I don't think it's AvPD anymore...

So, recently, I was diagnosed with AvPD. I was researching personality disorders for some reason, and I discovered AvPD, which I thought sounded like me. It wasn't one of those "oh, that's what I am!" moments, it was just, "oh, I guess I know why i feel isolated/subhuman now". I asked my therapist and she diagnosed me, because I fit 7/7 criteria. But we didn't really talk much about it. She just gave me the diagnosis.
I barely know what AvPD is in the first place, to be honest. I think it's where you feel inadequate, so you feel like you have to turn away and stay hidden to avoid having your inadequacy criticised? And I feel inadequate, I'm hidden/reclusive, and I fear criticism, but I don't feel like my fear of criticism is as central to me as it is for avoidants generally? And I'm not reclusive out of personal choice, I'm just invisible. I feel inadequate because of my isolation, as opposed to feeling isolated by my inadequacy. Does that make sense?

And then I found some books on borderline today at the bookstore, and I was seriously considering buying one, because it sounded like a better description of me? It really did have that "aha!"-moment element to it. But I don't know what the pattern for borderlines is, and if I follow it. All I know is that some of the symptoms - 5 or 6/9 - were things I had noticed about myself before even knowing what BPD was, and I had kind of sensed a connection between them.

And then, there's the possibility of having both, right? I just re-read the criteria for both of them, and I do meet them both, and I can see how they can interact with one another. What should I do?

green-gramma wrote:What should I do?

I didn't understand well the question.

What should you do in what sense?

Any mental health diagnosis is just a LABEL. It's not like it's a real illness - so it doesn't matter what the label is. Mental illness is just a label for 'abnormal' behavior'. And behavior which is deemed to be 'abnormal' in our society can be completely 'normal' in other societies. Interesting paper here:

The medicalisation of shyness:
from social misfits to social fitness
Susie Scott
Department of Sociology, University of Sussex

Abstract

Shyness has become an ‘unhealthy’ state of mind for individuals
living in contemporary Western societies. Insofar as its
behavioural ‘symptoms’ imply a failure to achieve certain cultural
values, such as assertiveness, self-expression and loquacious
vocality, shyness is increasingly defined as a problem for which
people can, and should, be treated.

http://www.uio.no/studier/emner/jus/ikr ... _scott.pdf

I was officially diagnosed with AvPD for about 9 years. And I could identify with a lot of the criteria, although not so much the social anxiety thing. Anyway last year my diagnosis was changed to BPD. The psychiatrist did say that I had traits of both though. I am still just as avoidant, but the BPD diagnosis is a better fit for me I think having read a lot more about it.

This isn't an official thing I don't think, but there are some pwBPD they refer to as the "Quiet Borderlines" and that's what I would be. I rarely ever "act out" my emotions, so all of it goes on quietly behind the scenes for me. I don't come across as your typical pwBPD. Which is why I think I was misdiagnosed.

But as Parador says the label isn't that important, getting the right treatment is though so it's worth talking this over with your therapist. You may have traits of both. For me, I think I am avoidant because I have the BPD.

I'm self-diagnosed, but I rate high on both the list of traits for both AvPD and BPD. One of my sisters was formally diagnosed with BPD last year. I strongly suspect that my father and another one of my sisters also has it as well. Like Ronni, I am one of the "quiet borderlines," so people would be super surprised if I told them I had that.

I'm almost always in some state of agitation in my life, and I spend a lot of time trying to sort myself out so that I can get through the days, weeks, and months.

For me, the best thing to do was to is try to better understand on a more substantive level what makes up a pwAVPD and a pwBPD. When I am dealing with an emotional disturbance, I spend a lot of inner thought to try to understand what triggered it. Was it my AvPD? Was it my BPD? If I can pinpoint it, I get more insight as to what types of peoples and/or situations will trigger me in a negative person. I either have to learn to deal with it, or learn to more quickly remove myself from that situation.

It's often not easy to find the exact trigger though because I also have other issues, like anxiety, OCD, etc. that's thrown into the big mix of things.

My social phobic symptoms are actually getting better, but my Avoidant symptoms are getting worse. So long as I feel accepted by others in social situations, and I don't detect any judgment, things tend to go well. However, I still tend to chronically avoid others; unless I have to interact with them, to which I'll end up minimizing contact and keeping them at an emotional distance. I still 'flee' if I think they're trying to get into my personal life and get to know me.

I liken it to a timorous child who is "afraid of strangers". AvPD or not, I don't see myself living my whole life with it.

My Negativistic features also make me hold seething resentment to others, make me dislike authority figures, make me shift the blame to others, and make me "get my own back" in underhanded ways; such as angry one star Yelp reviews, or critical phone calls to managers about their rude employees...

double post, nvm.

Parador wrote:Any mental health diagnosis is just a LABEL. It's not like it's a real illness - so it doesn't matter what the label is. Mental illness is just a label for 'abnormal' behavior'. And behavior which is deemed to be 'abnormal' in our society can be completely 'normal' in other societies.

I agree with this, I don't know enough about other mental illnesses but I think all of the personality disorders you see listed on the forum index are essentially not real things. Many people think they have a disorder or mental illness in the same way you can have a physical illness and I don't think this is the right way to think about things.

These 'disorders' are defined by DSM and occasionally those definitions change, in which case many people would overnight become 'cured' of their disorder but only to 'catch' a different one. Does that make any sense at all?

Like Parador says, all disorders are just a label. That's not to say these labels don't have their benefits, it gives mental health workers much less typing to do if they're recording what's wrong with you. But I don't think individuals should give themselves that label.

Antfarm wrote:

Parador wrote:Any mental health diagnosis is just a LABEL. It's not like it's a real illness - so it doesn't matter what the label is. Mental illness is just a label for 'abnormal' behavior'. And behavior which is deemed to be 'abnormal' in our society can be completely 'normal' in other societies.

I agree with this, I don't know enough about other mental illnesses but I think all of the personality disorders you see listed on the forum index are essentially not real things. Many people think they have a disorder or mental illness in the same way you can have a physical illness and I don't think this is the right way to think about things.

These 'disorders' are defined by DSM and occasionally those definitions change, in which case many people would overnight become 'cured' of their disorder but only to 'catch' a different one. Does that make any sense at all?

Like Parador says, all disorders are just a label. That's not to say these labels don't have their benefits, it gives mental health workers much less typing to do if they're recording what's wrong with you. But I don't think individuals should give themselves that label.

Actually research carried out fairly recently does appear to show that BPD is a real thing and not just a random label pulled out of the manual.

http://www.futurity.org/scans-show-what ... orderline/

And they are currently carrying out research as we speak regarding the link between the immune system and depression which I posted elsewhere in the forum. But there have been similar findings with OCD too. Interestingly they have found evidence linking trauma early in life and it's effects on the immune system with mental illness. So that could encompass many of the personality disorders.

living-with-mental-illness/topic185418.html#p1920256

There is also growing evidence of a genetic cause for things such as bipolar - John Hopkins University is well on the way to identifying the particular genome responsible for bipolar.

Whilst the current system is by no means perfect, I think it's wrong to suggest that mental illness is not a real illness and it just might turn out some of those labels do actually mean something.

Some of the severe disorders like bipolar and schizophrenia do certainly look like they are real illnesses - but science has not proven it yet. I remember a few years back when they found the amazing discovery that schizophrenics had smaller brains. Then they found out that the brain shrinkage was from the toxic drugs that they give to 'abnormal' people. It's like that with lots of psychiatry - the circular reasoning that 'proves' what they want to prove.