another introduction

by **faux** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:27 pm

Hi folks, I thought it might be worthwhile to introduce myself and my particular experiences with, what I believe to be Avoidant Personality Disorder.

Firstly, I'm doing this because I hope it will be cathartic and perhaps go some way towards relieving my general inability to express myself properly.

I'm a 20-something male, living in Ireland.

I only very recently came to realise that my experiences, and various difficulties, are not exactly unique to me, quite by accident, and via a rather convoluted path, now find myself here.

In a lot of ways, I appear to match the textbook AvPD case.

I have very many memories, some from as far back as Kingergarten, of where I made mistakes, suffered rejection, or both. To this day, I torture myself over these things, however petty and inconsequential they may have been. I'm not going to go into detail on the content of these memories, but suffice to say, I've never killed anyone, cheated on anyone, physically hurt anyone, robbed anyone. Instead, I've just been awkward and clumsy, both physically and in trying to communicate - and I torture myself over this.

Sometimes, well, quite often, I feel like screaming when I rehash these memories. Sometimes I *do* let a little shout out - and that feels good.

I find doing new things quite difficult. I exaggerate the potential pitfalls of attempting something new, while at the same time yearning, deep down for those same new experiences.

I have just one real friend. I shouldn't say "just", I'm very lucky to even have that person. Even if they don't quite understand why I do the things I do, such as retreat into myself for sometimes weeks on end, they understand that I don't mean any malice. I'm not being cold. As I say, I'm very lucky to have this person.

Everyone else, I've cut off. Me. Not them. I had a longterm, on/off relationship with a girl I loved, I chose her over friends when it came down to a choice. That was that.

In turn, quite some time after that, the relationship broke down. I didn't deal with it well and I'm not dealing with it well, two years later. I dropped out of a 4 year course in college in my final semester in the aftermath. I asked my friend (mentioned above) whether or not he'd mind picking up the forms to apply for a repeat year. Dutifully, he went in. The staff refused, saying they would prefer to speak to the person who actually needed the forms.

Suffice to say, I didn't go in. I couldn't face up to something like that. So that was the end of me in college.

One night, I plucked up the courage to write an e-mail to the head of department, which went some way towards explaining what I had done, and why.

When I woke the next morning, I knew I could never read his reply.

Six months later, I visited that part of my inbox. He'd written two e-mails.

I deleted them both.

I couldn't bring myself to read them. Not even then.

Bleh.

I have quite an overactive imagination which I seek refuge in. Invariably, I'm the mirror opposite to my real self in these imaginary worlds. In them, I'm confident, I'm successful, I'm charismatic and people like me.

I don't know whether or not it's a feature of growing older, but I find my imagination to be slightly waning, or, more accurately, I'm not able to invest quite so much energy in it. Maybe I'm just tired.

Maybe this is not a particular feature of AvPD, but while nasty, or careless behaviour by others has a horrible effect on me, by the same token, gentle, random acts of kindness have the opposite extreme effect.

So while, someone being rude to me, can send me into a spiral of self loathing and excessive self examination - a random individual doing something as simple as holding a door open for me, or smiling at me can send me into positive mood that will last for hours or days if unchecked.

As regards other symptoms, well, I could only laugh when I read the "Inability to remember names", because that's me.

I think, one of the potential positive aspects of suffering from this disorder, is that, one is all too aware of how little things can affect people.

So, I try and let people know, when they do good things. I try to let people know, when they are good people. In my last job, I made a point, albeit on my last day, of telling one particular girl who I became aware suffered from low self esteem, that she was beautiful. I said that because it was the truth, and it wasnt delivered in a sleazy way, actually I believe I said in the same breathless sentence "I'm not trying to chat you up, I'm telling you this because it's the truth and you need to realise it."

There's this quote, attributed to Kurt Vonneguts son. Kurt asked him in written correspondence, about what is the purpose of life, what's the point. And his reply was disarmingly simple and I think, beautiful.

He said;

"Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."

In a world where people were gentle, and helped each other, I don't think there would be AvPD, or at least, suffering from it would be so much more bearable.

Anyway, that's me. Or part of me.

Oh dear, I'm sorry for disappearing like that and allowing doubts to creep in.

The only reason for my absence was due to the fact that I wasn't near a computer with a properly functioning keyboard (that I felt safe visiting this forum on!) for the last few days, which I must say was a rather frustrating experience in and of itself.

But my laptop is now back in working order, so I'm sure I'll be around here quite a bit from now on.

Rather than being a bit freaked out about the number of Irish members, I'm actually intruiged; wondering whether there's something in our society shaping us in this way.

Perhaps that's worth some discussion in and of itself?

Thank you all for the nice feedback and everything, it's nice to actually be able to vent a little and be understood. I can't bring myself to do it in normal life, as everyone is weighed down by their own issues and I don't wont to burden them any further.

another introduction

another introduction

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