My apologies

Well, public perception of AvPd is rather ill informed and stereotypical and this is compounded by the fact that we don't like to ask for help and we don't want to come out as having it because we don't like to be judged or to feel like abnormal freaks and rejects, even though that is how we feel.

As I've said though in other threads, the only celebrity to admit it is Donny Osmond and I believe that Jim Morrison had it. They're "nice" because they really care about other people and want to be accepted but AvPD is about feeling alienated from others and that means that there is what you could call a dark side to it. You could say that Jim Morrison had a messiah complex but he felt it as a terrible burden and that whatever he did to give people what they wanted it just wasn't enough for them and that he really wasn't what people wanted him to be but had just initially played along with it to be popular.

@ lindi. I like your new avatar!

I can see how schiziod might start out as avoidant. Not that I'm either, but I think I get the gist of it.

@NoM8s.

Well, if you're worried about being judged, you're hardly likely to admit to having a PD or suspecting you do. I wonder how many famous people have/have had AvPD? Do you think some writers and artists might have had it?

I don't know much about Donny Osmond.

I don't think a lot of psychiatrists would even notice whether someone had AvPD, it might not be obvious at first. They'd probably chalk it up to anxiety, social phobia and depression unless they got to know a patient over a long period of time. I don't really hear much about it being diagnosed in my country. The most common ones seem to be BPD and AsPD. They probably stand out a lot more though.

CloudShark wrote:@ lindi. I like your new avatar!

Thanks! Not that I drew it myself or anything...

CloudShark wrote:I can see how schiziod might start out as avoidant.

Completely utterly wrong about that. You are one or the other. You either long for people or you don't. They are diametrically opposed. And you can't switch from one to the other either. Believe me, there are days I've wished I didn't have to feel so bad about being alone; the idea of being annoyed that I have to interact with people rather than compelled not to give into my instincts of being with people because I have to protect everyone, that would be such a huge relief. Alas...

inverse wrote:

CloudShark wrote:I can see how schiziod might start out as avoidant.

Completely utterly wrong about that. You are one or the other. You either long for people or you don't. They are diametrically opposed. And you can't switch from one to the other either.

Are you saying that people never ever change with time? As far as I know, personality disorders are not something that you're born with anyway (except maybe psychopathy, dunno), so you have had to change at some point. Some very traumatic events could even change a person very drastically in a short amount of time!

Anyway, I'm not saying that I had AvPD - I was only a teenager, so I wouldn't have been diagnosed, and rightfully so. Probably I should just call it severe social anxiety, although my thinking process was basically the same as in AvPD (if I've understood anything) - I had ridiculous expectations of what my social skills should have been like, if I was ever going to get friends, so I didn't even dare to try. In fact, I barely dared to utter a word in school during those years, except to a couple select people.
But to me it makes perfect sense, that if avoidant tendencies make you completely lose hope in ever having friends, even the desire to have them could die out (at least to a degree) with time.

Besides, even with schizoids it isn't completely black and white. On the schizoid forum people have many times described some kind of a desire to connect with others or even have relationships. You can desire something on one level, but have an aversion to it on another level. As for me, I kind of desire that I would still genuinely desire a connection. Not that I miss the social anxiety, but somehow having a real interest in people (not just a superficial and/or fleeting) felt less empty inside.

It's quite possible for someone with AvPD to emotionally connect with people. They can idealise a new friend or a romantic interest in a similar way to some other PD types. I fall for women quite easily and I can feel passion and I am an emotionally vulnerable person that really wants to be loved.

No, once you have a personality disorder you can't change it. It's set. You're done. You can learn to manage it better, but it will never leave.

And personalities aren't set when you're a teenager, so you might have had some traits (everyone does at some point) but there's no way you could have been fully avoidant as a teenager. So you didn't "change your PD."

There is a massive difference between the time before a personality is set, and after it is in place. Don't try to confuse them. Before it's set, you bet, therapy and trauma can permanently impact your personality. But after, there's nothing that can change it.

To desire to desire a connection is SO DIFFERENT from a direct desire for a connection. It's the difference between someone wishing they wanted to go to the moon and someone sitting in a wheelchair wishing they could stand up and walk to the water fountain on a hot day. That you see them as equivalent speaks volumes about how disconnected you really are.

Well, excuse me but there are avoidants that post here that are married and everything. It's not for me to speak for others but I can read and didn't Unsocial Butterfly say something about not being able to feel love for anyone apart from her husband?

It's not for me to pry about your living arangements but I assume that you feel alright with family or people that you think of as family that will give you unconditional love.

Avoidants may indeed have friends but they will tend to feel that it doesn't really count because they can have some fantasy or unrealistic idea about what they expect from a friend. That's a symptom that I have.

you have a particular idea about what AvPD is based on I'm not sure what. Did you never have any friends at all? What makes you so special that you think that if someone comes in here that's not exactly the same as you he can't have it?

Is it because I've had sex with women and came from a family that wasn't like yours? Do you think that Donny Osmond was misdiagnosed? Is he a hermit that can't connect with people?

Get off your high horse and stop trying to make yourself out to be the damned expert just because a doctor told you that crap you're coming out with.

inverse wrote:And personalities aren't set when you're a teenager, so you might have had some traits (everyone does at some point) but there's no way you could have been fully avoidant as a teenager. So you didn't "change your PD."

Yes, like I said, traits. Putting quotation marks around "change your PD" makes it look like I would have literally claimed to have done so

inverse wrote:There is a massive difference between the time before a personality is set, and after it is in place. Don't try to confuse them. Before it's set, you bet, therapy and trauma can permanently impact your personality. But after, there's nothing that can change it.

Well, that's one depressing view. I have hard time believing, that one beautiful day your brain turns into stone and nothing affects it anymore. If you can still learn completely new things, why would new behavior/thought patterns be out of the question? I'm not saying that a personality disorder would be likely to change, but I doubt that it's flat out impossible.

inverse wrote:To desire to desire a connection is SO DIFFERENT from a direct desire for a connection. It's the difference between someone wishing they wanted to go to the moon and someone sitting in a wheelchair wishing they could stand up and walk to the water fountain on a hot day. That you see them as equivalent speaks volumes about how disconnected you really are.

I don't see them as equivalent, but I think that a desire to desire hints that you once have directly desired, or at least yearn for a connection subconsciously. But maybe "desire to desire" was a bad choice of words anyway. My own experience is closer to desiring a connection on a theoretical level, but in practice simply not feeling the interest. It's not a happy state of carelessness (like your metaphor about dreaming of moon travel seems to imply), but a quite depressing empty feeling.
How about if you, after all the time that you've spent desiring a social life, a connection with people and so forth, would have the perfect chance to get all that, effortlessly and without a chance to fail. But then you would realize, that it's not what it's made out to be - that all the friendships you dreamed of feel hollow and a waste of time, you can't help but to space out, no matter how hard you would want to feel interested. Wouldn't that be depressing?

I have no idea who I'm supposed to be talking to here anymore and this is just confusing the hell out of me and I've obviously responded to someone that wasn't actually talking to me, so I'm sorry about that and I think that I've probably outstayed my welcome here anyway. So, I'll wish you all the best of luck and thanks for putting up with me.