Being Held Hostage by Thoughts

I have a theory that AVPD is caused by the sufferer constantly escaping from the present moment, for whatever individual reason. They are in thrall to their memories of past encounters, especially the negative ones, as well as to projections and worries about the future. However, if we could learn to always be in the present moment, I think we would have a better time. Think about it. In the very limited moment of now, there may be a number of different problems or challenges, but only one action you can take to remedy one or all of them. When you are truly living in the moment, you can see clearly which actions are needed, and you take those actions. But when you are living in your mind, you are piling other things on top of that "now" moment - multiple interpretations of the problems based on feverishly going over similar past events, as well as future projections based on past experience. From these memories and projections, fears and anxieties arise. The thoughts and the crippling emotions are not one and the same, one causes the other.
If I was always TRULY present, I would never be unjustifiably afraid of other people, because I would not be piling on top all these thoughts about how people are untrustworthy, quick to mock, how I am a loser, I'll never succeed, and thereby creating the intense fear-based emotions which truly cripple interaction.
It may seem pie-in-the-sky to think about "when I'll be present", and in fact it is, because I'll never be present in the future - the future never comes. There is always only the now. All else is memories and fantasies.
Another thing that disables our contact with the present is our tendency to escape into fantasy and daydreaming. This is a bad habit that has to be fought off. But it's oh so tempting.
I like to think of being "in the now" as riding a bike (cheesy, I know). It comes easily to almost no one, until it is learned. Right now, we have all learned that the present is to be avoided. That we can never learn to ride the bike. When you don't know how to ride a bike, it can seem very challenging, and may not come immediately. Everything you have learned up until that point tells you that when your feet leave the ground, the bike will fall over. There will be falls along the way; there will be pain. You may even give up. But if you keep at it, you will generally learn to ride the bike after a while, especially if you have help. I think being in the present is like that. If you make a commitment to try to do it, and when you notice you've fallen away, gently and constantly remind yourself to get back into it, over time being in the present will become your habitual response, just as your habitual response to getting on the bike becomes not to fall over, but to push the bike forward as your feet leave the ground and keep your balance.
I didn't get these ideas myself, they came mostly from reading a really good book which I would reccomend to absolutely anyone. It's called "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. It is a bestseller and should be easy to find in the self-help/new age sections of bookstores. This book is my personal bible. It was the first book that ever articulated to me so clearly the roots of every social problem in my life. It's also not filled with new-agey, Dr. Phil-type jargon. It's written in plain, simple and practical language that anyone can understand.
I want to add that I wasn't paid to tell you this, I just think it's an incredibly helpful book for people with AVPD, if they were willing to put in the effort to apply the concepts.
I look at avoiding the now as a compulsive addiction, no less severe (although less physically debilitating) than an addiction to hard drugs. It stunts your life. And so far I have lacked the motivation to keep getting back on the "bike" of the present for long enough to actually retrain myself to live in the now, joyfully and easily. It's a learning process, just as people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol need to learn how to live in the world of the sober as part of their rehabilitation. But I have hope, and for now that's good enough.

Thoughts?

In other words you are saying that avoidants are too self-conscious. Like in another thread, I said that avoidants are similar to putting the brain of Albert Einstein in the body of an high-stung paranoid squirrel. Instead of using his intellect to take over the world or become a smartass (like me), he uses it to try to find out just how many different ways he can picture himself being cornered by other real or imaginated creatures; often with formidable additionnal abilities not found in normal creatures, like mind-reading or eye-beams.

Like you said, I noticed that it seems that avoidants are perfectionnists too. In that they will not try something if they aren't certain to succeed first time. This of course lead them to often not try it at all, even if deep inside they know it's just downright impossible to succeed something first try.
I mean, imagine a world like that. You wouldn't have to go to school, you'd just go straight for your PhD, which of course won't require you to pass an exam, because it's certain you'll pass. When buying something at the store, you'd just have to go in your pocket, take a random amount of change and just throw it in the air, which will all fall into the cashier's hand, every time, with the EXACT amount of change each time, which he will not count again to check if it's the exact change, because he knows it is. Basketball games would have ridiculous scores like 1500 to 1498, with the side that started ALWAYS winning; and all the players would be blindfolded too. Casinos would go bankrupt. When getting out of a 5 storey building, you wouldn't take the elevator first, you'd just jump down the window and fall strategically on that small patch of grass in a way such as to not break any bones, or mess your hair.

Ha ha. Yeah. You wouldn't even have to go to a job interview, you could just show up for the job in the morning because you'd know you'd get the job anyway.
I know what you mean about being self-conscious, but I think that might just be the way it seems. Or maybe we are trying to be self-conscious but get it wrong. To me, superficially, my "self" is my body and everything that is happening to me "now", whether it is inside (thoughts) or outside. But I don't think I'm right about that. I don't think any of those things are truly "personal." I think they're just phenomena that change constantly. I think my true "self" is that thin, ever changing slice of experience that is what we call the now. Or, more specifically, my AWARENESS of the now, an awareness that never changes or leaves, but which can be obscured or forgotten. It's that awareness - underneath the thoughts I'm having about the now - that is my true self. So, in fact, I believe I'm not self-conscious at all, and that I need to be MORE "self-conscious."
I think, like I said, that we believe that we are being self-conscious, when all we are is hysterically (and often unconsciously) focussing on this web of ego-things we've created between us and the now that is our real existence. These thoughts, memories, fears, future forecasts. If that makes any sense?
We can detach from this web by focussing on the present. The web might not go away, but suddenly, as we watch it, instead of believing we ARE it, the web's contents will seem less important. Our thoughts will seem less important and will generate less crippling emotion.

I want to add that I'm not against thought, per se. I think that thought can be very useful, and even necessary, for instance, for making practical plans. It's just that so much of thought today is useless, and in fact hurts us by cutting ourselves off from our true self.

I notice you mentioned Einstein. Did you know that Einstein had the idea for his theory of relativity, not in the middle of a brainstorm, but when he was just stepping off a bus, thinking of not too much in particular - it just came to him. Many other scientists have reported this phenomena, that their best, most productive and creative ideas came to them at the oddest moments, such as when driving, or sitting on the toilet - not necessarily as a result of great mental exertion. I think that all ideas have "already been" generated, but we are more likely to "have" (access) great ideas when there is some mental space and presence.

There is something I knew for a while, but lately I could see it in action.

As you probably know, schizoids think just as much as avoidants, probably even more in fact. The thing is, I noticed that the more "schizoid" I feel, the less I think in terms of myself. It's actually documented that schizoidism can lead to losing your ego and your sense of self. It's not that you have a good or a bad image of yourself, it's as if you just don't think in those terms at all. You don't include "yourself" in your thinking. You don't have high or low self-esteem, you just don't have that concept at all. As if you were 100% objective and 0% subjective.

But, last week I have felt pretty depressed, and when I do I tend to "wake up" my emotions to some extend, and then I started to think in terms of myself. And from what I understand, avoidants think a lot in terms of themselves, and the more the time passes, the more I get the feeling that this is all they do.