This is great insight. I think its often the case that people avoid a lot of things when they feel they are not prepared to face a situation. Have a sense of how to cope, and more ways to approach the situation really helps, and it isn't so easy to see what you could be doing differently when you are all alone or have little support. I'm guessing based on what you wrote that you were able to get professional help for this, and that is excellent.

@@kathrynturnbull990 that is correct. I was diagnosed with MDD and SAD but mentioning that I thought I was avoidant did provide more of a context and a more targeted treatment.

The one caution that I would give is that the self-diagnosis of personality disorders is an extremely imprecise act. As I discuss in the following video, even very experienced clinicians can’t really manage it. Self-Diagnosing Personality Disorders kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rLdxhrmi2N-admw.html

@@RandyPaterson I completely agree. That’s what I was trying to get at. While in my case it was a helpful information in the actual diagnosis it is a really bad idea for people to diagnose themselves as a substitute for professional help. Unfortunately here in the US a lot of people get left behind.

Reading about the symptoms of a mental disorder may indeed help a person see that their challenges are not unique, but common to many others, may indeed encourage them to seek assistance. But the validity of self-diagnosis is likely to be very low - people just can't do it very well. For more on this topic, you might consider this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rLdxhrmi2N-admw.html The behavioral patterns seen in AvPD (which form the basis of most of the diagnostic criteria) indeed do not say anything about cause. This was a conscious decision for the DSM teams - to focus on presentation, not etiology. As a result, diagnosis does not tell us much about why a person behaves this way. Usually the answers for 100 people sharing a diagnosis are quite varied. Unlike some of the personality disorders, AvPD is quite strongly tied, in its diagnosis, to maladaptive behavior patterns. Investigating the origins of these behaviors can be very useful in therapy, though ultimately the core of treatment is likely to be a graduated effort to work against the temptations the pattern imposes. What we do not want, in most cases, is to link the pattern with personal identity: "I AM avoidant PD." Doing so imposes a barrier to change: in order to exit the diagnostic category my very self needs to be extinguished and replaced by someone else. This is one of the problems with much diagnosis - it gets over-identified with the person and thus imposes a barrier to development.

@@RandyPaterson Yes, the DSM criteria are purely based on a superficial level of presentation but there are still great insights about what happens in the minds of mentally unwell people there and in some other textbooks. Unfortunately not that many when it comes to AvPD and some other PDs compared to the most "loud" ones. That's why I think working with (and on) what the DSM offers is the best option instead of the new dimensional approach to diagnosis or to simply avoid those labels. But anyways thank you for the reply, it actually helped me better understand your point of view and your video.

I agree with this. It isn't circular reasoning that drives avoidant pd, it's a set of inaccurate beliefs that causes them to expect rejection from others. The patient believes "I am inadequate, therefore others will reject me, therefore I should avoid others." That isn't circular at all it's just an innacurate assessment of themselves and others. Sure, we can form unhealthy habits around certain coping mechanisms like avoidance, but to say that we avoid simply because we avoided in the past is not accurate and it's not how this disorder is described in the literature.

@@finleyfield6912 From what I gathered this kind of thinking is proper of some schools of thought that place behaviors above other factors. Personally, as someone with AvPD, this approach helped me tremendously in the first year of struggle but on the long run I needed a different kind of therapy because, as I've said before, avoidance isn't per se the only qualifier to get diagnosed. Ultimately I don't think this kind of thinking (avoidance comes from avoidance) is "harmful" but is a point of view that can limit the therapy progress because it's highly reductive. At least in my case it would. Just my experience.