Thread: Avoidant Personality Disorder

Ive never heard off this, what is it?

Avoidant personality disorder is a psychiatric condition in which a person has a lifelong pattern of feeling extremely shy, inadequate, and sensitive to rejection.
Usually the person avoids social settings because he/she feels inferior to other people. In public this person always feels that people may be talking about him/her and there may be slight paranoia. These people only approach others if they feel like they are going to be accepted. Is there anyone out there like this or know someone like this?

Wow... that sounds close to my social anxiety disorder... but, maybe not.
Thanks for posting about it though. I think I will look this one up, a little more. :-)

Originally Posted by Fae30

Wow... that sounds close to my social anxiety disorder... but, maybe not.

If you don't mind sharing, how is this close to your disorder? Is it something pyscotherapy helps with or is there medication for it?

my boyfriend has aspergers as well as a whole host of other problems
and he acts pretty much the same way you're describing.

medication has helped him tremendously, i mean he's never going to be the most outgoing person in the world
but he's much better at getting on with people without causing a scene.

what do you want to know?

x

Originally Posted by LadyC

If you don't mind sharing, how is this close to your disorder? Is it something pyscotherapy helps with or is there medication for it?

No, I don't mind. :-)
Social Anxiety Disorder (or SAD) is intense fear of social situations, that cause a lot of distress and disruption in daily life. Also it includes panic attacks, in some cases, it does in mine. And the common fear with someone with SAD is that others are making fun of them or rejecting them. So, I suffer with many of the symptoms of Avoidant Personality Disorder too... I did research it more and I have all of the symptoms, besides one, of the many listed. And one of the symptoms is "social anxiety"! So, perhaps therapy have been treating my issues wrong, for the past two years. I am currently out of therapy, looking for a new therapist, because the last two years had no results for me. Yes, there is cognitive behavioral therapy and medication for SAD.... but neither worked for me and I really put in my ALL into getting better and communicated a lot with my therapist.
But, it seems that maybe my SAD is a symptom of another disorder I may have! I'm not going to self-diagnosed myself, but of all the issues that is associated with AvPD, my last therapist was treating them all as separate issues (the low self-esteem, the self-isolation, the sensitivity to criticism and rejection, the feeling of being inadequate, etc)... when really it may be all connected! :-o

So, I thank you for posting this! It really gave me something to think about and something to ask my new therapist about, when I find one. :-)

Wow. Thanks for the replies and information. I didn't realize that there were several disorders pertaining to social settings. Eleni I was just wondering if a person always feels inferior to people he/she meets and typically avoids gatherings because of the feeling of being talked about and not accepted does it mean that there is something psychologically wrong? Or is all of that just "imagined"? How do you get over feeling that way when you really can't talk about because of the fear of being around people and they are just going to laugh and make fun??

its imagined in the sense that the paranoia that people are talking about them generally has no basis in reality
but that doesnt mean that the problems it causes arent real.
its a real disorder and its beyond the normal range of insecurity that everyone feels sometimes.

the only way to get over it is baby steps
talk to your best friends about how you're feeling
because of my boyfriends other problems apart from me he has two very good friends
and very few acquaintances.
those are the people he feels comfortable with and we all understand his problems
when we *do* go out we have a bit of a system of poking him if he's starting to get a bit het up at somebody.
if he is feeling really insecure we generally just make our excuses and leave.

we've found that fluoxetine/prozac worked very well for the social anxiety
but did nothing for his depression
also low doses of lorezepam or diazepam can help if its making him really stressed.

CBT can be very helpful, teaching you ways to check yourself so you can see if what you're thinking is the truth rather than the distortion of the truth that the disorder causes.

i have another friend who took a *lot* of drugs and ended up with paranoia that everyone was talking about them.
she found that just hanging out with her best friends - i.e me and a couple of others
and practicing just talking about random stuff so we could tell her what was appropriate conversation and what wasnt really helpful.
then if she was in a social setting and she started to get a bit insecure and quiet we'd take her aside and ask what was the matter
often if you have good friends they can help convince you that what you're saying is valuable.

then practicing going up to people and chatting to them.

its hard to start helping yourself but once you do you can quickly tell what is paranoia and what isnt.

its kind of like dealing with panic attacks - you have a panic attack and so you avoid the thing that made it happen, then you avoid things like it, then you're panicking because you might have a panic attack.
if you have one and just breathe through it repeating 'this is a temporary feeling' to yourself
then you're not so scared about having another one.
if you avoid people because you're scared of them then it becomes the thought of seeing them, then it becomes more of an issue if you do see them because you're out of practice.

try and confide in somebody x