Perfectionism as a cause of AvPD

I think I may have figured out that my AvPD behaviour is a result of perfectionistic thinking.

I have often been mercilessly judgmental of myself and others. I expect nothing less than perfection from everyone, and I think everyone else expects nothing less than perfection from me. I think this is one of the core causes of my problems.

My thinking tells me that if I am not perfect than others will reject me - so why bother? I should just stay alone and then I won't risk rejection. By expecting perfection I set myself up for failure and it prevents me from taking any risks.

By expecting others to be perfect, and knowing that can never happen, I stay away from others so I don't risk getting hurt, or annoyed. I look for any aspect of their character that can justify me rejecting them first, before they can reject me.

The antidote for me is to abandon my perfectionism, to accept myself and others unconditionally.

Thoughts?

And where is this perfectionism coming from? What is, or was, it's purpose?

My thinking tells me that if I am not perfect than others will reject me - so why bother? I should just stay alone and then I won't risk rejection. By expecting perfection I set myself up for failure and it prevents me from taking any risks.

By expecting others to be perfect, and knowing that can never happen, I stay away from others so I don't risk getting hurt, or annoyed. I look for any aspect of their character that can justify me rejecting them first, before they can reject me.

I'd read that as perfectionism being the product of your avoidance and not the cause for it.

drifting wrote:And where is this perfectionism coming from? What is, or was, it's purpose?

Those are interesting questions.

Q. Where is this perfectionism coming from?

I think the human world is based on perfectionism, especially for men. One of the first things people ask is, "What do you do?" What we do, our accomplishments and achievements, seem to be the barometer by which others (and ourselves) judge our worth. And I think we absorb that style of judging ourselves and others very easily.

I think there is also some conditioning from my childhood, where I was belittled for not being 'perfect' by teachers, etc. So in a way, I sort of learned that if I am not perfect, I need to make sure others don't find out. Hence avoiding.

Q. What is, or was, its purpose?

In some ways, perfectionism can be a false sense of self-esteem. If I do well at something, I can feel good about myself. That's a bonus I guess. But then the opposite is true - if I make a mistake, I'll feel bad about myself.

In the end, I am not sure it's all that important to know why I am perfectionistic. I do know that this is a deterrent to my happiness, so I am making efforts to lose it altogether.

IsAB wrote:

My thinking tells me that if I am not perfect than others will reject me - so why bother? I should just stay alone and then I won't risk rejection. By expecting perfection I set myself up for failure and it prevents me from taking any risks.

By expecting others to be perfect, and knowing that can never happen, I stay away from others so I don't risk getting hurt, or annoyed. I look for any aspect of their character that can justify me rejecting them first, before they can reject me.

I'd read that as perfectionism being the product of your avoidance and not the cause for it.

I've thought of that. But at least in my case, I don't think the egg came before the chicken. I don't see my avoidance as this major root of my problems. I see it as a symptom. A very stubborn symptom, but a symptom nevertheless. I think perfectionism is another symptom. But what's the disease? For me, I think it's childhood trauma and homophobia (internalized and externalized). Avoidance is just a symptom. Luckily a treatable symptom.

True, very true. I think perfectionism comes before APD, as I was perfectionist wayy before I had the symptoms of APD.

I see APD being made up of these parts:

Perfectionism

High sensitivity

Self-consciousness - this makes you think too much about everything, when you'd perform so much better without using up all that extra mental energy. This occupies the brain's resources in the middle of conversations, during exams, and at exactly the worst possible time.

Negative or anxiety-causing thought patterns - like the fear of failure causing the failure. Without this fear, it wouldn't hurt to be a perfectionist because you'll know you did your best. I know this because when I was a kid, I was very sensitive about what people thought and VERY perfectionist, but it didn't hurt when I didn't achieve 100%. Nowadays, it does because I know a huge part of that failure was thanks to my worrying about failing, and that my mind didn't let me do my best.

I think that perfectionism and high sensitivity are actually valuable traits. They make you artistic, intuitive, and make you strive for higher standards.

It's the latter two, however, that RUIN the first two. Self-consciousness, for example, makes me try to control my behaviour and even thoughts SO finely that in social situations my mind can't keep up and I stand there with nothing to say. People are more likeable when they're /not/ devising some perfect thing to say, or /trying/ to be funny, or whatever, so this is like forcing the wrong side of your brain (the rational side) to take over what belongs to the other.

Negative thought patterns can escalate to the point of obsessive compulsive thoughts invading your mind at every minute of the day so that's obviously highly undesirable. Failure hurts so much because of the relentless self-criticism these thought patterns encourage.

So.....when we deal with APD by trying to stop being perfectionist, I think it actually does harm. First, it takes away the advantages of being perfectionist (the quality of work you achieve, the feeling of accomplishment) and second, it makes you stop caring about anything. Anything becomes ok. Things that are definitely not ok become ok. We don't know what standard to work towards, if it is /not/ perfection.

So, it's the latter two that have to go. If they were gone, it wouldn't be painful to have a personality like this.

I'm sorry if that didn't make too much sense.

Avoidants will find fault in everything anyway, even if they do quality work and have good accomplishments, to others these things will probably matter more than they will to the avoidants. Avoidants will find ways to negate any positivity about their accomplishments. I think we do have standards, we just raise them to high, it doesn't even need to be to a level of perfection, we just set them to a high enough level that we cannot reach (maybe not always consciously), because i think we feel that even complete success leaves us with doubt and empty feelings.(at least i do, but maybe this just applies to me)

Perhaps by intensely gauging how worthy we are by what we do is a response to a fundamental lack of self worth. Self worth that most people seem to have built in. Perhaps someone important in our early lives did not acknowledge our uniqueness, individuality or autonomy enough - and now we find it necesarry to endlessly strive for someone important, to notice.

Yeah, that's why I think if we could stop the negative thought patterns, we /would/ start feeling good about our accomplishments. It's possible to change thought patterns, too, with quite a bit of work. (I also find hypnotherapy helps a lot, since it targets the subconscious)

I have been very curious about hypnotherapy for a while, I have a hunch it does help for people like us, this patterns and problems are rooted so deep if feels like you will never get there with therapy, much less trough self help.

I really dont see the point of defining what perfectionism does or if its a cause or symptom, the important thing is to know what it does for you, what it doesnt, where it comes from, its purpose, etc, if you cant make yourself those questions, you are enforcing it, giving it value you shouldnt, just feeding your own defense mechanism, which is opposite to what you should be trying to acomplish.