Peer rejection, parental rejection or both.

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The only person I was ever really rejected by and had to deal with during my childhood was my brother, but I don't think it was ever anything more than normal sibling rivalry. Other than that, there was nothing drastic in my childhood. I have and always did have very loving and caring parents who themselves had a good relationship with each other. I was one of the most popular kids throughout elementary school and had lots of friends. I was never bullied or picked on by other kids. Really, I have no idea if my upbringing had anything to do with my AvPD.

I was never rejected by anyone in my childhood. When i was a child i was like a Histrionic. I don't think i would be classified as one but that's how i acted most of the time. Then something changed, I had a couple really good friends and i had a good relationship with my parents. There wasn't any rejection that made me the way i am so it must be something else, but i don't know.

In a way, I was rejected by my mother. She loved me for sure. But she loved her drugs, booze and men more than she loved me. At least early in my life.

I was often humiliated by one of my aunts. She took every opportunity to cut me down emotionally. She would embarrass me every opportunity she got. She would belittle me. And at times my mom would go along with it.

But to be honest, I don't remember a time where I wasn't extremely shy, timid and avoidant. I will swear that I have been as I am since before I was capable of memory.

I was sheltered by my parents (homeschooled) and rejected by my peers when I started going to public school. Producing offspring was the only thing my mother ever did with her life; she doesn't have any friends or a job or even any vices to be addicted to. She's freakishly obsessed with childhood, in kind of a Michael Jackson without the pedophilia way. While kids my age are freaking out about where they're going to live after college because their parents won't let them live at home anymore, I moved out permanently after my freshman year knowing that nothing would make my mom happier than if I lived at home until I was forty.

I had a hard time "fitting in" with groups in middle school and high school, and often I was alone. Although "rejection" isn't the correct term for my parents, they were never really loving. Out of the 22 years of my life, I have never heard the words "I love you" get passed between the three of us, although maybe it has between my parents, but I've never heard it. Bottom line is, I think the lack of love within my family caused me to feel very uneasy about bonding with other people, and especially with the opposite sex. And in all honesty, I couldn't say "I love you" to my parents, because I've never said it, and it feels too awkward because that's not the kind of relationship I have with my parents.

When I was a kid, I was pretty much rejected by everyone. An overprotective and emotionally unstable mother and a very distant father, add to that a sort of taboo about love and affection in my family, being bullied at school and the fact that I didnt even had one friend until I was in fourth grade and you get an extremely lonely kid with severely low self esteem. So yeah, I was rejected and/or humiliated by everybody in my childhood.

I really don't remember being outright rejected by either. I do remember a few incidents where I was laughed at by my peers for various reasons but it was never anything major and I managed to have friends, even if they were people I only hung around with most of the time, throughout most of school.

Of course my parents have never rejected me, rather they've done everything to support me. I don't really have an answer for this.

Asuka wrote:This seems strange. In articles pertaining to AvPD the parental rejection seems to almost invariably stressed at the expense of the peer rejection. Yet, judging from the poll the oppossiate is true.

My guess would be that to a lot of people, parental rejection is considered to be officially "damaging" and a cause of "real" disorders, while peer rejection is just the stuff angsty teen novels and TV shows are made out of and can be blown off by saying kids will be kids and that they'll grown out of it and the rejected one will get over it.

I was rejected by my peers. My family moved around a lot so I was always the new kid. I was also quiet, shy and different. You can imagine how well that turned out. No friends for me, and if I did make friends I would lose them when we moved again so I stopped trying after a while.

No boyfriends, no dates and no prom for me as well.

But I'm not bitter......