Getting a diagnosis

Greetings everyone. I'm new to the forum and I apologize for starting a new thread right off the bat. I've done a lot of internet research over the past few months in between attempts at treatment with my different therapists and psychiatrists. Though I've been seeing people about my conditions off and on for about two years now, I'm pretty sure I haven't even gotten a decent diagnosis, much less any helpful treatment.

I'm almost positive that I have a textbook case of Avoidant Personality Disorder, but my symptoms overlap with several other disorders and the only thing I've ever been diagnosed with is clinical depression, which I believe is a false diagnosis. I have many symptoms of bpd and ppd as well, so I guess in reality I'm not sure of anything. There just aren't any symptoms of Avoidant that I don't have, so that's my best guess.

My question is simple. How do I get diagnosed for a personality disorder and how do I get treatment for it? The 8 or 9 people I've seen have never even suggested it, and I've had a lot of trouble bringing it up. Talking about it on a forum is easy because I have time to compose my thoughts, and I don't have to look any of you in the eyes. But in person with a therapist I fall apart. I can't force myself to suggest a personality disorder because I'm too scared of being wrong. I'm sick of trying to read the stifled reactions that therapists are apparently trained to feed clients. The lack of obvious social cues is suffocating, and it forces me to fill in the blanks. Besides all that, I can't deal with the shame and guilt of being wrong, especially considering all the effort I've put into research. I've also been hospitalized for suicidality before, which was a miserable experience. I had to lay in bed under constant surveillance for four days, surrounded by dangerous mental patients. I may have spent a total of 20 minutes with a psychiatrist that whole time. This is only valid because it led to my extreme distrust of psychologists. My main issue is anxiety and not depression, so being forced into a traumatic situation for four days has been pretty damaging in my opinion.

My life has been miserable and stagnant for a long, long time. Well before my first attempts at treatment. But my faith and trust in psychology is all but gone. I've been on several medications, most for depression and a couple for social anxiety. Besides some side effects, none have done anything.

I'm frustrated that I could go this long without any answers, but apparently many of you have been diagnosed and treated, so I'm asking you how you've gone about it. Please, any help would be appreciated.

Unsavory,

I haven't been diagnosed myself with AvPD, but I'm almost certain I've got it, like you do, but I'll try my best to help.

If you feel the meds aren't helping, it might be an idea to leave them be for a while, get them out of your system.

As for the psychiatrists, have you been using ones that were recommended to you or ones that you found on your own?

If in the future, if they again diagnose you with depression, the only thing to do may be to summon all of your courage and suggest that you may have AvPD. I know this may be hard to do, but if you try to stay positive through it, you may find it easier.

I'm fairly new to this to, but hopefully this helps.

Unsavory,
In my case, I have been with the same psychiatrist for about 10 years. Because I was dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder and Anorexia, he decided not to tell me of the diagnosis of AvPD till recently. I guess he thought I would go through nuclear meltdown if he diagnosed sooner.

I do take some meds. Some are for physical reasons and others for psychiatric reasons. I take Abilify....it evens out my mood swings and Serzone....it helps raise the serotonin level in my brain. I also have klonopin to take as needed for stress.

I don't think there are spcific meds for people with AvPD but, there are meds to treat some of the symptoms of AvPD. If meds don't help there is no reason to take them in my opinion. You may want to get a second opinion. When I was diagnosed with DID I didn't want to believe it so I went from doctor to doctor before I was finally able to accept the diagnosis.

I hope this helps

Sweetngentle

Thank you both for the responses. I've actually been off medication for a few months now, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I've had to find these psychologists and psychiatrists on my own every time, and I've been uncomfortable with them all for one reason or another. I've developed some serious trust issues with psychologists since the hospitalization. In my own mind I can always legitimize why I don't want to trust certain individuals, but it happens so often that I can't really tell whether I'm justified in my feelings or a victim of my paranoia.

To be honest I still don't know what I'm going to do. I wish I could just find the right medication simply to take the edge off during impossible social situations. Of those medications mentioned, Abilify is the only one I tried. If it was effective at all (and it may have been) the effects wore off after a few weeks and didn't return with increased doses.