typical beliefs of avoidants

[Sweet Pea]

Dec 23, 2008 5:44:18 GMT -5 rukryM said:

I'm a lazy dumbfuck at times {sorry for the coarse language if anyone's offended} so I've not watched the video, but I've heard too that APD cannot be cured, you have to live with it for the rest of your life and try to reduce the impact it has on your mind; try to keep it under control. Easier said than done. Oh well^^.

well, there is no treatment i know of that can cause rapid dramatic improvements, because this is a life-long pattern and deep-seated fears have to be dealt with. but people with APD can definitely improve their self-confidence, social awareness and social skills. besides, whether a person meets the criteria for the full-blown avoidant personality disorder remains to be seen. this is just information to help people who suspect they may be avoidant decide whether they should get evaluated.

the criteria include:

- the person wants to have relationships with others but is prevented from doing so by their social inadequacies.

- exhibits avoidant behaviors that have a long-term negative impact on them, lead to functional impairment by significantly altering occupational choice or lifestyle, or otherwise impacting quality of life.

- this causes significant emotional distress.

regardless of whether a person has avoidant personality disorder or not, if they recognise that avoidant behavior is playing a significant role in their life, they should seek help. the longer the avoidant thought and behavior patterns are in place, the longer it will take to change them. to do nothing is basically a decision to flush your life down the drain in my opinion.

[rukryM]

I know what the criteria are, there are others as well and I must say, scaring as it is, that I highly recognise myself in a lot of those. Not all but most and I see myself perfectly well in some of those scenarios described. It's most frightening.

I disagree with your last statement though; to do nothing is not necessarily a decision to live a crappy life, it's a consequence of the disorder which inhibits you of doing the "right" things. It may be due to pride, fear, anxiety etc.

[Sweet Pea]

Dec 23, 2008 13:34:19 GMT -5 rukryM said:

I know what the criteria are, there are others as well and I must say, scaring as it is, that I highly recognise myself in a lot of those. Not all but most and I see myself perfectly well in some of those scenarios described. It's most frightening.

I disagree with your last statement though; to do nothing is not necessarily a decision to live a crappy life, it's a consequence of the disorder which inhibits you of doing the "right" things. It may be due to pride, fear, anxiety etc.

i don't think it just inhibits you from doing the 'right' things, but also from doing things you want to do.

[rukryM]

That's what I meant by the "right" things.

[strawberrysweetie]

Well, I've also read in other places that there's not really treatment for it. Psychotherapy is talked about, but then it always basically mentions that the overall outlook is pretty grim...that the person may not trust the therapist enough and will easily quit. And that also, like you said, it's basically like a lifelong pattern.

I just read on a website that avoidants feel more hopeless than those with social anxiety disorder. And that they've 'given up.'

So....I don't know about myself. I think I'm borderline.

I mean, I like to think I can still do things and that I there is still hope that I'll improve. These past few days, I feel like I've done several 'brave' things.

Then again, there are certain things that I think I'm completely prevented from doing due to strong avoidant personality tendencies. Like occupationally. Currently, I feel really f*cked in terms of job prospects. Partly that's due to not knowing what I want, but it's also largely due to social avoidant tendencies.

Okay, I don't mean to go on about myself...really.


Anyway, I guess to me...getting diagnosed with 'avoidant personality disorder' is like being told you are too far into a type of cancer and no treatment will be effective enough.

Only, the person with cancer knows they will be suffering with the symptoms for, say, only 3 months. Whereas a person with avoidant personality disorder, is aware of their symptoms and that they will persist throughout their entire lifetime.

[Sweet Pea]

Dec 24, 2008 4:18:43 GMT -5 @strawberrysweetie said:

Well, I've also read in other places that there's not really treatment for it. Psychotherapy is talked about, but then it always basically mentions that the overall outlook is pretty grim...that the person may not trust the therapist enough and will easily quit. And that also, like you said, it's basically like a lifelong pattern.

I just read on a website that avoidants feel more hopeless than those with social anxiety disorder. And that they've 'given up.'

So....I don't know about myself. I think I'm borderline.

I mean, I like to think I can still do things and that I there is still hope that I'll improve. These past few days, I feel like I've done several 'brave' things.

Then again, there are certain things that I think I'm completely prevented from doing due to strong avoidant personality tendencies. Like occupationally. Currently, I feel really f*cked in terms of job prospects. Partly that's due to not knowing what I want, but it's also largely due to social avoidant tendencies.

Okay, I don't mean to go on about myself...really.


Anyway, I guess to me...getting diagnosed with 'avoidant personality disorder' is like being told you are too far into a type of cancer and no treatment will be effective enough.

Only, the person with cancer knows they will be suffering with the symptoms for, say, only 3 months. Whereas a person with avoidant personality disorder, is aware of their symptoms and that they will persist throughout their entire lifetime.

actually, there are those in the psych field who think that avoidants are excellent candidates for treatment due to the fact that they have a healthy desire and longing for close relationships. this can be very motivating.

[strawberrysweetie]

And where are all these awesome, positive experts of avoidant personality disorder hiding?

And why don't they live where I live?

[wapwawet]

I read somewhere that those with APD "have a desire for affection but not as much as they fear rejection." Maybe increasing the desire is key?

[rukryM]

Dec 24, 2008 4:18:43 GMT -5 @strawberrysweetie said:

Anyway, I guess to me...getting diagnosed with 'avoidant personality disorder' is like being told you are too far into a type of cancer and no treatment will be effective enough.

Only, the person with cancer knows they will be suffering with the symptoms for, say, only 3 months. Whereas a person with avoidant personality disorder, is aware of their symptoms and that they will persist throughout their entire lifetime.

My dear, don't have that pessimistic view on the disorder. It's not like you're going to slowly be chocked to death such as lung cancer victims do or anything. Remember that though it might be incurable, it's subject to reduction and adaption. Though one might be living with it for the rest of one's life, it can teach one about the many aspects of life and one really finds out who one is by exploring what boundaries to cross and not {and yes, I'm in fact on the look for people here on the board who may have APD so they can tell me a little more about it}.

So in other words, by seeking help you can at least decrease the pain and won't have to suffer for the rest of your life^^.

[Sweet Pea]

i found this passage from a book i'm reading on APD (Distancing by Kantor) interesting:

The Dynamics of Shyness

Shyness, and the withdrawal associated with shyness, is an active, dynamic, not a passive, static, condition. That is, so often shyness is what Millon and Davis (1996) call an active detachment (p. 253). It is an active defense deliberately and purposively (if unconsciously) installed to deal with anxiety. Four causes of shyness are the following:

1. Social Anxiety. Shyness is the chief manifestation of social anxiety. Sullivan (1953) describes the dynamics of social anxiety, and therefore of shyness, as follows:

Fleeting movements of anxiety...are the telltales which...mark the point in the course of events at which something disjunctive, something that tends to pull away from the other fellow, has first appeared or has suddently increased. They signal a change from relatively uncomplicated movement toward a presumptively common goal to a protecting of one's self-esteem, with a definite complicating of the interpersonal action. ...Anxiety appears...in the experience of some complex "emotions" into which it has been elaborated by specific early training. ...embarrassment, shame, humiliation, guilt, and chagrin. The circumstances under whch these unpleasant "emotions" occur [need to be] observe[d] accurately and...subject to the retrospective analysis which is apt to be most rewarding (pp.378-379).

2. Neophobia. Shy Type I avoidants are mainly neophobes who have difficulty initiating personal/romantic relationships. In this they differ from Type II mingles avoidants who are neophiles who desire new relationships and initiate them easily, only to have difficulty keeping them afloat. Shy avoidants who fear new contacts have difficulty saying hello to neighbors they pass on the street or meet in the elevator as well as difficulty participating in such group activities as the high-school prom or a friend's birthday party. While some shy avoidants keep on trying to relate, other shy avoidants are either close to giving up on, or have actually given up on, looking for new relationships. Of the latter group some have retreated to living alone, while others have retreated to living with their parents and possibly with other equally avoidant family members. At most they maintain a few distant relationshhips with casual friends, gay "sisters", or the like, but nothing truly intimate transpires. If they accept new people at all they often choose introverts over extroverts, just as when selecting a pet they tend to prefer cats over dogs.

3. Hostility. Hostility is often an element in the picture of shyness. Shy people can be very cruel to those who would love them. It is both in their nature and a calculated way to avoid closeness. For example, cruelty came naturally to one avoidant, as she had a secret cache of drawings of pictures of cats being imprisoned and crucified.

4. Low self-esteem. Shy avoidants tend to suffer from low self-esteem. They avoid relationships because they feel too unworthy to enjoy them, and because before they feel confident enough to relate at all the relationship must meet a number of impossible conditions in advance: constant an unconditional approval and the promise that the relationship will not sour.

An individual with low self-esteem put people off by making jokes on himself. He put himself down by giving himself "back-handed compliments" that were part of his plan to get others to agree that his self-esteem should be as low as it was. For example, he told the following story, consciously meant to amuse, but secretly meant to horrify. When asked on his thirtieth birthday, "How does it feel to be thirty?" he laughingly replied, "At the orgy last night I had anonymous sex with five people, and not one of them complained about my age."

Another time he bragged to his friends what a failure he was in his profession, simultaneously hoping for admiration as the teller of a good story, sympathy for his all too human foibles, and points for being modest. He told of how he started his career inauspiciously by giving "the worst advice he could possibly have given under the circumstances." He had met a stranger in a bar, and asked him, "What do you do?" The stranger proudly replied, "I write poems, and my first poem was just published." "Yeah," this budding mental health worker replied, "do that, but be sure to get a steady job, considering how often people in your field succeed." The punch line that made this a self-demeaning story was that he later discovered the man had become a successful and famous poet. Instead of bragging to friends of his first counseling triumph he was in effect putting himself down, or, as he put it, "goofing on himself," for his first counseling failure. The biggest casualty of all was his career - for instead of building a practice advising real upcoming poets how to succeed in their profession, he had to settle for a mundane, civil service counseling job. Now he had a real reason to be dissatisfied with himself, and a real reason to put himself down.

[Sweet Pea]

more interesting passages (same book):

Appearance

Changes in appearance are often absent in AvPD. If changes are present, they take one of several forms, each representing a different way to deal with social anxiety. Avoidants who withdraw and act shy to deal with their fear of criticism and rejection may appear unable to make eye contact or to offer a firm hand for a handshake. Or they may appear off-putting as they make themselves unappealing by using such props as unstylish clothing deliberately geared to drive others away. Ives Hendrick (1958) refers to off-putting changes in appearance when he notes that "A woman who is in danger of distressing anxiety or guilt from phantasies aroused by strange men looking at her can protect herself by avoiding public places, or by dressing herself so that no one will want to look" (p. 173).

A patient deliberately used little tricks to compromise his appearance. With legs, as he himself said, "bandy and misshapen," he nevertheless wore black socks and formal shoes with walking shorts to make himself look unappealing. He had a rhinoplasty that turned a handsome but big nose into a cute little nose but one that was inappropriate for his face and even for his personality, and he attempted to cover his bald spots in ways that were not only unsuccessful but instead called attention to them. Off-putting too were nonverbal communications like the hostile squint of the eye or the frown screwing up the face into a grimace, carrying tote bags whose logo proclaimed membership in a special group - avoidant because it in effect proclaimed a rejection of people outside of that inner circle; and boredom as manifest in hardly suppressed yawns that indicated his complete lack of interest in what others were saying to him.

Avoidants who also suffer from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - the PTSD avoidants described in detail in Chapter 10 - often put people off by dressing for the era when an original trauma took place. For some Vietnam veterans, wearing 1960s hairstyles/facial hair and "never forget" T-shirts is more than just a matter of nostalgia or being stuck in a traumatic time. It is also part of their plan to continue to live in a traumatic past in order to detach from relationships in the present.

*********************************************

Defying Social Convention in Dress and Comportment

To drive people off, some passive-aggressive avoidants become motorcycle-gang avoidants whose pleasure from revving up the engine comes from knowing that others hate the noise. Others cultivate being personally unappealing for the same reason. One man dressed inappropriately and sloppily, did not get a needed haircut, and fixed his hair trying to hide his baldness in ineffective and often bizarre ways that, if we assume that motivation can be inferred by response, must have been at least unconsciously, intended to displease and horrify.