Acting class to battle avpd

I think one of the problems with avpd is the negative feedback we get. People with avpd seem to be negative. Other's are really put off by the negativity and this feeds back to us and becomes a vicious cycle. i know it's really impossible to be one of those happy smilers. But if we took acting lessons and learned to act a bit more happy and positive it might make humans like us better. Our fake facades anyway.

This is what I try to do every day. "Fake it till you make it." It works!

If you saw me irl you might never know I'm avoidant. I smile a lot and I'm friendly. It's safe to say that people like my facade. It doesn't work when I'm too depressed, though, which is why this past month has been hard. When everything is going well, people tell me I look friendly yet self-sufficient. When I was a kid, people told me I looked stuck-up. So, I guess I've made progress.

When I'm depressed and I don't have the energy to act happy, I feel like I'm finally being myself. Buuut I don't like myself, so I prefer having the facade at my disposal. Unfortunately, acting happy doesn't lead to feeling happy in my experience. Maybe because putting on the act takes a lot of energy.

A few years ago I almost signed up for an acting class to help overcome my anxiety. I chickened out, of course. Theater people frighten me.

When I was younger the best facade I could come up with was the mean motherf*%#@er one. I STILL find that to be easier than the smiley face. i just can't stand the fake smiles. You can always tell by the eyes, can't you? I often get the "why don't you smile?" crap from morons. I just say I'm smiling on the inside. I'm not going to explain my whole miserable life - foot pain, mouth pain from butchered dentistry, PTSD from an abusing past. And avpd. Just smile and be happy. Puppies and sunshine. hap hap happyyy!!!

I always wished I had a mean mothersmucker facade at my disposal, but I'm no good at it. My fake smile is pretty good, though. My eyes crinkle and everything. I don't go overboard with it unless I'm really tired and really nervous. I don't act perky. Just calm and content. I try to look like I know what I'm doing with this whole life thing even though I'm terrified. That's why on the rarer and rarer occasions I open up about my anxiety, people don't believe me. In any case, I'm done with the period where I was talking too much to inappropriate people about inappropriate things (as a very poor defense mechanism). Thankfully, I have outgrown that phase. (I used to think I can't be avoidant because I talk too much.) Now my fake happy is a quiet kind of fake happy.

I usually live one of these facade life of lies, even though my old one got destroyed a month ago when I found out about avpd and decided to try my best to live life honestly.

The real awkward thing before was that to try to be accepted by everyone, I would have to live different lies when around different groups of people.

ShadowTerra wrote:I always wished I had a mean mothersmucker facade at my disposal, but I'm no good at it. My fake smile is pretty good, though. My eyes crinkle and everything. I don't go overboard with it unless I'm really tired and really nervous. I don't act perky. Just calm and content. I try to look like I know what I'm doing with this whole life thing even though I'm terrified. That's why on the rarer and rarer occasions I open up about my anxiety, people don't believe me. In any case, I'm done with the period where I was talking too much to inappropriate people about inappropriate things (as a very poor defense mechanism). Thankfully, I have outgrown that phase. (I used to think I can't be avoidant because I talk too much.) Now my fake happy is a quiet kind of fake happy.

Some people talk a LOT when they are nervous. I remember one time when I took a class there was this guy who just wouldn't stop talking! He settled down on the 2nd day so I figured it was nerves.

Too bad you can't teach me the smiley face while I teach you the scowl Terra. It would be good to have a big repertoire.

Coati wrote:I usually live one of these facade life of lies, even though my old one got destroyed a month ago when I found out about avpd and decided to try my best to live life honestly.

Is it possible to live honestly? I'm not sure anyone does that. That's what I see where I work anyway. Lies and deception.

No, it’s very hard. But before, I would live a lie to others, and try very hard not to let them know about who I really was because I feared they wouldn’t like me, now I know that I can never really have friends unless I can be open with them, so now I try to be more open. I can’t be completely honest, but I try my best to chip away at my old lies, and bring out the real me.

I have never been in an acting class. That´s said, in a forum there are many people who claim that this issue was helping a lot to cope with anxiety, shyness and social phobia.
Anyway, we are all a bit actors or actresses. The problem is that avoidants have to take a really,really heavy mask so up to say, I can´t with this weight.

would just be better to put that effort into overcoming the anxiety, then you can relax and not have to put anything on you can just be yourself. no acting required.

ultimate_krang wrote:would just be better to put that effort into overcoming the anxiety, then you can relax and not have to put anything on you can just be yourself. no acting required.

That's the problem - it's impossible to actually change your personality. You can only ACT like you are a different person.