Hi guys...

Yeah, I'm 99% sure I have this. Or at least have carried 'avoidant personality style' to a dysfunctional level.

I really don't know what to do any more. It's virtually impossible to change my 'avoidant' behaviours, because I have no feasible exit strategy and every avoidant step I've ever taken has brought short-term benefits. I'm not good at doing anything which has positive consequences more than 2 weeks in advance, since I've spent too large a proportion of the last 5 years just concentrating on surviving through the day.

Worst of all, turning avoidant (I've probably always been naturally sensitive to negative evaluation from other and had naturally low self-esteem, ) was not based merely on 'perceived rejection in childhood' but on actual wholesale rejection by my 'family' within the last few years.

I'm sorry for the whinge, since I'm sure most people here have had far worse experiences, but for about 7 years they decided to strip me of any kind of human rights or attributes, always referring to me as 'it' proclaiming loudly that I had no human feelings and if I ever showed any emotion I was just pretending, and that anything I said was not because I possessed any kind of intelligence but because I was repeating something I'd read or heard like a parrot. Also they irrationally decided virtually every problem in the family or the universe was actually my fault, and few days would go by without them telling me I was completely worthless and I should kill myself, sometimes shoving at me the knife with which I was supposed to do so. I kind of hoped it wasn't true and I was somehow delusional, so I documented, 'scientifically' analyzed and even tape recorded some of our interactions. Sadly, I wasn't delusional at all. They'd also inflict physical violence many times a week, especially my brother, who, much larger than I was, spent about 2 years doing nothing but hitting me or throwing objects at me whenever he saw me, whilst hurling abuse and telling me to kill myself. Weekends were the worst. They'd lock me in the house and my brother would spend about 3 hours minimum beating me up whilst screaming at me the whole time. I couldn't fight back. I don't even want to fight and if I did so my mother would just threaten to call the police and charge me with assault. Once after he'd been hitting me and telling me to kill myself for about 4 hours I indeed wanted to kill myself, so to rebel against this urge, I hit him back, (didn't even make a mark) so she called the police.

At first I didn't believe them but eventually I became trapped in their lie. Somehow I managed to cling to the justified belief that their perception of me was completely irrational and in error, but I was completely indoctrinated in the lie that I was was trapped in my situation.

So what was the only way I survived this type of treatment? Becoming more avoidant! Switching to a nocturnal lifestyle minimized the amount of time I had to endure them to a more manageable amount of hours. I could actually relax and enjoy myself for a few hours each night! See, it brought nothing but positive feedback. Also, being beat up so often turned me into a nervous wreck. I literally became hypersensitive to sounds and other stimuli, some kind of primitive survival mechanism had soemhow kicked in, I assume. I was compelled to compulsively monitor the sounds of the people walking around the house, tracking where they were, a door being opened, etc. because I knew that when my brother came in my direction, there was a high probability of him going to hit me or throw something at me. Or my parents were going to yell at me. Unfortunately, it wasn't even paranoia. When they were asleep was the only time I could relax.
There didn't seem to be much I could do about the physiological responses I was getting, and I'm pretty sure I got some kind of PTSD type afflictions.

Although the hypersensitvity has faded over time, I still find being around other people stressful, along with an excess of sounds, bright lights etc. It's so lovely to go for a nice walk in the 'dark' (the middle of the night usually isn't truly dark) to the park or something, devoid of people, at about 1am or so. This is the only time I can truly relax, really.

I finally don't live with my family but I can't even begin to shake this avoidant thing. Annoying or inconveniencing other people without some hugely principled or justifiable reason makes me want to crawl away and die of shame. And of course, getting through life without annoying, inconveniencing or irritating other people is practically impossible.

In rationality, I can see that my personality is not really worthless and I'm not really completely incompetent - but I have difficulty believing that anyone else will ever think so. To have some kind of career (what a far-away fantasy) i would have to market myself as some kind of beneficial product. What am I supposed to market myself as? I can't tell the truth - but I also fear that even if I didn't manage to build a suitable facade, the world would instead decide to believe an even worse lie about me than reality. My family already do, after all, and have presented various lies about me to my extended family and their acquaintances - I can't even face any of my extended family because I can't face they lying concept they are sure to have of me.

I've seen numerous psychologists [probably about 10], for multiple sessions, and they all have been sure there's nothing wrong with me, or at least, no syndromes or whatever I was born with. I've been depressed in the past, and the diagnosis of possibly avoidant by one was very insightful.

Most unfortunately, at one stage my family went to some kind of 'family counsellor' (I agreed to go along with it because I deludedly hoped it might be helpful). The one they went to first actually said I had a right to talk, so my parents said she was incompetent and didn't go back to her. The next one my mother hit it off with immediately. I was not allowed to attend until about the 5th session, which I had to attend with my parents present. Then the 'counsellor' just starts yelling at me and accusing me of all kinds of things my mother have apparently told her about me, which are most factually not true. But I'm not allowed to defend myself or contradict her claims, and whenever I say anything she just says "No one wants to listen to you!" and "Bla bla bla!". (How very mature and scientific.) She then presents here erroneous theory of Asperger's Syndrome, which seemed to be based largely on the fact I wasn't making eye contact during the session, due to it being an insufferably negative evaluation of myself. (This, of course, allowed me to distance myself slightly and better rationalize away some of the severe pain). She does no actual diagnostic tests or anything. If I thought there was the slightest basis to this, I would have eagerly pursued it, because then I could have gotten the disability pension and some measure of borderline financial security to support my avoidant lifestyle. But I did extensive research and every single thing about it was most obviously not true of me at all. In fact, in many respects, it seemed fundamentally the opposite of my personality, thought processes, how my brain worked etc. I ask every single psychologist and they are all amazed and think there is no basis to me having it whatsoever. Obvious gross misdiagnosis. But tell that to my parents who were excited to finally 'find' something 'wrong' with me so that they have to lay no blame on themselves that I wasn't their concept of 'perfect'. They told all my extended family and probably all their friends and who knows who else. Mind you, I can't even reap the 'benefits' of this because I've certainly never had any kind of official diagnosis or assessment and to get one I would have to lie and cheat. But I get to reap all the negative stigma. Yay. So, now I'm even more ashamed to face any of them, knowing they'll use this lie in their evaluation of me. I kind of wish I could move to the other side of the world and never have to see or interact with any of them ever again. I want to escape this lie.

Anyway, since I've been living alone for a while, I thought it might be nice to re-contact some of my old friends from school (it seems so long ago. Friends? It's almost a foreign word.) Problem: They all have degrees and high paying jobs, whereas I had to drop out of uni when I got depressed and I hated my degree anyway. How can I explain to them what I've been doing for the past something years? What are we even supposed to talk about? I selfishly kind of wish I could tell them the truth, but even if they don't reject me, why would they want me to foist my stupid angst on them? I mean, I feel guilty even complaining in this post, and it's not like I'm forcing anyone to read it. I even ran into 2 of them at the shops, they seem to live in the same suburb as me now. I kind of wish we could be friends again, but I can't see that our lives have much relevance to each other any more. Also, I'd love to conduct our friendship through the safety of email, but.. they kinda live in the same suburb.

Finances are another problem. I spend too much time thinking I'm incompetent and second-guessing myself. There are lots of jobs I could do, but I don't have the self-marketing skills for a job interview or even the relevant experience for. Freelance work from home involves way to much rejection and trying to market to customers and beating yourself up when they reject your proposal. Also, if I get employed, one day no matter how well I do my work I'll probably show a flash of my reality of being damaged goods and get fired. It's happened before.

Well that was kind of random and incoherent. Sorry, hopefully I'll have something more insightful or useful to contribute on some other topic. I would like to make positive changes in my life, but I simply have no idea what to do..

It's very understandable to think that you have that. Many people experience similar emotions each and every day, all thinking that they need help (exactly the same in your case), and know that you need to improve.

The problem is, you haven't been shown how. I understand how frustrating it can be going around feeling this way, undiagnosed. It really sounds like it would cause a lot of stress.

You could see all of the psychologists, therapist, counselors, and take all of the medicine you want - and if it isn't effective, when then obviously, it's useless. What you need to do is find what works for you. If you don't see results, keep pushing through. There is something to help you - and YOU have what it takes to help yourself. After all, you do control you... right?

Feel free to drop me a PM if you'd like. I'm a professional life coach and EFT practitioner. I'd love to speak with you at any time.

Wow, such a long and heartfelt introduction and only one reply?

Reading your story kind of makes me feel guilty for whinging on about my own issues.

caracal wrote:I kind of wish I could move to the other side of the world and never have to see or interact with any of them ever again.

Have you considered that maybe this is exactly what you need to do? It sounds as though you need to get as far away from your family as possible. Being avoidant, I'm sure it sounds very hard and I guess there may be financial restrictions as well.

Then again, a fresh start in a new place may do you good...