r/AvPD

Does anyone else feel like they possess both narcissistic personality disorder and avoidant personality disorder?

It feels like the two cannot coexist. But when I genuinely reflect on myself, I think that I:

- Hold a “cool” professional job (involves tv/film - at a high level)
- Engage in liberal, progressive ideologies that I believe help humanity
- Respect many types/varieties of art, music, comedy, etc.
- Deeply care about important social and environmental issues (my dad has worked for an environmental company his entire career and I’ve been extremely environmentally conscious since I was very young)
- Did exceptionally well academically
- Am above average in appearance (based on feedback/comments throughout life)

But I also:
- Was basically a mute elementary through high school out of fear of saying something stupid (I didn’t have and still don’t have any good social skills!!!)
- Had 3 OK friends in elementary school who I disconnected with when they became more social and didn’t understand my hesitance to do the same.
- l Only had 2 best friends in college and only 1 of those now that I feel like I can truly trust with anything I bring to them
- Lost the loml (dated for 4 yrs) because I felt he could do better than me (felt like he was a superhuman who deserved better - he was an INSANELY gracious, attractive, smart, social, happy human who DID deserve more than me)
- Generally feel like I am the absolute scum of the earth regardless of how good of a person outsiders perceive me to be and how well I succeed in life

So yeah.. anyone feel the same? Haha

TLDR: Has anyone felt they are the absolute scum of the Earth and do not deserve anything good in this life, but also recognize they might have some good or interesting characteristics?

I’m 29 I grew up in care homes from 2 months old and I was adopted at 12 where I let them know my sexuality and because they are Jamaican the family wanted nothing to do me with so I just speak to my adopted mum and never had a relationship with them. I struggle forming friendships, I have hundreds of un replied messages and I’ve never had a relationship. I’ve been playing games alone for 16 years now and I even freaking talk to myself. I want to join Xbox looking for posts but get scared as I’m on the slight fem side and I’ve just never been myself around anyone. Like I don’t want to play Dbd and rivals or whatever alone, I feel I have so much love to give and care and time for people and now it’s just me and my rabbit and I’m going to be 30 and I can’t help but wonder well what is the point? Can I handle another 10 20 years In my own company, how much isolation is too much because I just seem to question everything know. I don’t know if I’ve explained myself well

On some real shit, just existing is fucking boring and frustrating on a miniscule level as well. Just having to fucking eat and wipe your fucking ass is annoying. Having pimples and having to watch what you eat or you'll look and feel like shit.

Having to keep up an appearance and dress clean and orderly. Having to cook and do dishes. Having to fucking mow the lawn and having to pull weeds. Having to talk to people and act like I truly gaf about what they are talking about.

Having to deal with this gay ass anxiety and depression. Having to deal with the cold of winter and the heat of summer, dealing with people judging me and the frustration of not being able to just bitch slap anyone who talks to me side ways. Having to go to school study stupid shit I don't gaf about to get money that I don't gaf about. Holy fucking shit, this entire existence is a fucking sham!

Power to the people who genuinely enjoy life I truly applaud you. But even on a spiritual level, once you figure out biblically and Hindu and buddist wise you are saved by faith and wisdom no physical works of the flesh, this life becomes extremely frustrating to continue to participate in! We all fucking die and get old and nasty, we all come me up in the same fucking predicament. It's all just running in fucking circles with this life trying not to be bored so you fill your life with different things to do and research and shit, but at the end of the day, this life is a fucking scam once you see thru it.

Fuck all this shit

i see a lot of people with avpd who didn't feel safe to be emotional and vunerable with their parents, because of how their parents were

however my parents did care about my emotions, and my mom even told me she noticed i "changed" when i became a teenager (when i started developing avpd traits) and she was worried about me. she was concerned enough to take me to therapy

i didn't tell anyone, including my parents and therapist, about my problems out of choice. my early childhood was relatively normal, but when i got bullied as a teenager, it was like a flip switched in me and i began to fully view myself as worthless and my emotions as shameful. i chose not to tell anyone about my problems because i felt like i deserved to feel this way, and i deserved to be treated awfully by my peers.

i suppose i did go through non-self inflicted emotional neglect in other ways, like how the adults in my school only cared about me skipping classes and not my wellbeing and accused me of faking my anxiety, and i didn't have anyone my age to get any support from

but when the development of avpd is discussed, it's always about parents who neglected their kids' emotional needs during early childhood. and i wouldn't describe my own parents like that. i feel like i did this to myself. i don't know why i couldn't just tell my mom about my problems when i know she would've helped me through it

I’ve been lucky (or unlucky ) enough to have really charming people around me while I’m the disappointing rotten apple in the tree.

Somethings I found that sets them apart from the rest is..

Their ability to be happy and energized all the time. Somehow they never seem to lose the love from living in the moment.

They’re highly aware, they note everything that’s going on with everyone’s and are highly receptive.

What else?

So I know and realize that I can’t get better without regular therapy. It’s the amount of time it takes that’s fucking me up. I’m in my early 30s, I have to keep moving forward but at the same time I can’t seem to function anymore and think I should just give up.

Is there anyone here in their 30s still willing to fight and get better in life or is 30 too late?

I feel like that's the part some people might not understand about AVPD or trauma in general. It's easy to say that "it's just avoidance" like it was born out of nowhere. But a lot of people with AVPD can confirm they way how they feel...

All my life never had any friends, and most people were abusive towards me. I tried to be more sociable at age 13, and just got more traumatized than before. It was the first time I got to the outside world, they were my first experiences of having "friends", only to be emotionally manipulated.. I spent 7 years in isolation after that, because of the trauma it caused me. Last year, though I had overcome that, I couldn't keep being isolated, I had to overcome that, maybe there's someone out there who will respect me...only to meet people that made my mental health worse, feel worse, especially because it includes talking about trigger warnings... In the end of the day, they used me. I was vulnerable and I could had not lived that if I had stayed isolated.

I could have actually avoided so much pain that way. I'm also tired already of thinking there's someone out there, when everytime I try, I just get more dissapointed. I either have to "mask", or they always cross my boundaries. And when I do stand up for myself, I get abandoned. Since all my life I've been isolated, I don't connect with others adults, and they might think I'm just...unexperienced.

Maybe I'm just dissastified with the world in general. It's basically feeling like you'll just be hurt and betrayed, and that you are supposed to accept it, when I genuinely feel like that just kills me more. It's either that, or me feeling like nothing matters.

I dislike it whenever people just assume it's our "fault" for not opening up, or do more. Yeah, I do believe it's important to be responsible. But I'm not gonna pretend this world is also kind, when most of us can confirm the contrary.

I don't know if this is a depressing question but I wonder if it's possible to live a life that's worth living with AvPD. I feel like human interaction is such a staple of human life that a life without it is always empty to some point. Can anyone prove me wrong? What would an okay life look like for you?

Same as title

I wanted to look for a job but browsing at job sites burn me out fast.

So, i have an appointment with a psychiatrist next month, and one of the things I want to discuss is my social difficulties, for lack of a better term. The problem is that, at least where I live, I've never really seen anyone talk about AVPD. It's not the kind of condition that ever comes up when people talk about mental health.

When I brought up these issues during a psychological assessment, I ended up being diagnosed with autism, but I honestly don't think that's the case for me. Nothing I've read describes my experience as accurately as AVPD does.

Since it's such an unfamiliar disorder, I'm a little worried and embarrassed about bringing it up. I'm afraid the psychiatrist won't take me seriously or won't even know much about it.

So I'd like to ask if anyone here who has been diagnosed had to bring up the possibility of AVPD themselves with their therapist or psychiatrist. If so, how did that conversation go? I'd like to go into the appointment with a better idea of how to approach the topic.

I would really appreciate any advice or experiences you can share. Thanks!

I hope this doesn’t come off as a gatekeeper sounding question, but from reading this subreddit I was surprised to see some comments mentioning their friends and or partners.

This surprised me because one of the things that lead me towards understanding avpd in myself was the common listed traits surrounding difficulty with relationships/friendships/etc. Some even listing complete absence of those things as a sign of avpd.

What I’m wondering is, do you have friends and or relationships? And if you do, do you see it as you overcoming your avpd to build/maintain those relationships? Or is the avpd unrelated in this situation? Or are you able to keep a certain level with your friends?

Sorry again, still trying to understand avpd.

Hi,

Do you think Avpd is:

1. Curable.

2. manageable to great extent, where symptoms can be mitigated & quality of life can improve in significant way.

3)manageable to some extent

4)uncurable hell

If you can explain your choice it will be better

Struggling with avoidance a lot recently and just wanting to see hopeful anecdotes about people learning to manage and live with it all.

Things are hard. I’m 17 and going into my second last year of school in September. Where I live this is a really important year, because it’s bunched in with next year and our results will determine what university we’ll get to go to. Everybody else around me seems to have such an easy time socially, but ever since school ended in early June, I‘ve attended only 3 days since Christmas (6 full months of absence…)

My attendance has always been spotty. I’ve always had a tendency to get anxious to the point it would make me sick (stomach aches & nausea, lightheadedness, there was more than one day that the stress caused a nosebleed that resulted in my uniform being ruined), or burst into tears on the way to school and have to be driven home again. A mix of bad genes and extreme stress has caused me to suffer from some pretty severe migraines very regularly, which is probably my greatest contributor to missed school.

It’s very annoying! I‘m so annoyed at myself that I mask my AvPD so well. I act so normal and it means that everyone assumes the worst of me when I skip school, when I do bad things. I’m lucky enough to have a childhood friend who seems to care about me, but I’ve pretty much shut her out of my life since Christmas, and she’s branched out as a result and the one or two times I’ve seen her she’s been colder and less interested in me. Nobody suspects that there’s anything wrong with me on the outside. I’m just “shy”, “quiet”, or “uninterested”. But I am interested, I just feel like a sore on people’s eyes, or that one person in the group who nobody invited and nobody wants around, so I distance myself. That friend I mentioned earlier is some super genius with perfect attendance who is invited to an exclusive school awards ceremony every year for her behaviour. I’ve been called the stupid one since we were young, the one who can’t do anything by herself, who had to be taken out of regular language and maths classes to go to those special classes for students with learning disabilities (which I do not have), or regarded by teachers like I’m some delinquent who skips school for no reason and can never keep up with the work.

There are some girls at school who really must hate me. Friends of my only friend who seem to jump at any opportunity to exclude me. In my desperate attempt to make new friends I fuck it up by sharing nothing, because I’m too afraid if I do that they’ll use it as leverage to make fun of me with. I’m all take, take, take. I’m not good enough for anybody and they deserve better than me, so I refused to go to school. School is just a constant cycle of humiliation. Going outside is just spent fighting back pointless tears and bathing in my own inferiority. I can’t cope with leaving the house, let alone going to school every day. I‘m afraid that I won’t be able to bring myself to go back in September at all. I’ve dug myself a hole far too deep.

I don’t know if I’m even going be able to get a full education at this rate. If I can’t do what I want to do with the rest of my life, what’s even the point? How do you even get out of this situation? Going back to school is the obvious solution, but it feels really unattainable for me. I knew this would happen back at Christmas but I never stopped myself. What if I’m just lazy and that’s why I won’t go back? Did anyone else do this? What happened???

hey there im having a pretty bad mental health day which has manifested in me browsing around the Internet intentionally looking for things to make me feel worse about myself, so i might as well just put some bullshit on this subreddit because it's probably the one place people might understand :P sorry it it ends up being a waste of ur time, this is going to just be string of consciousness so i can get it all off my chest.

im not diagnosed with AvPD, but ever since i was a kid ive been basically terrified of the world, sometimes for good reasons and sometimes not. i looked over the criteria they use to diagnose people and not to be an armchair self diagnoser, but i don't even want to think about what expression my face made when i read through them. i felt like someone was stalking me and just describing my life in a list. im a 20 something guy whose been unemployed for a few years now, i only worked at grocery stores and fast food places before getting to where i am now. i still live with my parents and still endure their semi-constant arguing. thankfully they haven't physically abused each other since i was an infant so I don't have any memories of that, but let's just say there's always a cloud hanging over everyone in the house that lingers in the background and a nasty argument can break out at basically any time. im pretty used to it by now, if anything i think i deserve worse than what i have, some people have parents who do shit to them and i couldn't imagine that happening to me (late trigger warning i guess, sorry) but it's still not ideal. my dad definitely has a very overinflated ego, he will literally talk to himself just to hear his own voice and has openly admitted that he talks so much mostly because of that fact. if you're in the middle of something you're doing he will gladly interrupt to talk about the most benign shit that is suddenly the most important thing in the world because it's happening to him. my mom is basically the opposite, very kind and caring and easy to talk to on an intellectual and emotional level. she's socially awkward as hell at the same time but i am too, so it doesn't bother me at all. she only really gets bold or vocal with my dad when he's pissed her off sufficiently. id say i take after her a thousand times more than i do my dad. that's probably enough personal family shit to put on the Internet but maybe now you can see where im coming from when i say this:

i am an unrequited loser and have known this fact since high school. i was far from popular and just stuck with my little group of fellow outcasted losers because they seemed a lot more genuine than any of the popular types, i had and still have little desire to be "popular" like that. however im also a virgin and have never been in a relationship, hell I don't even think a girl has flirted with me before unless i was too dense to notice. id rate myself a solid 4 on a good day, on my worst days i will refuse to look in the mirror because that's how unappealing I find myself. i pretty much assume that everyone around me has had sex, relationships, are doing better than me, ARE better than me and it's intimidating. i see people almost causally discuss getting into another relationship and i can't even fathom getting into one, let alone having enough people interested in me to have multiple over time. the most contact ive had with a girl was a female friend in high school who i played dungeons and dragons with. she was the only girl among like four other hopelessly awkward and weird guys like myself, and it resulted in us just treating her like any other dude because of how clueless we were :P she was really cool though, very smart nerdy girl type and i definitely liked her. one time she was in visible distress over some assignment she didn't get turned in on time, and i felt so bad for her because of how she was beating herself up that i very awkwardly offered a hug and she accepted it. probably the sweetest moment ive had in my life, for that moment i felt like i was worth a damn, as stupid as that probably sounds. point is, that's the closest to affection or intimacy ive had with someone outside of my parents or my best friend who is also a straight guy :PP (extremely loving guy though i probably wouldn't be here if not for him). i actually had a point in high school where i started becoming more social and had more people i would call friends than I could count on my fingers for the first time in my entire life, but that all went out the window once i dropped out. i was pretty close to graduating too, i think i was only like two classes worth of credits away but i started skipping classes my senior year. i started getting very lazy and got a pretty nihilistic view of myself that persists to this day. it didn't just suddenly happen one day but various aspects of my existence just started compounding until i convinced myself that im a total loser. ive tried to have pride in it at points, i am very much empathetic towards all of societies underdogs and the down and out, im super into punk rock and anything underground and weird so that probably helps :P but anyway, i dropped out so my parents gently and then not so gently prodded me into getting a job. i worked at McDonald's for a while before i started skipping work too and eventually just stopped coming in, i never got fired officially and they never reached out to me but im sure that's kinda common for fast food places in cities. i went through a few grocery stores next, mostly just bagging groceries and corralling shopping carts and changing the disgusting fucking garbage cans (a can tipped over one time when i was changing it and a bottle of what im 100 percent sure is piss fell onto my shoes... it was open :P) and restocking, the most menial shit possible... and then THAT became too much, so i stopped going to my store and haven't had a job ever since then. my parents tolerate me but i dunno if it's because they feel bad for me or don't have enough heart to kick me out, but it definitely confuses me. i would kick myself out if i lived with myself, that's for sure. all i basically do most days is self medicate my depression by smoking weed when i can get it (i do not recommend doing that but you don't have to be a genius to figure that one out), playing video games, jerking off, and watching whatever on YouTube. i feel guilty sometimes because i feel like a manchild leech on my parents so i try to help out with changing the garbage and doing yard work and shit, but I definitely feel like peter pan because my ass has not matured at all. honestly if my parents both died tomorrow id probably just give up and either leech off my few remaining friends next until they get sick of me, become homeless, or 'game over myself' (i hate PC language like this but I'll use it cuz i know how it feels to get triggered by the word) and that's where my five year plan basically ends. the one positive thing ive done in the past few years is quit smoking cigarettes, which was a bitch to do and i never thought i would but vaping helped, now i haven't touched an actual cig going on 2 years. besides that everything else has been a pretty steady decline. im broke, cut off contact with most of my friends except my best friend and one former bandmate, i go outside maybe twice a week on a good week and that's just to go get a little weed from the dispensary or to the gas station for snacks, and i usually hate every moment im outside. it feels like just outside of my peripheral vision that everyone is just starring at me and giggling at how stupid and ugly i look, even though that's probably not realistically happening every time, it sure as hell feels like it. even cars just passing by on the street make me feel self conscious as hell. ive gotten pretty fat from not exercising enough which has only made my body image issues even worse. im basically a hermit in my prime, i know that people i went to school with are probably in college or out going to parties and making money yet here i am over five years after high school, sitting in my parents house and doing jack shit for society. i played in a blackened death metal band with my aforementioned bandmate and two other people who ended up being total dickheads so the band dissolved, i play bass... or well i played bass because ive basically given up on that too. ill jam with my friend during the rare times we hang out in person but that's basically me forcing myself to play with him because music is our main bond that the friendship is built on and im afraid it'll completely fall apart if I didn't at least try. ive stopped practicing in my free time though, i had written an entire hardcore punk esque album one time and just abandoned it because i know im a shitty writer and nobody would listen to it anyway :P guess im afraid of publishing it and getting zero plays because thats what i would expect to happen. i stopped playing D&D in person a while ago too so now my only practical hobby is playing video games which I'm not terrible at, but im not gonna brag about being good at fuckin video games. it's one of the only positive things id even say about myself if you forced me to say something.

i feel like i wasn't supposed to be human, humans are supposed to be these great creatures in an idealized world who invent amazing things and live exciting lives and don't waste their existence on stupid shit, but that simply is not me. i have never at any point in my life been around a group of strangers and felt comparable to them or like i fit in. the friends i did have were largely situational and im pretty sure they only were my friends because they weren't popular either, birds of a feather and all. i feel bad for cutting them off sometimes but it wasn't malicious and seems mutual, most of them I just stopped talking to gradually. the pandemic was really a catalyst for my inner feelings to manifest like this, quarantine was really nice for a while since i had little pressure to do anything, but i feel like i went too far and now can't recover. im very thankful for the two friends i have left and i don't want to disrespect how caring they are, but I would not blame them in the slightest if thev just stopped responding to me one day. sometimes im surprised they haven't already. i try not to bug them too much because I don't want to be a pest and annoy them. the friendships have only lasted because they're genuinely the most real people I've ever met and i get borderline emotional just thinking about that. i know some people have no friends at all and that depresses the shit out of me, and im afraid that it will be me someday. i do want love, both platonic and romantic, and am lucky to even have the former, but it's almost shameful. im about as shitty of a friend as one could be in my eyes and they deserve better than that. i dunno, my life's just escalated into overthinking every little thing i do or say or just deciding not to do or say anything at all. my screentime has to be like 12 hours a day at this point, which is pretty bad by all metrics. it's my one escape where i can just get high and zone out and pretend im not me for a while. I'm basically an overgrown angsty teen minus any of the cool parts of being one :P and i wish i could just reincarnate as anything else a lot of the times, ive literally felt jealous about bugs because of how simple their lives are. just fly and crawl around, fuck, lay some eggs, eat some shit, die, no greater meaning beyond that. id not mind a life like that at some point, it seems kore meaningful than the life I currently have.

im probably taking a lot of shit for granted, that i even have parents who will tolerate my NEET ass, that i have friends at all, food, a roof over my head, etc etc... im a total creature of comfort but it's such a guilty pleasure, i know im just a lazy piece of shit leech but can't help but do nothing and greedily accept what's given to me. i can't describe the feeling i get about myself when i mull over that but im experiencing it right now. why does every have to be so fucking difficult? why do i have to be human and have these impulses and desires that i simultaneously do not think I deserve or will ever have? there's no real good answer to this question and that's about all i can say about it. im getting a sufficient amount of embarrassment for even writing all of this so ill probably stop now and go back to my usual loser shit, but maybe someone actually reads this and gets this far in which case... if you feel like a loser today just remember that it could be worse, you could be me :P not to diminish whatever struggles other people are having here, but i really just am bottoming out on my self image recently and dunno what will become of me, i guess it does really matter in the end. I don't anticipate that I'm gonna reply to or maybe even read responses to this post out of embarrassment so im sorry if you reply and that happens, its not personal, it's me. hope you're all able to have a better day than i am

It's easy to ignore everything when I don't feel connected to my life or the world. I don't do simple necessary tasks and it makes my life harder but I almost never want anything enough to just make myself do it. Paying bills on time and taking medicine every day and renewing anything and calling anybody for anything even if its necessary is just so easy to ignore regardless of the consequences.

I feel like a sub-tier functioning adult. I don't read anymore. I don't write anymore. I don't do anything creative or academic anymore. Hygiene is difficult and inconsistent because I struggle to care enough to do it although I feel shame and dread when I think about all the things I don't do. I feel like i started losing myself in highschool. Everything I used to love now feels cringe. Whenever I am asked to describe myself, I ALWAYS think about the past. I used to do this and I used to do that. I don't do anything anymore. Before I quit writing I wrote maybe the best work I have ever written. I couldn't stop rereading the same things and editing my work. Perfectionism made writing unfun and I stopped.

I feel a wall between myself and the rest of the world. I realized this years ago. I feel so anxious and alone when I notice it, but I go back to ignoring it again. The feeling always comes back and I feel almost a sense of dread when it does because I know it will come back.

I don't feel joy when I do anything. I don't feel joy when I accomplish anything. I want to want to try. But I can't get past this feeling that I don't care. I do care and care and care and it's not enough for me to take the steps I always think about. I dont care enough about anything at all. I don't know what to do. I hate myself for this.

I've been wondering if this could be derealization depersonalization disorder or if this is just a mix of mental health symptoms caused by AVPD? I don't think I am super depressed per say. I have a decent life and feel happy sometimes.