It Just Never Goes Away

I thoroughly embarrassed myself today because of my avpd instincts. I keep trying to self talk my way out of avpd but its a part of me that will never fully escape.

So I'm a junior in college. Freshman year I had a two or three night stand with this guy who had a girlfriend out of state. At the time, he and I were barely friends but we had mutual friends so we saw each other sometimes freshman year. His girlfriend found out and cried but stayed with him.

Sophomore year, I barely saw him.

This year, his girlfriend of 4 years has transferred to this school. Luckily, I havent seen them face to face this year. Which would be awkward. But now I've made it even more awkward.

Today, a female friend dropped me off at my apartment building. I took one step outside of the car and could see the boy coming out of the building. Before I could even think or anything, I yelled Oh MY GOD! and Ran...no JUMPED BACK INTO THE CAR, hitting my head on the top. Apparently he had three friends coming out behind him and they all saw this and started cracking up as I faced the other way.

Then, to top it off, they lingered in their cars, as if waiting for me to get out so they could have another nice laugh at my stupidity.

I have no real reason to run from him yet I did it anyway. I feel so bad I don't know how I am going to leave my apartment this week. Its already hard to leave as it is, but now I have embarrassment on top of avpd to keep me home. I want to slam my head against a wall right now.

In these situations, where you are trying to avoid embarrassment or awkward experiences, I've found that reacting with avoidance usually aggravates it, and leads to more actual embarrassment than if you otherwise behaved in a "normal" way. There's not much you can really do about it besides try to desensitize yourself to it.

I've had a lot of experiences like this, particularly at university. Where you are walking along and suddenly you see someone you really don't want to see, for whatever reason (usually this itself is irrational). I get this wave of anxiety and discomfort that rushes through my body, which I think is a fight or flight response - of course it's always flight. I'm like a deer caught in the headlights. I just try to take a really deep breathe and calm myself, so I can think rationally about it, and not act without thinking. I've found, over time making eye contact with strangers when I walk around has helped a bit. Living in a crowded city for awhile, being around people all the time and trying to behave with confidence has helped desensitize me. But every now and then it will still happen when I see someone I know who I don't want to speak to, as long as they haven't seen me I will try to avoid them. I'm not sure what I can do about that but I think it's relatively normal as long as there is a valid reason WHY you don't want to speak to them.

As far as leaving your apartment after something like this, all I can say is start by doing some small things, maybe. Going to do laundry or something. It's difficult but if you hide from the sensitivity it will only get worse.