I have AVPD. It sucks. I’ve tried before to overcome it, and seen no success. So – question: is a personality disorder simply a learned pattern of behavior that one can be trained out of, and hence ‘overcome’, or is it a truly inherent part of the person that cannot be changed?
Thoughts?
I am not a doctor, just someone who has had success treating an anxiety disorder (not a personality disorder) with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I like the prognosis given in this Healthline article:
The article also talks about how people who do not receive treatment for AVPD are at risk of developing other disorders or substance abuse. It seems to me that it makes sense to continue to try to treat your AVPD in order to improve symptoms and avoid more severe consequences.
Since the OP is asking for opinions, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Having just now read up briefly on Avoidant Personality Disorder (it’s always nice to provide the full name for an acronym once in your post) - I would bet that many or most cases could be improved with therapy. What I read sounded like this is a learned pattern of behavior based on early experiences. You would have to be willing to force yourself to learn new patterns, and perhaps to re-live some of the negative early experiences that put you on this path.
Also, you seem to be asking for opinions, so this probably belongs in the IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) forum. I will notify a mod for you.
eta: ninja’d by a moderator!
Oh, thanks to the mod for moving this. And I apologize for not elaborating on AVPD; I forgot it isn’t a commonly known acronym.
For me, my avoidant personality made itself known when I was very, very young (around five or so). And nothing brought it on; there were no traumatic events, no social rejection by peers, nothing. I just had the AVPD symptoms my whole life. Which makes me highly doubt that personality disorders are simply a learned pattern of behavior, since why would I have these symptoms if not for it being in some way inherent to my character?
Also, it’s not just behavior. I can try my best to behave in a way that is not externally avoidant (or bipolar or what have you), but, in my own head, the symptoms (hypersensitivity, extreme fear of rejection, etc.) would still be there. That’s why I’m not sure that there are any treatments that could ‘cure’ a personality disorder, which rather depresses me.
Personalities can change as you experience different things. Sure, we keep some of the same traits over time. But I know that for me, I’ve personally shed some habits and adopted some new ones just over the past few years. Part of this is just the result of maturity, but I’ve also forced myself to do shit that I didn’t want to do. So our personalities can change, but only as much as we allow them to.
Personality disorders are a real thing, but I think it is possible to make them into a much bigger thing than they are if you spend a lot of time thinking about it. Folks with AvPD are probably more vulnerable to obsessing about it moreso than folks with other PD’s. So one habit you may want to break is to decrease the amount of time you spend on forums devoted to AvPD. Surround yourself with a diverse group of posters, like the SDMB. You may learn that your weaknesses are much more universal than they seem. You may also meet people who have overcome some of your difficulties. A number of us here have personality disorders and other forms of mental illness. Me included.
Have you tried CBT? The goal of CBT is to remove the symptoms that are in your own head. I don’t know how well it works for AVPD, although it’s certainly listed as a treatment, but I do know that it has been successful in helping me deal with symptoms of anxiety that are in my head – in fact, I think I have been more successful at reducing those symptoms than the behavioral ones.
This is just my opinion, and I have looked into AVPD myself before to see if it might fit me, and it does to some extent. However, I think it all depends on your definition of “overcome”. I think that most people have things (mental disorders, personality disorders, etc.) that we have to battle with in some area of life. Those things can get better, but most people don’t truly overcome something to the point where it no longer has an impact in their lives.
Sorry you have to deal with it. I’ve got my own battles as well.
I would say yes, I believe we know enough today to do this but we haven’t established treatment protocals that successfully work. Because opinions are ok here I will go out on a limb with this one.
I feel like the first step is recognizing and accepting that we are what we are because our nuerons have adpated to responding to specific stimulis in a ver specific way. If we can duplicate the situation but assure the sufferer that he can make a choice that will give him a favorable brain chemical reward and show him ways he can expand on this I believe he can stand a chance. Situations can be manipulated or strategicaly sought out that will offer better chances for favorable outcomes, I think this is key.I just checked out the symptoms, and I have several of the ones as they apply to interpersonal relations (less so when it comes the my occupation). I don’t think I have it, but the ones I have made dating very difficult. At this point I can get fearful when my wife and I have a serious argument (which doesn’t happen often). I can see how having all or most of the symptoms would be very difficult to live with.
Just like “normal” people, you have to learn to gauge the people around you, and conduct yourself in a way that will not be seen as offensive or otherwise attract undesired attention.
If “overcome” means to learn to function in society, then yes, it can be overcome.
Well, by ‘overcome’, I mean ‘stop having it’.
I think I can function in society – or, at least, approximate functioning well enough to get a job, probably. I am currently just starting as a freshman at Georgetown, and I did well in high school, except for two classes in which I did very poorly as a direct result of my AVPD (in one class, the teacher kept randomly calling on me, and that pained me to such a ridiculous extent that I couldn’t actually learn anything; in the other class, I had difficulty finding a lab partner, which made me attempt to skip whenever possible).
As you can see, the AVPD causes me a lot of excessive emotional grief; it has kept me from achieving my academic goals, and I haven’t had a single friend since the age of 10 (sorry, this is getting rather sob-story-ish, but I wanted to show the extent of the disorder). I don’t know, I guess I was just looking for someone to say, “Yep, my friend had bipolar disorder and now she’s totally cured!”, or something silly like that. I suppose the only thing I can really look forward to is just to reduce symptoms as much as possible, which may not be a lot.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
I feel like the only way it could be “cured” is if it was misdiagnosed in the first place. I was just diagnosed with bipolar 2 a few months ago after having a PTSD diagnosis for years, but I look at the list of symptoms for AVPD now and it’s like WHOA that sounds like me too! I am at this very minute buzzing on a great emotional high because I screwed up the courage to take my nine year old daughter to a birthday party. The last two times I was to take her to a party I flaked out at the last minute because I didn’t want to deal with other adults. My only RL friends are people I’ve been close to since childhood. I do not seek out friends. I do not go places.
I am currently going through CBT after I tried and had to stop EMDR. I just wasn’t ready I don’t think. This is only going to help the behaviors though. I will still freak out, but I may eventually learn to talk myself down from the anxiety attacks. That’s all I can really hope for. I take meds that help too but they won’t cure me either. But you know what? Treatment to help you deal with it can be almost as comforting as a cure itself. That’s the way I’m seeing it anyway. If I can one day function in society, even with meds and therapy, I’ll be good.
But bipolar disorder isn’t a personality disorder. There are lots of people who have experienced bipolar depression who are in long-term remission and effectively “cured”. The same with a number of mental illnesses–including schizophrenia. But personality disorders are a bit different than those conditions. People go into long-term therapy to fix personality disorders.
I was diagnosed with schizoid PD about five years ago. I am not as “schizoid” as I was back then because I am not depressed. Maybe because I’m not depressed, I am much more content with who I am and don’t really care to cure myself. But someone could look at my life and think I’m still “limited”. Eh. As long as I can do the things I want to do, then I don’t really care if I’m a little different.
Your personality is still amorphous right now. You may be a late-bloomer…you may be suffering from untreated Axis I disorders…you may be overly influenced by toxic, unhelpful people. You have a very provisional personality right now, is what I’m telling you. So it is way too early to predict your doom.
Computer Based Training?
Have you talked to a psychiatrist about medication? I know someone who was diagnosed with borderline PD, and really had a lot of problems: she couldn’t keep a job, and was on disability for several years, and had been a cutter on and off for years. After a lot of trial and error, she’s on a fairly high dose of Wellbutrin, plus a small dose of an antipsychotic (IIRC, Abilify), and Luvox, an SSRI that is especially effective for OCD type behaviors. She has a benzodiazapine (Xanax, Halcyon, or something) as a PRN (as needed) for anxiety. She hardly takes it anymore, but she did a lot at first, especially before the Luvox.
Now she’s got a part-time job, and just got high scores on the GRE, and is trying to decide whether to apply for grad school or look for a full-time job. It took her six years to get through college, and a couple of years, her grades were nothing to brag about, but she also has a gap in her employment that’s hard to explain. She’s optimistic, though, which is the amazing thing, because it’s a whole new outlook for her.
I don’t think that it can be cured. I think that you have to train yourself to pretend that you are confident and outgoing. After a while, it stops being an act…I AM confident and outgoing…but you will still probably second guess yourself on a regular basis.
At least, that’s how it worked for me. I really wanted to join certain communities, but it involved pretending that I liked talking to strangers. It was hard. I faked it a lot. Now its habit to walk into a room full of people and smile like I wanted to be there. I really don’t want to be there, but I believe in what I’m doing, so I just soldier on.
Actually…the above is a bit of a lie. Now I really do enjoy many of the gatherings I attend, but it took forcing myself to experience them before I learned to enjoy them. I spend a lot of time talking to retired folks who wear polyester suits to breakfast…but they give me money for my causes…so I love them one and all.
Hi Jim here, Try an audiobook called Happy for no reason. By Marci Shimoff This book is amazing and I bet it will help. She teaches you excercises that teach you to be happy and how to stop beating youself up with all this negative thinking
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Surprised it took until RivkahChaya to mention medication. AVPD is an anxiety disorder. Anxiety can be successfully treated with medication. Then CBT will help you alter your thoughts and behaviors so that you can function better.
This is what you’re looking for.