most “unsafe” situation is one where
you can’t control how much access they have to you (i.e. you live with them or see them every day, you can’t get away from their influence/moods/judgments, or they have power over some aspect of your life)
you can’t control how much about you they get to see (i.e. no privacy, no boundaries)
and you can’t monitor or affect how they react (i.e. they find out a secret of yours and then abruptly leave, or they just won’t communicate their feelings with you at all, or you aren’t even aware of what they know until they confront you).
(Okay, so full disclosure, I basically just described my entire relationship with my mom. So this theory may have overlap with codependency, abusive relationships, and c-ptsd, rather than being pure AvPD.)
You’re reducing their ability to hurt you -- you’re making “How much I am forced to trust you” as tiny and inert as possible.
Which is very useful in a situation where the person is actually going to (or genuinely might) hurt you.
But this eventual habit of lowering intimacy, lowering trust, also means creating distance between you and people you might actually like to form a connection with.
Once you are out of an unsafe situation, this --
controlling how much access they have to you, controlling what they get to see, and monitoring how they react
-- is no longer about managing a threat, or danger. It’s about managing anxiety.
And here is what we know: Compulsions, safety behaviors, avoidance ... anything we do to defend against anxiety, is self-reinforcing. The more you do it, the stronger the urge to do it next time.
There’s another thing:
When you avoid every single instance of interpersonal conflict, you never get the chance to learn how to handle it in a healthy way.
So, yes, when you get into a normal, not-dangerous argument with someone, or have to stand up for yourself, or defend your boundaries -- 2 things: You haven’t built up the skills to handle it in a way that feels safe, AND, you’re super sensitized to conflict because it’s rare.
Conflict is actually scary and feels out of control, times 2, on top of your pre-established fear. And that can be emotionally violent enough, that it can actually be traumatizing or re-traumatizing all on its own.
This obviously isn’t the whole story of AvPD. It’s a personality disorder, not just an anxiety disorder. But I bet for some people, including me, this is a huge chunk of it.