the "nice" PD

inverse wrote:
First of all, if someone is "being nice" to you, they are putting on an act in order to be attractive. Avoidant people don't do that. They don't make a fuss -

inverse wrote:
Plus there is the anger thing.
This I've talked about a million times at least, because I feel it does need to be explained.
Avoidants use anger as fuel in order to get over the hump of not talking, of not thinking our opinion is worthy, of trying to communicate at all.

Borderline Personality Disorder
DSM-IV Criteria DSM-5 Criteria - Revised June 2011
A. A pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, selfimage,
and affects, and marked impulsivity beginning by early
adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five
The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in
personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of
pathological personality traits. To diagnose borderline personality
disorder, the following criteria must be met:
A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:
1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):
a. Identity: Markedly impoverished, poorly developed, or
unstable self-image, often associated with excessive selfcriticism;
chronic feelings of emptiness; dissociative states
under stress.
b. Self-direction: Instability in goals, aspirations, values, or
career plans.
AND
2. Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):
a. Empathy: Compromised ability to recognize the feelings
and needs of others associated with interpersonal
hypersensitivity (i.e., prone to feel slighted or insulted);
perceptions of others selectively biased toward negative
attributes or vulnerabilities.
b. Intimacy: Intense, unstable, and conflicted close
relationships, marked by mistrust, neediness, and anxious
preoccupation with real or imagined abandonment; close
relationships often viewed in extremes of idealization and
devaluation and alternating between over involvement and
withdrawal.
B. Pathological personality traits in the following domains:
1. Negative Affectivity, characterized by:
a. Emotional liability: Unstable emotional experiences and
frequent mood changes; emotions that are easily aroused,
intense, and/or out of proportion to events and
circumstances.
b. Anxiousness: Intense feelings of nervousness,
tenseness, or panic, often in reaction to interpersonal
stresses; worry about the negative effects of past
unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities;
feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty;
fears of falling apart or losing control.
c. Separation insecurity: Fears of rejection by – and/or
separation from – significant others, associated with fears
of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy.
d. Depressivity: Frequent feelings of being down, miserable,
and/or hopeless; difficulty recovering from such moods;
pessimism about the future; pervasive shame; feeling of
inferior self-worth; thoughts of suicide and suicidal
behavior.
2. Disinhibition, characterized by:
a. Impulsivity: Acting on the spur of the moment in response
to immediate stimuli; acting on a momentary basis without
a plan or consideration of outcomes; difficulty establishing
or following plans; a sense of urgency and self-harming
behavior under emotional distress.
b. Risk taking: Engagement in dangerous, risky, and
potentially self-damaging activities, unnecessarily and
without regard to consequences; lack of concern for one‟s
limitations and denial of the reality of personal danger.
3. Antagonism, characterized by:
a. Hostility: Persistent or frequent angry feelings; anger or
irritability in response to minor slights and insults.
C. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are relatively stable across time and
consistent across situations.
D. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are not better understood as normative
for the individual‟s developmental stage or socio-cultural
environment.
E. The impairments in personality functioning and the individual‟s
personality trait expression are not solely due to the direct
physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug of abuse,
medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., severe head
trauma).

creative_nothing wrote:inward they are cynical, inauthentic, full of omnipotent, vengeful fantasies and have a hidden grandiosity.

inverse wrote:

creative_nothing wrote:inward they are cynical, inauthentic, full of omnipotent, vengeful fantasies and have a hidden grandiosity.

Does not sound like AvPD to me. It does, however, remind me of how my mother used to tell me that everyone thinks I'm a snob. Perhaps that's how people on the outside imagine how we operate. But no. Fantasies, you bet, but they're along the lines of "we all lived happily ever after."

Alan AF wrote:
So, my main point is that I don't come across as nice when I'm feeling avoidant. I can seem mean, angry, dour, arrogant, etc. And yet people who like me might view me as shy or serious.

Other avpd folks might appear primarily shy and nervous, which some people interpret as nice. I might even seem this way at times, but most of the time not. And I consider myself to be most actually legitimately nice when I'm in a good mood, although even when I'm not I'm still considerate of other people. I'll still always help someone out if social or moral responsibility demands it. But I don't expect that to be true of all avoidants, because we're pretty different.