avoident personality disorder and facebook/myspace

Rise Against

Well-known member
I have APD and find facebook extremely stressful. I have to work up a massive amount of courage just to add somebody as a friend that i dont know very well... Starting a conversation with anyone other than a close friend is nearly impossible. I guess the only reason i log on to my facebook is to see if anyone has commented on my wall or something... Anyone else afraid of facebook/myspace?
 

FOR REAL

Banned
aye, sometimes i deactivate my facebook account when im feeling anxious.

what happens is that all the info on your profile is still there but no one can see it until you activate your account again
 

lyricalliaisons

Well-known member
I'm more afraid of MySpace than Facebook. I get scared when people send me friend requests & I usually end up ignoring them on facebook or declining them on myspace if I don't know them. Just about everyone on my facebook are people I know from various SA sites, or mutual friends. On Myspace, a lot of the people on my list are from the social anxiety club & the rest are some of the same people I know from facebook, just about. Most of them don't talk to me often, but I get scared when most of them that do. The only ones I feel comfortable talking with are the few I've talked to on a semi-regular basis, but I still get scared every time I see I've been sent a message on fb or ms or a comment on ms. I always get scared because a lot of times, I don't know how to reply, depending on who it is. Sometimes I don't reply at all & then feel bad. But I usually just procrastinate for a long time before finally doing it, but I'm the same way when someone messages me on this site.
 

dooby-duck

Well-known member
I've never used either of them. I think I'd find it caused too much anxiety to keep up with it all. I'd probably have no one to add on there anyway. I find it dificult to communicate with people and would probably end up ignoring them. Also the ones who brag about their lives and successes would make me feeleven more out of society than I already do.
 

Emily_G

Well-known member
I love facebook. I can talk to people and not stutter....although I think it's bad for me, I use it as a crutch.
 

Pink_Paula

Well-known member
When i first started using Facebook it terrified me, loads of people from my past were adding me and i didn't have a clue what to say to them, but now i actually enjoy it on there i get to talk to people everyday and i've even rekindled some old friendships that i thought were lost forever because of my SA.
 
normally I just read other peoples posts because I can't think of anything I consider interesting about myself. I've made it a goal however to be more active on these social sites for practice in the real world. Hopefully it works.
 

Chlo

Banned
i do have facebook but i only accept people i plan on speaking too.
at one point i had about 400 contacts then i decided to have a revamp so i cleared out and was left with about 30.
facebook is a platform for nosey people, thats why i only add people i want to know i dont just have friends on there for the sake of it anymore.
 

coyote

Well-known member
I thought Facebook was kinda cool at first. But then suddenly I'm "friends' with a whole bunch of people i went to high school with who never were my friends - and I get messages about every stinkin' thing they're doing each day. Meanwhile, I either feel like I don't have anything interesting to share, or I don't feel like taking the time to think up something interesting to share or spend the time to word it perfectly, etc...so, I never end up posting anything.

I created a Facebook page for work, though, and am using it all the time to promote our business. I can be creative and have a lot of fun with that - mainly because it's not about ME.
 
I still don't have facebook. My sisters bug me about it sometimes... and my brother and his friend recently made a joke that what I'd want is a site called called "anything but the face" book. :rolleyes:
 

EscapeArtist

Well-known member
i keep deactivating my account because i'm not happy with how people see me on it. Pictures and stuff, drives me insane sometimes. Then I realise I have a partially successful group I created and I don't want to leave it behind =/ dun worry, not just you who fears that darn website.
 

SickCycleCarousel

Well-known member
I have that problem with Myspace. I was curious one night and joined and looked up my old friends and added them. Now I can't bring myself to write them or talk to them. I feel so awkward because I haven't talked to them in over ten years. My oldest friend recently deleted her Myspace and I feel so bad for not getting her email address first, but even if I had it I'm not sure if I would write her. It's so hard to talk to people I haven't spoken to in years, it's like, if I haven't talked to them after a certain amount of time I feel like I have to get to know them all over again. Bleh.

It's especially hard because they all have boyfriends/husbands and children and I feel like my life is pathetic because I still live at home and have zero life & love life.
 

Eam

Well-known member
I've never used either of them. I think I'd find it caused too much anxiety to keep up with it all.

Also the ones who brag about their lives and successes would make me feeleven more out of society than I already do.

Same here.

I've just utterly avoided MySpace and Facebook completely. That includes looking up on people I used to know. I prefer to live by ignorance is bliss when it comes to these.

I can imagine I used to be insulted and talked about negatively a lot on them.
 

lithiumflower

Well-known member
It's especially hard because they all have boyfriends/husbands and children and I feel like my life is pathetic because I still live at home and have zero life & love life.

This is exactly how I feel and my situation with Facebook word for word. And it gets kind of depressing because people are always uploading pictures of them or of their friends, updating their status from this place, and attending this function. My high school class of 2000 even started having people sign up for the ten year reunion this year (I'm avoiding that like the plague).

I always feel like my updates are stupid or pointless because they aren't about family, friends, where I'm going, etc. etc. I also feel embarrassed that people can see that I'm not doing anything.
 

NinjaLikesToast

Well-known member
i do have facebook but i only accept people i plan on speaking too.
at one point i had about 400 contacts then i decided to have a revamp so i cleared out and was left with about 30.
facebook is a platform for nosey people, thats why i only add people i want to know i dont just have friends on there for the sake of it anymore.

I second that! So many nosey people on the site, but I also think it's crazy when people post EVERY single thing they are up to almost by the minute haha. I really don't need to know that you went to make a cheese sandwich and stepped in something wet.. lol ;)
 

awkwardamanda

Well-known member
So far I haven't joined any social networking sites. I think Facebook is a good idea for the sake of keeping in touch with people, especially when you aren't particularly close, but don't want to lose all contact either. But it just carries around so much baggage. I hate that people have to post picture after picture of the same damn thing and let the world know about every boring and mundane event in their life. The applications are ridiculous. I've considered joining but if I do I'd like to keep my profile nearly blank and very private. I'd probably just use it keep in touch with a few old friends a bit, or maybe to just lurk around for random amusement. But I doubt I'd post anymore pictures than just a profile pic and I wouldn't list too many details about myself either. I'm just a very private sort of person. I don't feel compelled to announce every detail of my life or list every favourite food, movie, tv show, colour and song I have. It's not that those types of things are big secrets. They're just not important. I feel like people know whatever they know and if they want to know more they'll have to find out the old fashioned way. Even the fact that friends could see my whole friend list kinda bothers me. Unless there's a way to keep it invisible, but I wouldn't know. Maybe I'd just feel like a loser for not having many friends. I'd like the freedom to join groups if I want but keep them hidden from friends, unless its a friend who's also a group member. I dunno, maybe there's a way, but again, I wouldn't know. I kinda worry about how I'd respond if acquaintances start trying to send friend requests. I wouldn't care to add people I barely know. I'd probably just feel like I'm being rude for ignoring people I don't care to talk to but I shouldn't. I don't think I'd get too many random requests anyway.
 

bigrob

Well-known member
So far I haven't joined any social networking sites.

Me either.

I have no real need to. I have my family close and only one real friend that calls me about once a week to see what's going on.

I'm a very private person and the less people know about me and my life the better I feel.
 

boosh

Well-known member
I am terrified of facebook, I never update it to make it seem to people that i don't really use it. I've distanced myself a lot over the past few years and I even avoid using MSN now because I'm scared to talk to some people that I haven't talked to in a long time which has made things worse because I've left it even longer to get back in touch. I'm stuck in a rut :/
 
I was terrified to add a picture on facebook, but that changed by time.
I'm still terified to write 'what's on your mind'.
 

overcome.

Well-known member
Q: If you were to deactivate your facebook account, could you still browse on there? Also, if you were to re-activate, it'd just return to normal? Nothing deleted, no friends lists, posts, pictures, info, etc? Interesting.

I did wonder why my friend count fluctuated in the past.

I can strongly agree when you see peoples new albums of different things they've been doing, when you're the one that's missing out on these events, parties, functions. When you're the one already thinking of excuses or slightly plausable reasons for missing these upcoming gatherings that are believable.

I haven't updated my status for months, literally. I don't think that I have since January. I really prefer to be low key right now, and I prefer peace and quiet from everything.
 
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