Just Want To Add:

I’ll try and respond to this later, I do have Some Things! (but not enough time or spoons to spare, just now)

hey… do any of my fellow avpd-ers have advice on making yourself Do Things that you Really Need To Fucking Do (ie adult things like emails/phone calls) and, on that note, how to explain your avoidant tendencies to people esp authority figures so that you don’t sound like a lazy asshole

It ends or it doesn’t. That’s what you say. That’s how you get through it. The tunnel, the night, the pain, the love. It ends or it doesn’t. If the sun never comes up, you find a way to live without it. If they don’t come back, you sleep in the middle of the bed, learn how to make enough coffee for yourself alone. Adapt. Adjust. It ends or it doesn’t. It ends or it doesn’t. We do not perish.

Caitlyn Siehl (via wordsnquotes)

i went out to the cinema with my mum and my friend yesterday and i was pretty fine i didnt rlly struggle with it like i thought i would when a few hours before leaving i felt physically ill and extremely exhausted just because i knew it was coming. and now i feel like im spiraling im dissociated and i feel like im faking everything because how can i be mentally ill when i left the house for the first time in weeks and was fine? does it mean im faking?

Hello anon! No, that definitely doesn’t mean you’re faking.

I can think of a couple different things that might explain it.

Anticipatory anxiety

It sounds like your anxiety before the event was worse than it was during it.

Sometimes, the wait before a distressing thing can be much harder than actually going through it. That’s common, and it’s an okay way to feel. (In fact, for me personally, that’s the main way my anxiety presents itself.)

Modifying factors

Maybe you felt comfortable, because your mom and your friend were there.

Maybe you were enjoying the cinema so much, you didn’t feel distressed.

Maybe after all the anxiety beforehand, you were just too exhausted to freak out anymore.

Or maybe you were slightly dissociated – just enough to take the edge off and allow you to function semi-normally.

Symptoms can vary from day to day

The thing about our brains & minds is that they don’t really follow any rules. They just do whatever works best in the moment.

And what works best can vary a lot from day to day. Sometimes it’s easier (or harder) to cope, due to other factors. So your symptoms or issues can fluctuate, too.

That doesn’t mean “nothing’s wrong with you” – it doesn’t mean your mental illness is imaginary, or that it’s disappeared. And it doesn’t mean you’re faking.

It just means that on this day, for some reason that may or may not be obvious, you were able to handle that outing more easily than you expected.

That’s not a guarantee that you’ll always be able to do it so easily, and other people shouldn’t assume it is.

The best we can do is look at our patterns over time, try to understand what conditions are best for us – what we need in order to function best & be happy – and work on feeling okay giving that to ourselves.

Rebound dissociation

Earlier in my life, I’d dissociate under stress.

But in some situations, it was more protective to fawn and comply. So while I was there, I’d act super friendly, engaged and responsive, for hours at a time.

And as soon as I got out of the situation, I’d shut down and dissociate completely. I couldn’t move, talk, or think. Once my stress level was low enough to tolerate, I’d “come down” from the dissociation.

At first, I resisted the shutdown because it was terrifying and silent and awful. But when I stopped fighting it, I found myself recovering more quickly, because I wasn’t adding to the stress. So I started thinking of it as “resting” and “re-stabilizing.”

A similar thing still happens when I get overstimulated by light, noise, or other people’s emotions: I naturally withdraw into myself until I can regroup.

It’s possible you also experienced that during/after the cinema.

You might have been overwhelmed by sensory stuff from being in public, other people’s feelings and reactions, or your own feelings. Or maybe you were just totally exhausted.

Dissociation is a coping mechanism

The important thing to know is that dissociation is a self-protective act. It’s not always the BEST coping mechanism you could use, but it is one, and it works. It shields you from overwhelming feelings until you have the resources to deal with them.

If you’re dissociating, it’s probably because you’re having a hard time right now.

That’s the bottom line. So when you’re ready to take care of your feelings, anything you can do to help yourself feel calmer, comforted, soothed, and grounded, isgoing to help.

It may not feel comfortable at first – after all, when you’re dissociated, it’s because you’re afraid to feel – but if you’re ready to come back to yourself, then go ahead, even though it feels awkward and hard. You’ll be okay.

When you find yourself dissociated, try and be gentle with yourself. Don’t judge or hate on yourself for it. Just be a little nicer than usual. Take care of yourself and your poor stressed-out brain.

You can take a nap, do a nice sensory thing like a scented bath or shower, cuddle with a pet, listen to music that you love, give yourself a hand or foot massage, write in a journal, do a guided meditation, or anything that you find restorative and calming.

Basically, anything that reminds you “hey, sometimes being in the moment actually feels okay.”

Right now, it’s probably really hard, but that doesn’t mean it will be this way forever. Over time, you’ll be able to handle it more easily and comfortably. 

Thanks for writing to me, and I hope you feel much better soon! <3

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“In that way, you’ve acknowledged that you’re unsure, that you don’t know what to do or say. You’ve acknowledged that you see them. They feel seen. They feel heard and acknowledged, which is huge for someone who’s in crisis.” Wentworth Miller | Q&A at Oxford Union | 2016 | x

there’s no rule as to how big or how small you’re allowed to dream. if you just want a small home and an orange kitchen and four cats that’s just as reasonable of a goal to work for as a big new york penthouse. and if all you really want is a simplistic career that isn’t the center of your life then that’s just as valid as dreaming of becoming a famous fashion designer or ceo. i know everyone keeps urging you to dream big, but dreams can be as simple and small as you want. they’ll always be valid. you decide how you want to live and what kind of life you want, no one else.

Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.

If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.

If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.

Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.

you know, I probably resembled this earlier in my life … I mean, I don’t know much about SZPD, but what you’ve been describing definitely resonates with my experiences

in my case though, I think it was caused by intense, continuous dissociation, from my environment + from my own feelings. (and also, depression – numbness or feeling unaffected by things you used to react to, is a symptom of depression)

but nowadays I am plenty emotional and invested in things, which is nice!

(if anyone's interested, you can read my post about dissociation and self-erasure, or read about what I do to get better in general)

i feel like i may have developed szpd as a way to cope with my avpd symptoms lol…

for me it’s been like i started with anxiety and that got so bad that i just became avoidant and then i became so avoidant that i now just have no emotions and don’t care about anything

stay tuned for the next chapter where i stop being a human completely and turn into a robot

Here’s the thing about personality disorders.

Among everyone I know with Avoidant Personality Disorder, I’m one of the happiest, most outgoing, and most emotionally secure.

I have strong, positive, intimate relationships in my life.

I feel comfortable interacting with strangers.

I even make friends easily.

(The secret they don’t tell you is that even when you’re good at it, not everyone is a good choice to try it with!)

But this week, despite all of those things,

I still turned off my phone to avoid a dreaded phonecall.

I was crushed by a moderate disappointment.

I genuinely worry that my friends have stopped liking me, and that I’m not welcome in my social groups anymore (“they’re finally onto me!”).

When someone confronted me about something, even without any overt hostility, I had an anxiety attack before I could respond. And after the conversation I cried in bed, so hard that when I got up, I had tiny fresh bruises around my eyes.

Most days, I have the impulse to take down posts that feel too personal, too confused, too me.

I doubt myself and everything I’m trying to do. Sometimes I still feel like hiding in a closet for the rest of my life would be a better idea.

And I obviously still struggle with all my usual avoidance problems -- like the effort it takes to leave the house.

There are extenuating circumstances, but...

...the thing about having a personality disorder -- or any mental illness! -- is that it’s always there in the background.

It’s usually always under the surface. It can affect everything in your life.

And even when someone seems to be doing really, really well, this is still something they have to be aware of and careful with. Sometimes, if you’re recovering, it feels like it’s always waiting to take over again.

There are always triggers. There are always situations that will prompt a disordered response. Sometimes you’ll be able to choose away from acting on that response, and sometimes you won’t.

And there’s never a time when self-care stops being important.

So if you’re struggling?

Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you, and it doesn’t mean you’re worse than everybody else. Because everybody has times where things are hard and awful.

It’s okay to talk about how much it sucks. We all need validation and support.

It’s also okay to deliberately focus on what’s good and what successes you’re having, if that’s helpful for you.

You can even do both at the same time. In spite of all the things I listed up there:

I turned my phone back on and called them back! I used my self-talk skills to cope with the disappointment! I kept showing up to my social group! I had the confrontational talk and survived! I didn’t take down any posts! I learned some things!

Most of us tend to downplay our victories and emphasize our faults and mistakes. Consciously doing the opposite of that can help us change our thought habits.

But mostly:

There’s no wrong way to heal. There’s no wrong way to get better, or learn what you need to learn. And you can get stronger and grow as a person, even when you have lots of bad days.

What works for you is good enough, and that’s all that matters. <3

psst! they’re easy to make, too. here’s the Fu pattern. 

remember to tie the top tie straight across the middle of your ear, and the bottom tie in a criss-cross over it, like a plus sign, to the top of your head.

always wear the same side facing out!

use funky patterned cotton to make it cute and cool!

launder with soap and reuse!

MAKE MEMES

Just got back from the grocery store on my first outing with a homemade mask

Literally every store manager (and multiple older people) i passed thanked me for wearing a mask

We need to start memeing cloth mask usage to make it cool and hip to keep your germs to yourself and stop this outbreak on the ground