Hi Just found out I have AvPD

Izzie

Active member
Hi everyone. I've just joined after finding out my diagnosis. I had to get a form from my therapist to help get money from my insurance and I found out from that. I could have asked my therapist if he had a diagnosis but never wanted to ask. It was interesting reading about this personality disorder and finding this forum and reading the comments, it was nice to read other people thinking the same way as me.

I'm sorry to post long and ask questions when I've only just joined. I hope this is ok.

The thing is I have a lovely therapist. He is patient and kind and spends a lot of time reassuring me that I can trust him. I feel I can, well in my way, and have opened up about a lot but only on e-mail and he says although it's a great step I have to talk to him too. The thing is I have just felt a slip backwards, I can see no reason why I should be the way I am and hate myself even more for being this way. He says I'm doing this as a cover because I'm scared of opening old wounds he explains why it makes sense what he's saying and it does but I still feel the same and I don't have any old wounds that I can recall anyway. So not for the first time he says he can't help me if I sit there without talking to him. I tell him I don't know what to say (I truly don't) he says I do somewhere and I have to trust him to say it. But I really can't find anything and it's so frustrating.
I want to ask if anyone else has had this because I feel desperate right now. I'm hoping to hear some experiences where you have overcome this to give me some hope to keep trying because right now I'm thinking of cancelling my next appointment as I cannot see the point. My therapy consists a good part with him reassuring me, then explaining it's ok for me to be like this with questions in between eg. 'how do you feel about that?' or 'what are you thinking about what I've just said?' and me mostly answering by saying 'I don't know'. And in all honesty I'm not being awkward, I just really don't know! I so badly want it to be different so he can help me because right now I feel in a bad place.
 

jellzzz

Well-known member
the first thing I want to say to you is, welcome to the forum! I hope it will bring you a feeling of securety.

When i found out i had AvPD, i felt like i finally had a way to let the world know that i was not okay. It was like someone gave me this discription of myself that was completly right, and it said everything that i always wanted to say, without knowing how.

I always felt like there was something wrong with me. i wanted to let people into my live, i wanted to show my emotions, i wanted to cry for help, but i couldent. i just didn't know how.

when i went to a terapist, it went great at first. But in the end, i could never really have deep and meaningfull conversations, because i didn't really know how to. When he asked me how i felt about something, my head was blank and i really had no idea. It kinda feels like i don't even understand my own emotions, and that makes it even harder to expres them.

i don't really know how to help you, because i am still struggeling with this myself. But i do think you should keep seeing your terapist, even if you feel desperate right now. Mabye you just need a little more time to get used to this.
 

Izzie

Active member
Thanks for your reply. It really does help to give some meaning to how I've been feeling and to know it's not just me. That's how I feel blank or sometimes I think of something then I start worrying about what it is I want to say and lose my thoughts altogether.
 

jellzzz

Well-known member
i know what you mean. Sometimes, i suddenly know what to say, but for some reason it always gets lost in my head again. It is hard to discribe what really happens, but in the end, the result is that you are left without any words.

It always gives me the feeling that im trapped inside my own head, or something like that.

It is indeed really nice to talk to people who have the same problem, it is so much easier for some reason (or that is how i experience it).
 

April72

Well-known member
Welcome to the forum Izzie. I hope you will feel comfortable with us.
I also joined to Avoidant forums when I was diagnosed with the disorder. For me it was a release to know what I was.

Regarding what you mentioned about not knowing why you are an avoidant, I neither know why I am like this. My therapists didn't find a reason either.
I don't think all the avoidants had a trauma or something that happend to them and can explain the development of the disorder.

I think genétic reasons play a great role. There are people who are too much sensitive to deal with a cold world like this. Perhaps, I'm wrong but this is how I see my case.
I had a distant father who has serious problems of self-steem and depression but my brother and my sister also had to deal with him and they are normal people.

So, I don't know if your therapist is going in the good path. You are the best to know it. Many times it's better to focuss on the present and change the way we interact with our surroundings than looking for a cause in the past.
Well, this is only my opinion.
 

Izzie

Active member
Thanks for the reply. That's really good for me to hear. I have always felt guilty for feeling depressed because I felt I should be happy in my life - it made me feel ungrateful. A lot of things I have read on online forums are from people who have had some terrible things happen to them. I guess with this diagnosis though it's not as straight cut and maybe it is also that what has made me feel that way as I am so critical of myself.

I think my therapist is following this route because of some stuff I have going on that I've just told him about and because of some problems I had with my Dad. I have some memories of things that weren't so good regarding him but I'm pretty much a blank about the time I spent with him. I suspect I simply tuned out to him due to his selfishness!

I think it's very possible that he had some kind of personality disorder so you could be right about the genetic thing.
 

williamreinsch

Well-known member
I hope you keep going to your therapist, If you stop going you may have given up on a huge opportunity to understand yourself and what's wrong. Maybe try hard to think of events from school or something like that which may have triggered this. It took me a while to figure it out and I ended up having many events that made me avoid more and more. When you find them out it doesn't seem like a huge surprise and seem definite that this is what caused it. You just find events that hurt you and look at them logically. Was there evidence that I was effected after? You might then realize through more research that hang on.. this is what lead me to not do anything about this bully a month after... and this is what must of lead me to being so scared of doing that presentation after that. It kind of keeps unraveling like that. Well it did for me.

I really hope you keep it up, what harm can it do u, even if in the end it doesn't work have u really lost out on anything as a result? (unless you are paying for therapy) and if and when it does work you will be so happy u pushed through and kept going.

I didn't open up for a while but when I did it helped so much even just to offload everything each week and understand it logically. It's been about 2 years now since I had a therapist and damn do I miss it. I've had to work all this stuff out on my own since then and it can be really nerving knowing I might not be approaching it in the right way.
 
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