avpd as a disability

I am 48 and I have had avpd since my early teens, it affects every area of my life. I have no friends, I am estranged form my family, (for the last 20 years) I am under employed, ive been on benefits my whole adult life, I have been single most of my adult life. I have put my self out there over and over with disastrous results. I get so frustrated because I feel that avpd is incredibly disabling. Ive read it is the most painful mental health condition to have but i have had no help at all from the mental health services. A few years ago it caused a difficult problem in work (one of many) which led to my double depression becoming psychotic depression. It was truly terrifying, I didnt get any help then, except for anti psychotics which i am still on. I would never say to any one that i have avpd because to me it sounds completely lame. I dont think it would ever be considered a disability but to me it is a huge disability. I see people as scorpians , I am a selective mute because if i speak people hate but if i dont speak people hate me. This combined with feeling inferior in every way makes life incredibly hard. every encounter with people is fear inducing. How people feel at an important interview or waiting to get news from a doctor or doing a presentation that is how i feel meeting anyone. I wish people could experience what its feels like to be apvd. Im trying to compete as though im on an equal playing field and im loosing every time.

Hi, unfortunately I don't have any advice or feel like I can be of any help, other than to tell you that I am 55 yrs old and I feel exactly the same way. Your post could have been written by me. This is the most painful condition I can imagine and yet I can't talk to anybody about it. I've estranged family and the few friends I once had, been underemployed my whole life. It's most painful with my family because they stigmatized mental health and I think I might have had at least a chance if they had sent me to a counselor when I was young, but instead they just belittled me and acted like I was a weirdo because I didn't go out and have friends.
I wish I could be on disability too but I'm too scared to even see a psychiatrist. It has completely ruined my life.

I wish I could help you feel better. You have helped me with your post, though, it really does help me to know I'm not alone.

deadpoppy wrote:I get so frustrated because I feel that avpd is incredibly disabling. Ive read it is the most painful mental health condition to have but i have had no help at all from the mental health services.

It is disabling. It is really hard to call one disorder more disabling or harder to deal with than another- I've watched others dealing with other disorders, and though "I don't know how on earth they are able to manage and cope with that on a daily basis", but yes, it's damn hard.

Have you explored other avenues for help? I personally found I had to step away from the publicly offered MH services and opt for private therapists. I get some subsidised sessions but the rest I have to pay for myself, so I have to limit sessions/stretch them out through the year a bit more, which is not ideal, but I know I'm dealing with people who have the capacity to help me, not make me worse.

I have gone down the road of going on disability- it was a painful process to go through, but in the long run, has made a world of difference. If I'd continued on the path I was working a job I'm not suited to 4 days a week, I really don't know where I'd be at right now. I kept hitting the wall when I was trying to do that. Going on disability has given me the breathing space. I'm still looking for a different job, but it's taken the pressure off.

I'm 50 and have been on an invalid's benefit for much of my adult life.

I studied Computer Science at university, which I loved, and then worked as a software developer, which I hated. I loved the coding, but I never felt like I knew what was going on, and couldn't overcome a crushing case of impostor syndrome. Eventually the effort and stress of trying to maintain a facade of "normal" was too much to bear and I had a nervous breakdown. I was too afraid get out of bed. My mother had to come to California where I was living then, and almost physically pick me and carry me back to my hometown. This was in 2000.

Being on a benefit intensified my need to avoid social situations, since people inevitably ask "so what do you do?", which ends up being exquisitely uncomfortably for all concerned.

Since then I've been working my way back to "normal". Endless amounts of therapy, a postgraduate diploma in my field, some part time work for one of my lecturers, and a lot of work on some portfolio projects on the side. I finally got some contract work as a developer through a friend of a friend, which has been how I have found all of my jobs since I can't tolerate interviews.

The contract went really badly. I can't tell my partner that I don't want to try ever again, since despite having a fair sized deposit thanks to various legacies, we had to take out a huge mortgage due to the housing market here being so out of control, and of course I need to be working in order to pay it down.

Certainly for me, AvPD has been disabling and then some.