I Think… One Of The Interesting Things About Online Messaging And Texting Is That Sometimes, Writing

Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.

Robert Brault (via thelovejournals)

Help for those who know someone with AVPD

Below are some helpful tips that will help you if you know someone or a group of people who have AVPD!!

•Be careful in conversations, they shut down easily and become self-loathing. Don’t be anxious around them, it is easily sensed and misinterpreted.

•Find an area of common interest to establish a bond of reassurance. They can and will trust a person over a long period time and given enough patience.

•Don’t minimize their feelings or self-doubt, they feel very intensely. Their social distance is often mistaken for a lack of feeling, but in reality they are very sensitive.

•Don’t try to make it better by saying something. Listening is the most effective tool.

•Listen to the words said and not said. Note changes in body language to gauge important points.

•They don’t like conflict, so make the environment as non-confrontational as possible.

•Pay attention to all of what they are saying as they frequently don’t say all of what they mean.

•Ask questions, don’t jump to conclusions or make assumptions. Many times they will think they have said something when they have not.

•They are awkward in social settings so expect it.

•Don’t intentionally put them in uncomfortable environments without prior permission. This is not a person who likes surprise parties.

•They already know they are different so don’t bother telling them. Rather, learn to appreciate their independence.

•They have a tendency to believe that they are more intimate with a person than what might actually be the case. Those married to an APD should be very careful with words and body language as APDs tend to take offense easily to the slightest infraction. They truly see their relationships as having more intimacy than it might actually have.

I hope these help!!!

Anytime we drag our past into the future, we have some grieving to do. When we refuse to grieve, it slows us down and robs us from finding our lives.

Stephen Arterburn (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

If you’re struggling, here’s some words from Angry Prayers for Furious Survivors 

Mary Oliver, from “the fourth sign of the zodiac” published in Blue Horses

there’s something about living life deliberately…wearing clothes that you actually want to and that you feel reflect you and your style not just because you’ve had them for years and don’t know what else you would throw on….listening to songs and creating playlists that excite you and represent your actual mood not just listening to songs that you’ve had downloaded for years that don’t make you feel anything special anymore…it’s VERY easy to stay with what you’re comfortable and it might take a bit of experimenting before you find what feels like a deliberate choice that reflects more of YOU but it’s absolutely worth the leap of faith you may have to convince yourself to make in order to stop feeling like a passenger in your own life

I can probably help out here =) I’ve experienced a decent range of dissociation, because mine has gotten less intense over time.

So when dissociation is really severe, it can feel like the whole world is dead. You’re completely inert and still. It’s like your consciousness has become just a small floating thing in your head -- not connected to your body, your feelings, your environment, or anything that’s happening around you.

When mine was at its worst, I couldn’t speak. I often couldn’t move, I couldn’t respond to people who tried to talk to me or get me to notice them. I was AWARE they were there... I sort of heard and saw what they did... but I just couldn’t care or engage with them at all. Like watching a movie with the volume on mute. And just being stuck there... helpless to change it.

Over time, though, I stopped needing to defend against my feelings that strongly, and my dissociation eased up.

“Mild” dissociation is kind of like just turning the volume down, instead of muting it entirely.

Nowadays, for me, I’ll realize I’ve been staring off into space, or more often playing a really simple game on my phone (like 1010) for an hour or more. I’ll tune out of my environment somewhat. I normally have a constant monologue of thoughts in my head -- when I dissociate enough, those will go quiet. Sometimes my thoughts go completely silent, sometimes just vague and wordless.

(For me, the effects of my ADHD, sleep disorder and depression can overlap a lot, because they can all make me unfocused and disconnected. So it’s hard to tell exactly what’s what, but hopefully this is still useful for you to hear about.)

When you’re slightly dissociated, input is less demanding. Everything is a little further away, muffled. It matters a little less. It’s easier to go on auto-pilot. It’s much easier to forget things -- often, thoughts I'm having (“oh, I should do this thing”) will just slip away and disappear.

You don’t really care about anything, although you want to; you just can’t. And you probably don’t feel much of anything.

I used to shut down like this (completely!!) every time I got really, catastrophically upset. Then it happened only when I felt threatened, facing conflict etc. or basically when I needed to escape. Lately, it seems to happen when I’m struggling with really powerful emotions, like if I’m very lonely. I can’t turn off the emotion, but I can dampen my experience of it by not really feeling anything.

It also used to last for days at a time, until someone else interrupted it; now it lasts maybe a few hours, before I notice it and act to take care of myself.

So, all this to say: Dissociation can vary a lot, and it can definitely be a lot more subtle than “catatonic zombie”. I know people who function almost normally, and you even wouldn’t realize they were dissociated if they didn’t tell you.

It’s more about how you feel on the inside -- it’s numbness. Whatever that looks like for you.

Hope that helps =)

hi im really sorry if this is annoying or stupid or anything but a while (idk how long) ago you made a post asking whther not getting stuff done is an avpd thing and i just want to say dissasociation and fantasy living can both be symptoms of avpd that might stop people from getting stuff dine in the real world?? idk sorry sorry sorry sorry ignore me

omg thank you for sending me a message it’s not annoying at all i promise dw!!!! 

yeah it probably is something to do with that. i’ve been curious about dissociation recently bc i think that might happen to me but i’m still kind of confused/unsure. is there anyone else who has avpd that experiences it that can kind of explain to me what it is/feels like?? whenever i look it up it seems like it’s way more extreme than what i experience.

Apologies for the format and need to zoom, but I thought this response was wonderful

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