Poor prognosis?

After years of trying to figure out what is wrong with me I'm pretty sure now I'm a phobic, self-deserting avoidant. I actually did consider therapy but after some reading on the subject I'm not so sure if there is even the slightest chance of being normal, having friends and/or a relationship.

Are there any success stories out there or is the prognosis for avoidants really that poor, not to say hopeless?

Although the avoidant is one of the most common personality disorders encountered in
clinical practice, many factors combine to make its prognosis unusually poor. The most
basic characteristics of the avoidant run counter to the basic requirements of psychotherapy.
Simply put, avoidants avoid. So intense is their desire to flee shame and humiliation
that many employ defensive strategies designed to block such feelings from their own
self-awareness.

Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Theodore Millon

Wish I could tell you a great success story, but I'm only a work in progress. But maybe that's all anyone is?

I'm a beginner at this, kind of been avoiding dealing with it since I became aware of it.

I've had to deal with depression first. I have a pretty good handle on that now (after 40+ years of it.) Now it's time to tackle what's probably a more basic and ingrained problem - AvPD.

I found do-it-yourself cognitive behavior therapy helpful to the extreme with depression, and am revisiting it for this. Also, my dialectic behavior therapy book is beginning to make sense. I have a new book on ACT that I haven't delved into yet. It's my understanding that there has been considerable success with these methods. If I could I would go to therapy, only reason I don't even try it is I can't afford it.

It's also my understanding that it never entirely goes away but can get much better.

I've come a long way over the last 4 years when I discovered I had this disorder. For context, I went through university without making a single friend. That's how bad I was. In fact between the ages of 16 and 24 I didn't make a single new friend. I just couldn't cope with social interactions. I still have problems, especially because I have other unresolved issues but I think I have improved a lot.

What happened was I had a really stressful job that I wasn't suited for, and I left in really bad circumstances. I felt like I didn't belong anywhere and I felt like my life had nowhere to go. I became depressed and then suicidal. I went on medication and was sent for therapy. The therapy helped a little with the depression but the best thing it did for me was identify the routes of the depression as avpd. I felt like once I had a name for it and could read about people like me I had something to work with.

So as I started to get over my depression I decided I was going to make a change and not let it control me any more. I had been learning a foreign language for a few years and wanted to get better at it so I made the decision to start going to language meetups. It was really terrifying at first. I would be too scared to talk to anyone and I'd leave really early. But as I kept doing it I got better at talking to people. I started to think 'f**k it, I don't care if these people like me because I never have to talk to them again'. I was so determined to beat depression that I managed to eventually suppress my anxieties about talking to people. It took a lot of time and practice but I got much better at it. Now I am more comfortable with meeting new people. It's not easy at all, and depending on who the people are and how I rate myself in comparison my confidence level changes a lot.

The other thing that really helped was that I found a job that allowed me to be myself, work with kind people and not put too much pressure on me. I was able to grow in this job and get more confident in my professional abilities.

I'm not cured by any means. It's just that I've learned to cope with it so that it doesn't affect my life too much any more. I am still constantly worrying what other people are thinking of me, doubting their sincerity and have some very bad days where I feel utterly worthless, and I feel like I am at constant risk of depression again. But I feel like I have gained enough control over it that it doesn't upset me as much as it used to and I am able to live an (almost) normal life. This is probably as good as it will get, but it is a vast improvement from how I was before.

Thanks Luna for the success story and congratulations on taking the steps you needed to (and sticking with it). Gives me hope.

Thank you for sharing your story Luna222.

"Vicious circles" tend to work in reverse, in that, just as failure breeds failure, success breeds success.

Thanks for sharing Luna- congratulations on having made those steps forwards. It's definitely not easy and I understand it would have taken a lot of hard work to reach that point. You mention learning to cope with it better- this is what I'm aiming for too. Cure would be nice, but I think learning to cope with and manage it is something more realistic to me.

I know of others who've come and gone from the AvPD forum here who have made similar progress. Some to the point where they're not longer considered as having AvPD- simply as having traits. I don't think we're every going to be the "life and soul" of the party type. I think that's where people go wrong- thinking recovery will mean they become a really bold and outgoing person rather than someone quiet and introverted- there's really nothing wrong with being a quiet and introverted person.