Avoidant Personality Disorder

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      Approximately half the people diagnosed with Socialphobia also have Avoidant Personality Disorder. I am one of those people. This makes me introverted and have depressive symptoms. Where ever I am, I am afraid I'll say something inappropriate and look stupid when I am unable to answer questions. I get into a frozen mode. My mind betrays me and goes blank. I have no idea what was just said. When I try to remember what I was saying I can't even think of the topic. I feel so dumb. I just know they are critisizing me in their minds. If I am being addressed by someone my mind takes over and echoes of "they are talking to me" or "oh my gawd I don't know what they are saying". I get preoccupied with thoughts of being criticized or rejected in social situations.

      I can't hear them talking and their words are jumbled. I don't want to tell them I can't understand because I'll look like a fool so I react as I think they want. All the time having no idea what they just said. My mind is yelling at me things like - "you are a loser". I berate myself everytime I think I have messed up. I call myself names like stupid and dumb. Asshole is a favorite term of mine. After an episode where i have messed up my minds ehcoes "How stupid can you be?" My mind yelling at me - This is something I am not sure everyone else shares. I don't hear voices.. just my own mind thinking outloud in my head. I'm not very nice to myself sometimes.

      Avoidant Personality Disorder causes me to be totally withdrawn. I have such feelings of inadequacy that I cannot socialize anymore. I always view myself as socially inept. I think I am personally unappealing and inferior to others. I have a very low self-image. I project my thoughts of negativity and poor self-image on them and assume the worst. I don't like the fact that I am alone. I desperately want to be liked by someone but my low self-esteem, oversensitivity, and fear of rejection keeps me from getting involved in any relationships.

      I am extremely sensitive to criticism. When I think someone is unhappy with me or my performance I fall apart. I can't take it face to face. I just want to leave and never come back again. I worry to excess about my performance. I think this makes me a bit of a perfectionist that never achieves perfection. I think - they think - I am really stupid. I can't work anymore because the stress and anxiety of my performance being judged and critisized is just too great.

      I am scared to have any involvement with others. I am terrified by the thought of being embarrassed in front of them. I avoid situations that give me social discomfort. In my case this has led to total social withdrawal. I can't go out in my front yard if the neighbours are out there. Many times I can't work in my yard because of the fear of being watched. I have had to let it go an entire season because I couldn't get out. I used to be involved with theatre but because of this illness I can no longer take part in the things I love.

      All my life I have actively tried to avoid social situations. I didn't participate in extra-ciricular activites at school because I didn't fit in and felt they would look down on me. When I could work, I'd look for jobs that didn't require working with others. Quite often I did janitorial/house-keeping type jobs because I could work alone. I did this because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection. On the job evaluations always unnerved me. I was so afraid they'd not like what I was doing. If I got a negative report I beat myself up. I would have anxiety attacks on these days.

      I used to be unwilling to get involved with people unless I thought I might be accepted. I held back my feelings in relationships because of fears of being shamed or ridiculed. I always feel that if I tell someone something they will use it against me in the future. Now I am sure I won't be accepted so I don't try any more. I don't trust very many people anymore either.

      Many people diagnosed with a personality disorder have more than one diagnosis. Socialphobia is quite often diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder. Socialphobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder have the fear of negative evaluation in common. This creates feelings of severe stress and anxiety in social situations. Socialphobia and Avoidant Personality Disorder are not the same.

      This topic has generated a lot of interest. I hear from my readers that they too fear they suffer from this illness. They say my symptoms mimic theirs exactly. They have all shared tales of how they feel like a third wheel in groups and how they are afraid to approach people they find interesting. I hear repeatedly about how hard it is to go to work or ride the bus. (That one - riding the bus, is one I cannot achieve. Not yet.) All the stories are the same. Each story individual in its events and tragedys. Everyone despairs about their circumstance and are looking for a cure. Each person at a different level in their illness. Some have learned some coping techniques and others are still floundering. Hopefully each one of us will pick up the courage to meet others in the The DewDrop Inn Cafe We do support each other. In there. Perhaps there we can find someone who gives damn. and someone we don't have to face.

    Self-loathing, refers to an extreme dislike of oneself, or being angry at oneself. It usually results from an inferiority complex. It is an extreme form of poor self-esteem. Self-loathing can lead to self-destruction.

    Those woth extreme self loathing feel compelled to physically injure themselves. They cut themselves, they hide behind facial tatoos, they pierce themselves to the extreme. Many people who get to the extreme of self-loathing become self-sabotaging.

    Self-loathing is a common reaction to childhood abuse, trauma, neglect, or overwhelming loss where no substantial adult support was available to help children deal with their painful situations. Thus, these children are forced to cope alone, as best as their immature minds can, sometimes with disastrous results, such as relying on drugs, alcohol, gangs, crime, promiscuous sex, and other self-destructive behaviors. Very often these children grow into adults who do not know how to take care of themselves emotionally, physically, spiritually, or in relationships. Thus, these patterns of thinking emerge as a reaction to the original pain (the childhood trauma or dysfunction) and then persevere into adulthood when these individuals struggle, often unsuccessfully, to find their places in relationships and in the world.

    These destructive patterns of thinking seem to be connected to a "switch" in the mind of a person who struggles with depression.

    Self-loathing cannot be conquered on your own, I believe you need intensive psychological therapy to overcome your feelings about yourself. Before you successfully confront self-loathing, however, you must understand where it comes from.

    Self-loathing is imposed upon you by the most well-intentioned and inspirational people and institutions in your life: your family, your school, even your house of worship.

    Let me explain how it happened to me. I was raised in a home where I was well taken care of. I had clothes to wear, shoes on my feet, toys, and lots of good food. My parents were aloof. They didn't spend time with the children. We were to be seen and not heard. We were never hugged, we were never told we were loved. When I had a problem and went to my parents, they shoved me off onto my older sisters, who in a sense became my parents. I assumed every family was this way.. I never learned what love was.

    I spent my teen years searching for love in all the wrong places..I didn't want to believe that the people who were supposed to love me most -the people who have been most important in my life -would do something bad to me? How could the people who care most about me want to make me feel so terrible that I have contemplated destroying my life?

    These questions were so difficult to comprehend that I dismissed them and began to tell myself that I was the one with the problem. I lived my whole life believing I was worthless. I met men who abused me, because I had no will to fight back. I dropped out of schoool, certain that I was never going to get a job anyhow. I went from relationship to relationship, none of them very long lasting. I evenutally took to my room and refused to go out anymore.

    This feeling of self-loathing made me depressed. It worked its way into Avoidant Persoanilty Disorder, I got anxiety attacks. One day it all came to a head. I flipped out and made my first sucide attempt. That was 1992. It landed me in the metal health system. I spent the next 16 yrs taking psychiatric medications , taking various self-esteem classes, and finally at the end I got a psychologist. He helped me through some very hard realizations about the lack of love I recieved as child and how that affected my whole life.

    Now I see where my misery has come from and what was fueling it, I am learning ever so slowly to love myself. Ever so slowly, but it is happening.. I am getting better.. thanks to 4+ years of weekly psychotherapy..

DSM-IV Definition

Avoidant Personality Disorder is characterized by marked social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and extremely sensitive to criticism. Individuals wish to but are fearful of any involvement with others. They are terrified by the thought of being embarrassed in front of others. They avoid situations that give them social discomfort, this in many cases leads to social withdrawal.
Individuals with this Cluster C Personality Disorder are socially inhibited, usually feel inadequate and are overly sensitive to criticism.

Diagnostic criteria for 301.82 Avoidant Personality Disorder (cautionary statement) A pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection
is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked
shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed
is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations
is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy
views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others
is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing

Echoed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth Edition. Copyright 1994 American Psychiatric Association

Symptoms

Avoidant personality disorder has three major characteristics:

Social inhibition
People with this disorder may avoid social settings while at the same time desiring social relationships. Even when able to form relationships, they are clingy and fearful the relationship will end. These people usually become introverts because social situations are so uncomfortable. Because of their social inhibition, they will avoid occupations that involve significant contact with others.
Feelings of inadequacy
Individuals with avoidant personality disorder view themselves as socially undesirable. They desperately want to be liked but their low self-esteem, oversensitivity, and fear of rejection keeps them from being involved in social relationships until it is clear that they will be accepted.
Oversensitive to negative evaluation
Because people with this disorder fear embarrassing themselves in social situations, they may avoid occupational activities because they fear criticism, disapproval, or rejection. Those with avoidant personality disorder have a basic mistrust for others and believe that others are always watching and being critical of them.

Less than 1% of the general population has this disorder.