FAQ for Loved Ones
Children are especially vulnerable to issues caused by the one with AVPD. This is because children are still in a state of development. If a child is continually subjected to physical or emotional abuse, the child is very likely to suffer devastating issues in their adulthood.
If a child in the relationship is suffering abuse as a result of the one with AVPD, thought, prayer and even professional help should be sought and hard decisions might have to be made.
Determining if a child has, or will develop Avoidant Personality, later in life is extremely difficult, but there are potential signs to look out for like;
- Does the child go to great lengths to be alone all the time?
- Does the child avoid social contact of any kind?
- Does the child seem to cower and avoid conflict at all costs?
- Does the Child not have any friends at all?
- Does the child cower and run away at any criticism or correction?
The problem is that many of these things are common to growing up. This is why testing a child for Avoidant Personality, or any other mental health condition, is rare.
Usually the child will outgrow these symptoms. If a child exhibits these or other symptoms of AVPD, they need to be monitored. However, do not treat the child like they are inferior or defective as child are very susceptible to words. They often become who they are told they are.
Positive reinforcement, love and proper nutrition is critical to a child's development.
•You feel you don't like or trust the person anymore, but also feel you can't leave.
•Your friends and family have advised you against the relationship but you stay anyway.
•Others seem disturbed by things that happen to you but you brush it off
•You have tried to leave, but thinking of leaving makes you feel physically ill, like you will die or your life will be destroyed in you leave
•You know the person is sometimes abusive and destructive, but you focus on the good in them
•You feel protective about the person because of their difficult past or childhood and find yourself caring for them despite their abusive behavior
•You know you are being manipulated, but are often in denial and block out or quickly forget the bad things
•The relationship is intense and inconsistent. You do everything to please them and are unconditionally loyal while getting nothing but heartbreak in return.
•They say things you want to hear to resolve issues temporarily, "I have learned my lesson;" "I will prove my love for you every day;" "Life is impossible without you."
•You are driven to the point of self-destruction and often harbor thoughts of self-harm.
Trying to tell the difference between expected behaviors and what might be the signs of a mental illness is not easy. There is no easy test that can let someone know if the behavior is a result of mental illness or if actions and thoughts are typical behaviors, or the result of a physical illness.
Each illness has its own symptoms, but common signs of mental illness in adults and adolescents can include the following:
•Excessive worrying or fear
•Feeling excessively sad or low
•Confused thinking or problems concentrating and learning
•Extreme mood changes, including uncontrollable “highs” or feelings of euphoria
•Prolonged or strong feelings of irritability or anger
•Avoiding friends and social activities
•Difficulties understanding or relating to other people
•Changes in sleeping habits or feeling tired and experiencing low energy
•Changes in eating habits such as increased hunger or lack of appetite
•Changes in sex drive
•Difficulty perceiving reality (delusions or hallucinations, in which a person experiences and senses things that don't exist in objective reality)
•Inability to perceive changes in one’s own feelings, behavior or personality (”lack of insight” or anosognosia)
•Overuse of substances such as alcohol or drugs
•Multiple physical ailments without obvious causes (such as headaches, stomach aches, vague and ongoing “aches and pains”)
•Suicidal ideation
•Inability to carry out daily activities or handle daily problems and stress
•An intense fear of weight gain or concern with appearance
Mental health conditions can also begin to develop in young children. Because they’re still learning how to identify and talk about thoughts and emotions, their most obvious symptoms are behavioral. Symptoms in children may include the following:
•Changes in school performance
•Excessive worry or anxiety, for instance fighting to avoid bed or school
•Hyperactive behavior
•Frequent nightmares
•Frequent disobedience or aggression
•Frequent temper tantrums
They shower you with excess love, flattery, and appreciation in order to gain your affection.
Trust and Dependency
They do everything to win your trust and make you depend on them heavily for love and validation.
Criticism
They gradually start criticizing you. They blame you for things and become more demanding.
Gaslighting
When things go wrong, they tell you that it is your fault. They make you doubt your own perceptions and manipulate you into believing their narrative.
Resigning to Control
You no longer know what to believe. The only way of experiencing the good feelings of stage one is by giving in so everything goes their way.
Loss of Self
It gets worse when you fight back or stand up for yourself. You settle to have some peace and make the fights stop. You lose all of your confidence.
Addiction
You get addicted to the highs and lows. Your body is on a contact cortisol high (stress) and craves dopamine (pleasure). This creates a cycle of dependency that feels like a drug addiction.
Trauma bonding is loyalty to a person who is destructive. It occurs because of cycles of abuse followed by intermittent love and reward. This treatment creates a powerful emotional bond that can be extremely hard to break.
People often don't realize they are in a trauma bond while those outside the relationship clearly see its destructive patterns
Compatibility on the other hand is related to lifestyle, goals, values and overall vision. If you have chemistry without compatibility, this creates a short term intimate relationship. If you have compatibility without much or any chemistry, this creates a dry passionless relationship. Both are needed for the relationship to feel filled with passion, life, purpose and substance.
Being in a relationship with someone who has a mental illness is another step beyond that. It requires a very special person who understands what the one with the mental illness is going through and can cope with the effects of that illness. It requires the Loved One to have empathy and understanding of the condition.
Being in a relationship with someone who has Avp is in a special category all by itself. Avoidant Personality (Avp) is a very severe mental illness. It includes Major Depression, Severe Social Anxiety and a host of other symptoms. All of these symptoms of Avp are extremely debilitating all by themselves. Put them into the container that is Avp and it can be overwhelming.
If the Loved One is not fully committed to put in the work, or the one with Avp is not willing to admit they have a problem and are willing to seek help, then the Loved One might need to take a hard look as to why they want to stay in the relationship.
This is because those with Avp fear being hurt more than anything in the world. This fear causes them to need to protect themselves at all costs. So while those with Avp do indeed fall in love, this can be a much longer process than with someone who does not have Avp.
Avoidant Personality, or Avp, is a complex condition that includes many symptoms such as Depression, Social Anxiety and many more. Attachment Theory says that if a child does not get the emotional connection they need, they will develop issues in adulthood.
For example, let's say Bob and Sue are parents who have a child named Jill. Bob and Sue, for whatever reason, either don't know how to show love to Jill, or refuse to. There was a wide spread many years ago that said that you needed to teach your child to self-soothe. This meant that instead of going into a baby's, or child's room to help them calm down when they cried, parents should resist this natural instinct. This was believed to force the child to learn to calm themselves down.
If Bob and Sue followed this theory, they would be denying love to Jill. If this practice continued, when Jill grew into an adult, she would likely have a very hard time developing long term relationships because she would have no idea how to show love to others.
Those with Avoidant Personality do indeed feel pain. In fact, they feel pain very deeply and perhaps even more intensely than others who do not suffer from a mental health condition.
Those with Avp feel pain so intensely that in order to protect themselves from emotional pain, they pretend that the pain does not exist and it does not affect them.
This pretending is not something that they do intentionally or even consciously. Its an automatic response that is built in to their condition and happens subconsciously.
If they allowed their feelings to be closer to the surface, they could be subjected to pain and rejection. They bury them for self preservation. The problem with this is that it becomes hard to get in touch with those feelings and be able to show them.
Someone with Avoidance needs to be able to trust a Loved One before they will open up to them. Same goes for anyone, but the less they know them, the more guarded they will be. The Avoidants do fall in love, but this can look quite different than falling in love with someone who does not have this condition.
The Loved One will have to work hard to win the Avoidant's trust in order for them to full open up their feelings.
The "Avp Dance" is what some call the constant back and forth relationship that develops between a Loved One and the one with Avp. For a while things go well in the relationship, then fights start happening and a break up occurs.
After sometime, the relationship seems better and the Loved One and the one with Avp get back together again. This cycle goes on and on and does not seem to have an end. The Loved One keeps giving the one with Avp another chance and then another and another.
The problem is that the one with Avp lives in a constant state of dichotomies. They love and hate themselves, love and hate people, love and hate relationships, and in general love and hate life.
It's this internal conflict that causes them to constantly try to pull the Loved One close, then push them away. Read more about this internal conflict by clicking below.
Avoidant Personality is a very severe mental illness. In fact, it's one of the worst ones known to man and that is because it is a mental illness that includes so many other mental illnesses that by themselves are stand alone mental illnesses.
Avp is like a burrito. A burrito contains many ingredients inside the flour tortilla. Open the tortilla and inside you find beans, meat, rice, onions, and lots of other things.
Unwrap Avoidant Personality, and inside you will find Major Depression, Severe Social Anxiety, fear of going outside, fear of people, fear of authority figures and a host of other issues.
Major Depression by itself is a terrible mental illness that effects millions. It causes a person to not only to not want to get out of bed, but, at times, be incapable of getting out of bed. Major Depression causes loss of motivation, loss of interest for life, and intense feelings of worthlessness, among others.
Severe Social Anxiety causes a person to have no ability to be able to function in any social situation. The very thought of having to be around people is paralyzing to the point that they will do anything to get out of having to be around people.
The list goes on and on for every single condition that makes up Apv. Roll all these conditions up into the wrapper that is Avp and the condition becomes unbearable.
There is always hope!
It is never too late to start working on finding the Path to Recovery. However, just like any disease or illness, the longer the person with Apv waits, the harder it is going to be to find their way out.
See the page called Before Stage 4.
We strongly recommend that the one with Avp start working to find their path to recovery today.
When a Loved One is in a relationship with someone who has Avp, the Loved One has to carry a huge amount of the burden for the relationship to succeed. This is not always fair, but it is the reality of being in a relationship with someone who has Avp.
When in a relationship with someone who has Apv, it is critical that you are committed to the relationship and to the one with Avp. If you are not committed you could actually do more harm than good.
In Romans, 8:28, we read that "All things work together for good." The problem is that many people, including some pastors stop there. What this passage actually says is that "All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes."
This statement by God, like most others in the Bible, is conditional. This means that all things will work together for good on the condition that you have been called by God.
The same can be said of being in a relationship with someone who has Avp. The relationship will work out but only if you have been called by God to be in that relationship.
Being in a relationship with someone who has Avp requires a very special person who understands Avp and loves the one with it. If you have this, then the relationship will work out and it will be blessed beyond measure.
If you are not in the relationship for the right reason and have not been called by God to be in the relationship, the Loved One and the one with Avp will suffer and there is good chance the relationship will eventually end and could end badly.
Imagine you are in a pool, only this pool is not filled with water, but with the most disgusting, most awful sludge you can think of, like tar that is put down on roads before they throw down gravel.
You are completely naked in this pool. The very smell is so disgusting that it makes you vomit. The tar is the blackest black you have ever seen. It’s not a smooth black substance, but it’s full of a lot of very jagged rocks.
The rocks tear at your skin and open wounds. The very act of being in this sludge is unbearable. You can’t swim out of pool, and you can’t tread water. You can’t do anything to try to escape.
The only thing you can do is stay in this pool of sludge. Staying in the pool is such a vile experience that makes you throw up repeatedly. The act of throwing up makes your body convulse which causes you to sink.
Any movement at all only makes you sink deeper. It is as if there are unseen hands that are reaching for you trying to pull you under to your death.
There is no escape. If you stay in this pool, you will die. If you try to escape from this pool, you will die. The only thing you can do is try to stay as still as you can and just try to survive - day in day out, 365 days a year, year after year.
This is the reality of an Avoidant Personality. This is the reality of the day-to-day existence of someone suffering from Avoidant Personality.
The sludge in the pool is Major Depression, Severe Social Anxiety, Fear of People, Fear of Going Outside, Extreme Sensitivity to Criticism, Extreme Sensitivity to Rejection, Hatred of Oneself and a host of other symptoms.
The rocks in the sludge and the feeling of hands trying to pull you under is the feeling of Constant Criticism, Constant Rejection, and the Constant Feeling of Hatred and Judgement coming from everyone everywhere all the same time.