Avoidant Personality Disorder!

Avoidant Personality Disorder

The reclusive, distant, risk-aversive, and fearful of the personality disorders.

First a note;

In this age of diagnosing ourselves and others with a bit of knowledge gleaned off the internet, I want to start by talking about the severity of a personality disorder;

This is one of the Cluster B personality disorders and all of these are characterized by an enduring pattern that starts by early adulthood and continues. The person’s inner experience and outward behavior deviate markedly from that of the culture, and manifest in two or more of the following areas;

Cognition; ways of perceiving and interpreting yourself, other people, and events. This means that your perceptions are typically way off base and you and others are affected by this serious deviation from reality. You may tend to see things in very extreme terms, have stories about yourself, others and events that others tell you is “crazy”, and then you might even realize later, they were right and you were way off. You can notice this by checking in with others and finding that you’re off base a lot of the time.
Affectivity; the range, intensity, lability and appropriateness of your emotional response. This is about how your emotions swing wildly from one extreme to another with intensity and are often inappropriate to the situation at hand. Again, people might pull away and you get the impression they think you’re acting “crazy”.
Interpersonal functioning; this refers to how you handle relationships, and in a personality disorder, this is severely impaired; you often wonder how to relate to others in a way that is more appropriate and connective.
Impulse control; this typically means that what you feel, you act on without any filter or self-control.

In addition, the pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

The pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. In other words, you’re struggling in most areas of your life and when you step back and look at it, this pervasive pattern of personality characteristics is the root cause.

Avoidant Personality specifically refers to a

pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy and hypersensitivity to negative evaluation, as indicated by four or more of the following;

Avoids work activities that involve significant interpersonal contact because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection. Right off the bat we can see how this disorder would seriously impact your ability to succeed. If you’re continuously avoidant of job activities, opportunities or demands, and focused on your own fears of criticism, disapproval or rejection, your occupational life is going to be stunted. We all have anxieties and fears with work demands, but this disorder, by definition means that these fears are not just something you can push past and talk yourself through, but they are debilitating.
Is unwilling to get involved with people unless you’re certain of being liked. Again, we all have fears of meeting new people, but someone with Avoidant personality will be so fearful of not being liked, they will be unwilling to go to places they have to meet new people. You can see how this would seriously damage one’s social life and relationships.
Shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed. Even in relationship, this person is so fearful of shame or ridicule, they will be very withdrawn and unable to get closer, or to become intimate.
Is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations. Though we all have some level of fear of social situations, this personality disorder is so fearful their main preoccupation while in the company of others, is on this fear of criticism or rejection.
Is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy. Their feelings of inadequacy literally take up all of their brain space when in situations where interpersonal skills are required. This could be at a meeting at work or a work party or a social situation. They won’t be thinking about anything except their internal self-messages about their own inadequacy.
Views self as socially inept, personally unappealing or inferior to others. These are their internal messages. Sadly these are continually reinforced in social situations as it is a struggle to have a positive encounter with others when you’re internally fighting these messages. These experiences reinforce the desire to avoid, and the cycle deepens over time. Many of these folks are successful in their work if they can avoid interpersonal interactions; they have jobs where they are primarily isolated and are not expected to do a lot with others; but they will start to struggle when the company demands group projects, or staff meetings, or if they try to promote this person to a place of supervising others.
Is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing. This avoidance tends to reinforce the feeling they are not appealing as friends or partners. They feel they are boring or that others would think of them as uninteresting since they won’t do anything new that might put them at risk of failure or looking “stupid”.

If you feel you may have some or many qualities of Avoidant Personality, it’s best to have a therapist help you sort this through and give you consistent goals and challenges to help you address and push past these stuck places.

In addition you can help yourself with the following strategies;

Watch my video called; Calming the Chatter of the Internal Critic. This will help you learn how to change the internal self-talk that the person with Avoidant Personality most definitely struggles with.
As you push yourself to tell yourself healthier internal messages, become your own positive coach. Set goals, push past the fears, and keep encouraging yourself at each step.
Recognize that we all have some level of fear and anxiety and that avoiding actually makes it worse, not better. Keep pushing through in small steps so that you do not become any more isolated than you are.
Find your tribe; you have interests and abilities and rather than trying to push yourself into someone else’s idea of a social network, find your own. Look at different meet-ups and go to one that looks like your cup of tea. This is so much more likely to be successful than going to a bar when you don’t drink, or going to a club that does something you have no interest in.
Find balance; enjoy your time alone; support yourself in your solo time, and push into some social time. Recognize that balance and enjoying each in your own timing is key.
Keep coming back to the positive self-coaching in your head. This cannot be stressed enough; listen and change those messages over time and make sure you give yourself big high fives and happy dances in your head when you do even one thing differently.