for reference this is my first time posting after lurking for months and feeling too, well, avoidant to post anything. i also haven't posted on reddit in years anyways, so i'm nervous.

for reference, i'm (20F) not diagnosed yet, but i feel like my inferiority complex has always been my biggest problem, and i remember before i discovered avpd i would quite literally use the word "inferior" to describe how i feel about myself in my head. i'd google things like "shame based identity" without even knowing that my biggest fears are practically the core of this disorder. my entire life and mental processes revolve around avoiding and trying to prevent even the most mundane and inconsequential things that can make me feel embarrassed or ashamed of myself, aka exposing or showing who i really am, which is a weird, toxic, anxious, gross, and embarrassing subhuman mess, as well as being insanely, excruciatingly afraid of being made fun of or disliked by other people. :( everything clicked for me once i found out what avpd was, so i thought i'd come here and ask about something that really bothers me a lot concerning what's definitely the most serious symptom for me.

i actively avoid going on instagram reels and certain social media apps where people showcase their talents now because i see people who are talented in things i wish i could do even half as well and i feel so genuinely inferior to them. i really have no other word to describe this, i just feel like they are fundamentally better than me as human beings and i'm just lesser than with nothing to offer in comparison. i'm especially prone to this feeling with people who practice the same hobbies as me or ones that i've always wanted to be good at/have tried before and failed. it makes zero sense to feel like they're superior beings in all aspects just because they can draw or something, but the feeling is so awful and potent and i can't stand it, i get so down on myself because i know i'll never be that talented and achieve that level of respect and praise from others. sometimes i even get feelings of being resentful toward them just for being better than me. and i understand reasonably that skills take time to develop, and that everyone starts off where i am, but it doesn't even register in my head when these feelings arise. i just go in and start blocking hashtags + users who bring about this feeling and even avoiding the apps entirely because it's just a hub of people who are cooler and better than me. i'm a writer, and even when i DO feel like oh, maybe my work isn't so bad, i see other people who write in such amazing ways, and think of things i could never think of in my stupid brain, i want to just quit it altogether and run away because who am i kidding, i could never hold a candle to anyone else and i shouldn't show my work to anyone because it's so shitty and tryhard compared to other people's. this also means that when i feel confident enough to post a work online, i literally always end up deleting it soon after out of pure embarrassment, even if i receive kind comments.

this doesn't even only apply to talented people, i can feel inferior to people who are literally showing off zero talent, especially in fanbases that i'm in. i'm a kpop stan, which already sets up some unrealistic standards anyways, so if someone has more merchandise than me or if they've been to more concerts or if they're prettier, i feel like i'm a bad and fake fan and they're the ones who deserve those opportunities, not me. i know that the only qualification for being a "real" or "good" fan is enjoying the thing you like, that's it, but it really doesn't compute in my head; i just AM not a real fan because i don't have those opportunities, or because i'm not pretty, or because i don't live anywhere near where things like fancafes or concerts occur at, or because i don't have many albums or i can only afford knockoff merch, and everyone who does is just superior to me as humans. so i drag it out to the big picture, deciding that they're just inherently more worthy and better people than i am and that's why they have these things and i don't, because the rule of reality is that i'm lowly and stupid and not capable of being good enough for anything.

like i said, first time posting, not diagnosed, and i'm really terrified honestly so i might delete, but before i do, i thought i'd try asking if this is something other people like me experience. ><

okay bear with me, strange question and i dont really know how to word it. for those of you whose avpd includes disliking your physical features, mainly your actual face:

when you look in the mirror, do you notice that you hate what you see because** you genuinely dont like it or do you hate what you see because of the fact ***its what people see?*

over the past few months ive had few moments where i see myself and i get this feeling of like “oh i actually look pretty, i wish it counted (?)” please tell me someone else understands what i mean. like i can ONLY be or feel “pretty” in my own mirror in my own home, alone. magically teleport me in the same moment to somewhere public etc, my confidence would dissapear.

like on some level, i am capable of using enough logic to determine i am not as ugly and unattractive as my brain convinces me i am. what i truly feel like i hate, and what im trying to see if anyone else relates to, is hating myself merely because of the fact its what people see. like “this is me. and im sorry for being me and having this face.” like my own face annoys me because i think about people being annoyed with me or not liking me and so they might find my face annoying - its things like that that make me not like my face. not my actual face itself (although, that too lol. but ive learned how to atleast not entirely despise it.)

I remember how excited I was when a psychologist first diagnosed me. It fit perfectly, everything was spot on. The DSM described me to a tee. It's funny how little time it took to give way to reality.

"There is no cure. You'll always have avoidance. It can be mitigated, but you cannot cure personality disorders." That's what every psychologist and psychiatrist I've seen since has told me, to a person. This is how I'll always be. The best I can hope for is fighting against avoidance every single day of my life, if I stay alive. What a fucking joke.

If I change, will people be able to see that? Why do I even care so much about what others think

everything in my super fucked up "family" is falling apart and it's really making me realize that there is NOTHING WRONG WITH ME. it's SO OBVIOUSLY my parents. i don't know how i didn't see it before. i somehow convinced myself i was a slightly spoiled and self-centred upper middle class kid who had gone through few hardships. HELL NO. i have been the victim of SEVERE PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUSE by both of my parents this entire time, and i'm pretty confident i'll return to who i really am once i'm out of this and have a chance to recover: a funny, charming, extroverted guy with real social skill.

i have been the mediator for hours-long, Ultimate Stakes fights between my parents since i was, like, FIVE. i vividly remember trying to convince my mom that life was worth living in a parking lot around age 10. my unempathetic, irresponsible, sexist, and rude father would provoke my mentally unstable, emotionally manipulative, and self-righteous mother into weeks-long fighting. that fighting would cause my mom to get extremely sick due to a very rare chronic illness that is not understood by doctors which causes strong emotions, whether positive or negative (but negative is worse) to have a direct and immediate effect on her health (severe nausea and vomiting, kidney stones, ulcers, failing kidneys, migraines, etc etc etc). she would blame this sickness on my father, cementing the idea in my head that one little social mistake can cause others extreme harm.

as i aged, i sympathized more and more with my "abuser" dad because my fucked-up empathy made him far more relatable to me, and because he didn't dump nearly as much toxic emotional shit on me. my mom and i started having agonizing fights. i began to slide simultaneously into the roles of abuser, protector, and caretaker of my mother.

the most socially damaging part of all of this was that i could never form a consistent personality. i had to constantly switch between "dad mode" and "mom mode", selectively supressing parts of my personality to keep the peace. around my dad, i could be relaxed and unfiltered, but rarely truly myself. being around him was relieving yet quite lonely. around my mom, i could be silly and vulnerable, but i had to walk on eggshells and keep my "narcissist side" in check. i began to believe in a deep way that there was something fundamentally immoral about me, and i would forever have to mask in order to function in society.

i do have a genuine empathy deficit and i have done many bad things (and not fulfilled many of my obligations) as a result of this. i will have to find out how much of my struggles are inherent to me and how much is the result of trauma... AWAY FROM THEM AND AWAY FROM THIS. the time is coming soon when i will be forced to become much more independent, and although i have plenty of fears about that, i am also partly excited.

Since past few mornings I have been bettering my routine, with meditation, yoga and gym and it honestly helps a lot to feel energized and happy, and ready to start the day.

But then the day progresses, I meet people, same insecurities cloud me, like people think I’m weird, or I have lost al connections.

I feel so angry at myself that I can’t just snap out of this and not living the life I want to be living.

Has anyone had any progress through therapy or other solutions? I really need to get rid of this disorder or at least control it so I can have a better life.

Around 2 months ago, I found out I was on probation when I went to check my grades. I kinda saw this one coming given that last semester I was doing so bad due to my avpd. I could not do my assignments at all and even attend class. Now, I’m facing the consequences of my actions and still haven’t found the guts to send in my appeal. It’s already enrollment season and I know I can’t keep putting it off or else I might not be able to actually enroll if I dont do it. To those who have been in probation before, what exactly do I put in my appeal? Is it worth mentioning how serious my mental health is affecting me?

This is something that is definitely very difficult, almost seemingly impossible for me to do. There are certain things my roommate does that I absolutely hate and I wanna call him out for it on the spot. It takes so much effort to simply tell him basic shit that needs to be and shouldn't even half to be said. IE washing your hands after using the bathroom, not leaving hairs in the sink after you shave, not leaving dirty mop water in the mop bucket. The list goes on and some times I just wanna bitch slap tf out of him because why are you being and inconsiderate dirt bag? The fuck!

Also like when my brother in law is joking around he likes to use the term "pussy" which I know can definitely apply to me, but that doesn't mean it don't piss me off and I wanna tell him do use that word around me but ironically it's because I'm that word I don't say anything. I just laugh like a fucking goof ball and act like everything is okay. It's beyond fucking frustrating learning how to speak up for yourself even when it's 110% nessesary! I'm a very fair person and my voice only needs to be spoken when absolutely nessesary, but unfortunately it barley or never is and I just suffer in silence.

this is going to sound so stupid so just bear with me.

i think everything i do is embarrassing, which isn’t very uncommon. but it has gotten to such an extreme point that now i am physically blocked from writing anything serious or doing anything serious out of fear of being wrong and/or cringe. i used to be able to write, i loved english class and writing essays. slowly, i became unable to bear looking at anything i create and i’ve lost most of my writing skills.

i really should’ve failed sophomore year english—my teacher was way too kind to me. when we would read books, i’d answer all the questions and write the paragraph about whatever prompt they gave me after reading a chapter or two. when my teacher walked by, i’d erase the entire thing in front of him. why? at the time i honestly had no clue.

i took photography in freshman year and really loved it, so i took AP photography in sophomore year. i couldn’t do much there. even though my teacher always praised me and i won a photography competition at the beginning of the year, i began to hate every photo i took. i went from an A+ student in that class to an F at some point because i would’ve rather had a finger cut off than have to look at one of my photos ever again.

the only thing i enjoyed was world history. the assignments we did there were usually questions from our textbook or questions while we were watching a movie. i believe this is because those questions often didn’t require my own opinion. there was a clear right and wrong answer so i didn’t really have to wonder how my writing compared to others or how cringe it looked since you were either right or wrong and thats it.

after that year i transferred to a continuation school because i was so behind on credits. at first it seemed really great, but then i realized all of this had only gotten worse. not a singular english assignment was ever turned in from me besides the first ones in august. all the things we have to write about at this school are always something about yourself or your goals or about your opinion on something we read. instead of writing it and then erasing it, i couldn’t bear to write it at all. the sight of my own handwriting makes me sick to my stomach. writing two words of my opinion or anything about myself in that setting makes me want to rip my hair out.

everything i used to love i can’t do anymore. photography used to be the only thing that made me happy, can’t do that. history used to be my favorite subject, can’t do that. i used to play piano for a few years, can’t do that anymore either since hearing myself fail as i learn a new song is too embarrassing.

i got addicted to daydreaming in september as a way to ignore the fact that i won’t be going anywhere any time soon. instead of doing english assignments i built an entire packet based off of the story i created in my head, but, again, i’d rather have a finger cut off than show anyone.

the worst part is that this grew to affect every single part of my life. i got friends for the first time in 1.5 years that same september and refused to hang out with them every time they begged me to out of fear of embarrassing myself by doing or saying something wrong. i left them by march since there was no use having friends since every time i talked to them and said something wrong i’d cry over it for the rest of the month. i regret allowing myself to have friends again every single day since then.

i’m going to be a senior in a few weeks. i’m pretty sure i won’t be able to get a single credit since my fear has not stopped growing. i’ll never be able to get a job because even speaking is too scary. i’ll never be able to get a drivers license because doing something wrong in front of another person is too scary. so scary it sends electric shocks up my palms and fingers that hurt really bad and make me cry. i can’t even leave the house most of the time. there is genuinely no hope for me

I've never had a friend. My childhood was so lonely. And now I am a grown woman with STILL 0 friends. I never imagined being in this situation for so long!!

I actually managed to get a job, my first job ever, 6 months ago. So excited but nervous thinking maybe I could finally practice socializing. I am IGNORED every shift. I try small talk but it's awkward and falls flat. I get donuts for all my coworkers and still no one wants to interact with me. I don't understand. I am putting myself out there and taking the risk and doing everything people tell you to do to make friends and it still doesn't work. and i'm wrong to believe there's something deeply wrong with me?

I'm not quitting because i refuse to be housebound for years again but it is so exhausting and frustrating living like this. i wonder what a lifetime of social exclusion does to people. i'm sure everyone here has struggled with this so any advice id appreciate so much

Most here might not understand, but imagine having all of the shame that comes with AvPD, and on top of that being born as one of the most shameful things you can be in society in current year, with a family that reflected those values and made sure you internalized them yourself.

I think AvPD alone often leads to a lifetime of suppressing and hiding oneself.

I'm trans, specifically, and it took me forever to even realize I had dysphoria because suppressing myself came so naturally to me and my avoidance often makes me blind to my own motivations and feelings.

So I finally decide I want to actually live and be myself instead of a mask before I die, and the path to transition and be my natural self is one so impossible and full of shame that it's comical. I've gone my whole life only wanting to look normal, bland, unnoticed, overlooked, hidden, left alone.

Transitioning goes against all of those things. I doubt I'll even be able to bring myself to fully socially transition unless I reach some high threshold of passing and appear relatively normal, which is pretty unlikely. Even if I did somehow reach that point, being trans would still be a shameful secret I have to guard and be anxious about at all times.

It's the only path forward though, so I'm 2 years on HRT, and it is at least benefiting my mental health a ton now that my brain's getting the right hormones and my body is looking a little more like it should.

Even in trans communities, most don't fully relate to my extreme level of avoidance/shame. So I wonder if there's anyone here who gets it?

For those that feel like they were able to overcome their intense fear rejection and social anxiety.
Growing back I’ve always had people I considered to my friends but I now I’m starting to realize that I’ve never actually had a real friend or a long lasting friendship. I feel like I’ve always been a very avoidant and insecure person I just wasn’t very self aware and always victimized myself and felt like everyone was treating me like for no reason. And it’s the reason why I never hesitated to start new friendships. But the more self I am the more shy I become and feel like I shouldn’t be myself w people. Idk

Social Anxiety or shyness , maybe low self estem have ruined my life especially in college

I found that all of college students are socially active and doesn’t have social anxiety, this makes me feel more worried and make me hate myself more

It can’t be real that im only guy who suffers from anxiety and fear

I know im alone at this when all my group students do their presentations except me

I would lose that little bit of trust as well when i see im the only one who skips presentations or not answering or asking questions

How can i build my confidence while there is no material to do it , I can’t talk nor communicate, my sound is horrible and my voice is slow with fear

Im probably bad at everything

There is nothing that makes it better
i worry alot and have fear of everything

im so tired of dealing with this.. ive just realized that all my life revolved around anxiety and my fear of rejection, and i that it affected every parts of my life. it made me develop a personality i hate, made me unable to make friends and also push away every single person of my life. i cant even talk to my family without feeling anxious. the momdnt i start interacting with someone, i get this urge tk run away out of fear of messing it up.

i want to believe its all in my head and im not inherently flawed but i did get rejected and have messed up relationships entirely in the past multiple times..

i dont know how to fix this and whether theres a way out. i jusy want to be normal and not deal with this anymore

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Not sure why, but any time I get closer to someone I have the urge to push them away. Many reasons why I do this. One, sometimes I just feel like such a burden when people tell me I'm not. And the other, is when everything is going great I cut ties, because I'm convinced that things are going to go bad, so I prevent it.

This has been going on my entire life. A never ending cycle of meeting friends, getting close, pushing them away, being alone, finding new friends, and repeating all over again.

When I do choose to leave, I'm usually not very articulate when doing so. Typically say, "I think it's best for us to go our separate ways." Once I even mention something, there's already nothing left for me to discuss. Some have tried to persuade me to stay and I always turn them down.

This goes for all types of friendships as well as relationships. I most of the time end it after i get really close, or even at small disputes. I feel so good, so liberated, so relief after a break for a while...but the guilt and the loneliness return to me, almost immediately. Sometimes I even do this to people that have treated me incredibly well, I don't get it, really.

I feel that I have a deep-seeded fear of being left and that's why i do it to them, and i know they're going to leave me sooner or later, I don't even understand myself how do i expect anyone else to?I just want to know if anyone else does that.

AFAIK, that was the main message of the European Enlightenment.

Why are people supposed to do this? Why can't people make their own decisions about what to believe?

I think at this point in my life I can say with confidence that I hate myself. I can't really name why and for this post it is unimportant. But I also now hate when people make any attempt to get close to me romantically. Just the other week I was thanking myself in my head that I am on the less good looking side of the friend group I am in because it would make me feel horrible to be hit on the way some of my friends do. This past weekend, a girl made a comment to me in a restaurant in front of people and I just found it to be humiliating. So bad that I wanted to go home, I just felt so ashamed. I hate being put on the spot like that. After my one relationship I've ever had led to me being cheated on and humiliated, I just have this hatred that boils up for anyone who even looks at me in a semi-romantic way.

I am trying to get into my sketching hobby and I was wondering if anyone here, also an artist could get together on discord and draw together?

We don’t have to speak much if it’s not preferred but we pick a certain amount of time and after we share out art pieces, and maybe talk about it after!

Just baby steps into socializing.

If anyone is interested please dm me!

I am an emotionally neglectful parent and partner. I think my wife puts up with me because she grew up abused and never experienced being loved.

I don't feel accepted because my wife often criticizes my behavior and decisions. I believe the criticism is completely valid yet a part of me feels mistreated and resentful. I act emotionally withdrawn and cold.

I used to believe that being unhappy in a relationship is better than being alone, especially if I don't feel abused and my partner wants to be with me but I don't think that anymore.

I constantly feel numb and disaccociated. I regret my existence every day and cannot wait for my life to be over.

Don't be like me.

whenever people talk about their problems and mine are significantly worse, it reinforces my belief that i'm so far gone and nothing can pull me out of this. and my immediate thought is that i should end it all and i'm wasting my time being alive and suffering

that's my immediate thought to everything that distresses me, that i should just die. i also want to scream and destroy things but i can't. it's not something i'm deciding not to do, i literally can't. i don't know how to yell, i don't know how to express anger that isn't directed towards myself. i've spent my entire life suppressing my emotions because my emotions are humiliating. the few times i actually openly expressed anger in my entire life lead to people laughing at me and thinking i'm stupid, and now i don't know how anymore

i don't know how to healthily cope with any of my emotions. i don't know how to be a normal human. i should just die

I've always hid my screens when around anyone irl, tabbing out of things, waiting until they leave, etc. I never liked talking on the phone when anyone could hear me, or listening to music, or doing anything they could hear/observe. As a whole I've always hid my entire self when around someone irl, and tried to present a blank mask.

There's never been anyone in my life that I didn't do this around.

Now I've been in this relationship for a bit over a year, and obviously my avoidance/disorganized attachment style is hurting her quite a bit. She knows why I'm like this, and I've been trying to work on it, but she's told me how much anxiety it's been giving her all these months, and that it's eroding trust down to nothing.

Constantly hiding everything looks really bad. I'm happy to show her whatever it is if she points something out, and there's nothing she doesn't actually know about at this point, my chats with friends, everything I do, but it's the act of hiding itself that's damaging. And since everything I've hid that she knows about is mundane shit, it makes her really anxious.

I do it compulsively, not even consciously knowing why most of the time. I'll just feel vaguely uncomfortable and my brain will tell me to switch to another window and I'll do it for example. There's conscious effort involved with the things she's pointed out, like when she would walk in and I'd immediately switch tabs and it was obvious from the screen light on my face changing drastically. I've forced myself to stop doing that, but I guess it just shifted the behaviors to be more subtle because she keeps pointing things out I wasn't even aware of. Like now I apparently wait until she's left the room to switch out of discord on my second monitor.

Another example, my phone likes to fall out of my pocket. It fell into the crevice of the couch one day and that ended up feeling like the perfect, safe spot for it when we'd watch movies. So I started putting it there before it fell out if i remembered. One night she asks me why my phone's there, and I answered mindlessly like 'Oh, it fell out'. She had just watched me put it there, and I just hadn't really consciously register doing it that time, but it made me look like a liar. And that location was part of a whole set of phone guarding behaviors I'm trying to fix.

Apparently in the middle of the night while I'm asleep (I've never remembered doing this), if she makes a sound that wakes me briefly, I'll shoot up and reach over to tap my phone as if making sure it's still there or something.

It makes me feel really bad and guilty, like I should have already known I was too broken to be in a relationship. I did know, but I was lonely so I pursued one anyway. I kinda just hoped I was ready to work on it and it'd be better this time, but how am I supposed to change such a fundamental aspect of my personality in any kind of reasonable timeframe?

Not diagnosed btw, but I'm clearly broken in an extreme way that seems similar to AvPD to me. Before this relationship I'd given up and went through a very bad 5-year arc of living as a hermit in a shack in the desert in extreme poverty, avoiding people as much as possible.

The last few months I seem to be vacillating between a couple weeks of being emotionally dead and accepting that my life is over and breaking down crying wondering why this is how the one chance at life I have has ended up. The last couple weeks it's been nightly, hours of deep sobbing at this being who I am, the life irrevocably ruined, and the desire for it all to just stop.

Two weeks ago I came to the realization that a pattern of fearful avoidance, that had been a major problem earlier in my life, has reemerged between me and my wife. I had a plan to talk to her about what has been happening to me, and I was doing a bit of online research to get a better idea of how to explain things.

I googled the word “avoidant” because it sounded right, but I wasn’t really sure about the usage. I had heard it used for attachment before, but this time I found an entry about AvPD. For some reason I had never heard of this disorder before, despite lifelong struggles with mental health that have often led me to study the subject.

At this point, clearly, I am undiagnosed. What I have read about the disorder sounds like my biography, though. Knowing that this could be me doesn’t seem to change much about my reality, but in a way I feel “seen” like I haven’t before. I do also feel a bit of frustration that this has never come up in therapy over the years. I plan to talk to a therapist about this, but right now I don’t know how this would change my treatment.

I don’t know enough, yet, to know what to ask, but I will take any advice or words of encouragement that anyone has to offer. Thanks for reading.