#poss.speaks

[avpdpossum]

me: i know they’re you’re friends and they’re really nice but that just makes them even scarier because i really want them to like me and would be genuinely devastated if they didn’t so it’s just easier to never engage with them and endlessly wish i was friends with them without ever risking being rejected by them even if that means i never actually get to be their friend. like sure, strangers are scary too, but they’re easier because i’m not super invested in whether they like me or not. the people i already like? those are the most terrifying people ever. you know what i mean?

my boyfriend, who doesn’t have avpd: no. no i do not know what you mean. that is literally the exact opposite of how my social anxiety works. i can’t even imagine how that would feel.

#they get regularly baffled by my avpd shit #bc our bad-at-people-ness as socially anxious autistics looks similar on the surface #but when you dig into it ive got all sorts of weird avpd shit going on that they can’t understand #poss.speaks #personal #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

avoidance is so weird because it’s so temptingly easy to pretend it’s not there when it’s not at its absolute worst.

when i’m at my lowest, my avoidance becomes volatile and dangerous — it means almost daily mental breakdowns, it means probably wanting to hurt myself or worse, it’s means things are bad bad. but times like now? where i’m in a better place and i don’t have to interact with people often enough to trigger it too badly? it’s easy to pretend i’m fine.

and that’s not because i don’t have symptoms — there’s a big glaring reason i don’t have a job yet, that i stay in the house pretty much every day and (aside from the family i live with) only ever see my safe person, that there’s a million important doctor calls i haven’t made yet, that i have my name change papers all ready to go but haven’t changed any of my documents yet. the avoidance is obviously still there and still causing problems, and i know my life doesn’t look how it should.

but because it’s not destroying my default mental state right now, it feels like i’m lying to myself and i’m totally mentally healthy and i have nothing to worry about. and when i see my therapist, the way i describe things sounds like there’s nothing going wrong in my life because there’s no active bad shit, just a lot of things that aren’t happening. and how do you quantify the absence of something?

how do i explain that the problem isn’t that i’m unhappy, it’s not that there’s bad things to fix, it’s just that most of the time, there’s nothing at all? that i’m mostly happy because i don’t have much of a life right now, and if i were to get my life to a better place from a practical standpoint i would almost definitely be thrown back into a worse mental state?

i’m trying to find a balance that allows me to have a decent life and decent mental health, but god, it’s hard to do when it would be so much easier and less exhausting to just stay stagnant forever and hold onto the relative peace that comes with that.

#tbh the only thing stopping me from staying like this forever #is 1) i hate not having money to get little serotonin trinkets with and 2) i Cannot keep living with my parents long term #also yes hello im not dead and neither is this blog #poss.speaks #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

psych assessment: do you ever feel like your thoughts aren’t actually your own?

me: no, never, absolutely not

also me: *regularly saying “shut up” out loud to my own thoughts because sometimes when i think bad things about myself i don’t actually mean to think them and they catch me off guard and it feels like someone else using my mind’s voice and i don’t like it so i have to tell the angry brain gremlin that now’s not the time*

#is this an avpd-is-maybe-schizospec thing or a schizotypal traits thing? the world may never know #either way my avoidance does tend to be...far more schizospec-flavored than i sometimes realize #and it took me way too long to realize that this counts as Thoughts Arent My Own shit #poss.speaks #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c #stpd #stpd traits #schizotypal traits #cluster a #schizotaxic #(<- that feels relevant since this is like. avpd/stpd ipseity disturbance related shit)

[avpdpossum]

sometimes avoidance is a very conscious and active thing but sometimes you don’t even know that it happened until much later. sometimes you just look back one day and realize you haven’t even thought about your dream job in 4 months because 4 months ago someone said something negative to you about it and that was all it took for your brain to throw the idea away. sometimes you think your life is going pretty well until someone asks you what you’ve been up to and you have no idea how to answer because you haven’t actually done anything in months.

#poss.speaks #feels #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

someone tweeted about how icebreaker activities can actually really hurt some ND people and so many people are getting mad about it saying that he’s “just looking for ways to be oppressed” and it’s so frustrating to me because as an avoidant, it just feels like a huge reminder of how many people don’t take the things i struggle with seriously.

there’s so many people saying things like “wow some people really think that being asked to do basic socialization is an attack on them” and, like, idk how to break this to them but my brain literally interprets attention from other people as a threat to my safety and reacts accordingly so yeah, it does cause me a lot of distress and exhaust me and degrade my mental health when i’m constantly being put on the spot and told to talk about myself to people without any chance to opt out.

i’ve had to leave classes on multiple occasions to go have a panic attack in the bathroom as a direct result of the “fun little icebreakers” we were told to do, because my brain does not know how to handle being forced into doing something where i could so easily say the wrong thing and embarrass myself in front of that many people.

it just. would be nice to be able to see someone talk about something that actually affects me without having to immediately see a barrage of people talking about how it’s a silly thing that no one would actually struggle with.

#hey yall im not dead nor is this account abandoned #i just have been very focused on other things lately #but i am still here! and do want to start posting more again #anyway enjoy this rant #poss.speaks #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

the AVPD criteria: “unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked”

what people think: so you just don’t want to talk to people who don’t like you? that’s normal, no one likes trying to be friends with someone and finding out they don’t like you, why would that be a symptom of anything?

what it actually feels like: i am Not Allowed To Speak Unless Spoken To. if i try to join this interaction before someone directly invites me into it, i will break some unspoken rule and they will hate me and i will be punished for it and it will ruin everything. i can’t say anything or do anything until someone tells me i’m allowed to, even if it means i lose this chance at connection that i want so desperately. if i make my existence known right now it will be directly threatening to my safety somehow so my brain has entered freeze mode about it. now i literally have no choice but to sit silently and pray that someone cares enough to invite me in, which i know they won’t because they think i just don’t want to interact with them and i am incapable of speaking up to prove them wrong

#this is my experience but im guessing its similar for other avoidants #poss.speaks #idk if i should count this as #feels #or #discussion #so theres both ig #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

i wish more educators saw graded participation and presentations as a legitimate accessibility issue.

i just read through the syllabus for the disability studies course i’m taking this semester and there are so many safeguards put in place to make the class accessible, but there’s still an assignment (worth a lot of points) that requires leading a class discussion, and participation in general is graded.

a disability studies course with a thoughtful professor and i’m still fucked because even a person whose job relies on making things accessible doesn’t seem to understand that some of us literally can’t just get up in front of a class and talk.

my avoidance is just as much of a disability as, say, my inattention or inability to write by hand, and those are accommodated just fine. a disability studies course of all things should not be putting me in this position.

#these things also affect people with unstable health who might not make it to class consistently #but even that’s addressed by other measures or policies for the most part #nothing for those of us who just cant do it to begin with though :) #being able to make up a thing i cant do at all doesnt help me! fuck this #poss.speaks #discussion #personal #vent #accessibility #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

me: avpd is something i’ll have forever. even if i learn how to manage it and accommodate it, it’ll always be part of the way my brain works and i’ll always have to deal with certain challenges that come with that. i have no interest in trying to reach “complete recovery” because that would require fundamentally changing my brain, and i would rather stay myself and learn how to live a good life with the brain i have.

my avoidance: starts becoming more prominent again after a period of time where it was easier to live with, resulting in the return of a lot of feelings i’d gotten used to not feeling so strongly, because having an easier time for a while doesn’t mean my lifelong neurodivergence has just disappeared.

me:

#i’ve been mostly dealing with more passive/less emotional avoidance lately #so those big feelings starting to come back? terrifying terrifying go away #yes avpd will be a lifelong struggle for me. yes i know and accept that. yes i am screaming crying clawing at the bars of my enclosure rn #i can understand my reality and still want to fight god for making it my reality sometimes #poss.speaks #personal #vent #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

this tiktok is so funny to me as someone whose primary mental health struggles are avpd and dissociation.

“mental illness is what happens when you’re the person who breaks the generational avoidance of pain and emotions” bestie my mental illnesses are must avoid everything disorder and nothing feels real disorder. if this was supposed to make me better at confronting and dealing with pain, it failed miserably.

like yeah, true, mental illness is often a result of generations of pain being passed down, but it’s less in a “we are the spiritual leaders chosen to break this generational curse” way and more in a “my parents treated me like shit because it was all they knew and it fundamentally changed the way my brains works” way (sometimes with a side of “my family’s brains all work differently in a way that i inherited because there’s some genetic component to it”).

dealing with generational pain and breaking my family’s cycle of avoidance isn’t something that i was ~born to do~; my mental illnesses don’t make me somehow uniquely suited to that task. it’s actually something that’s infinitely harder for me to do because of the ways my mind has been affected by those things, but which i have to do anyway because i’m too aware of it now to just let it continue unchallenged.

but sure, his version works too…as long as you pretend that mood and anxiety disorders are the only mental illnesses.

#maybe it’s inspiring to some people but i just had to laugh #im not a shaman or a healer im a possum. if shit gets stressful i freeze and do not unfreeze until the bad thing is gone #poss.speaks #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c #dissociation #depersonalization #derealization #dpdr #actually dpdr

[avpdpossum]

after seeing people write alternative criteria for their own personality disorders, i decided to try my hand at writing an alternative set of criteria for avpd that i think captures the experience of it better than the dsm criteria.

i’ve felt for a while that the dsm criteria aren’t great for communicating the entirety of what it’s like to be avoidant — they focus a lot on the external presentation, and don’t really give a super developed idea of what the internal experience is like. i also just think it’s better for the definitions of neurodivergencies to be in the hands of the people who live them every day rather than a bunch of doctors.

i decided to put it somewhere other than tumblr so that editing it in the future if i need to would be easier. if you have any questions about it, or if you also have avpd and want to suggest an edit/addition, feel free to message me! i’d love for it to eventually be more of a community effort than just a personal one.

#poss.speaks #resource #diagnosis #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

i might try to do a deep dive into the conflicted avoidant subtype at some point, and maybe the self-deserting subtype after that. every time i read the descriptions of them, i’m struck by how accurately they describe me, and i wish there was more info about the subtypes out there

#i know a lot of people don’t like the pd subtypes #and i agree with that when it comes to some of them #including one of the avoidant subtypes tbh #i definitely don’t think they should be treated as discrete categories where you can only belong to one (hence me relating to both of these) #but like. i can’t deny that these two make so much sense for me and i wish i could do more with that #poss.speaks #avoidant subtypes #subtypes #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

google search: how to stop secretly hoping i get fired from my job even though it pays really well and is really good experience and i mostly like the work i do there. i don’t want to get fired but god, it would be such a relief if i did, the idea of going in fills me with indescribable dread.

#fuck working let me be a hermit #how am i supposed to isolate myself in these conditions #poss.speaks #feels #personal #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c

[avpdpossum]

ah, the neverending cycle of disappointment of finding a person who makes good autistic content only to find out that one of their most popular posts talks about how evil narcissists are, my beloathed

#poss.speaks #as an autistic person i think i am qualified to say. far too many autistic people get thousands of views just by shitting on other ND people #half the time its under the guise of shitting on ‘evil neurotypicals’ like theyre not describing other forms of neurodivergence #like please some of us are also one of you. but also even if we werent get your shit together we are People Still #i just want to interact with my own community without worrying that i might be fucking crucified by it if i say too much #not avpd #vent #personal #npd #actually npd #actually narcissistic #narcissistic pd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b

[avpdpossum]

made some memes about the molotov cocktail of comorbidities that makes up my brain to procrastinate studying for finals, please enjoy

#poss.speaks #comorbidities #feels #avpd #npd #stpd #actually avpd #actually npd #actually stpd #actually avoidant #actually narcissistic #actually schizotypal #avoidant pd #narcissistic pd #schizotypal pd #avoidant personality disorder #narcissistic personality disorder #schizotypal personality disorder #cluster c #cluster b #cluster a #unreality

[avpdpossum]

“your self-diagnosis will never be as good as a professional diagnosis” yeah, my self-dx isn’t “as good” as a pro-dx would be, it’s better!

most psychs have spent maybe a few days maximum learning about the absolute basics of my diagnoses, while i’ve spent years taking in every bit of information i can find, including lots of information from the same sources they’d be using and more — chances are i know more about my diagnoses than the average psych ever will

psychs who do have more knowledge got that knowledge from deeply stigmatizing sources, and most have never bothered to learn from the people who actually live the experiences they claim to be experts in (ex. “npd experts” who actually just specialize in “evil abuser disease” or people like martin kantor)

a psych will never be able to know what’s going on in my head the way i can because they can’t read my mind, so even if i was able to articulate my internal experiences really well (which i’m not — i’m a semiverbal avoidant with often disorganized thoughts/speech; explaining something like that is hard if not impossible for me), hearing it secondhand can’t compare to the 20 years i’ve spent living it

the vast majority of psychs operate based on sanism and profit motive — they’re more than willing to take obscene amounts of my money, only to deny me a diagnosis based on not meeting some shitty stereotypes or say there’s no point in giving me a diagnosis if i don’t want a cure or give me the diagnosis and then have me put in a psych ward because my diagnoses make me one of those ~scary mentally ill people~ that none of them want to deal with

a misdiagnosis from a psych could potentially lead to me being put through intensive therapies or put on medication for the wrong thing, which can have very bad results, and the label might stay on my medical record even after being proven wrong; if my personal assessment is wrong, nothing happens — no one gets hurt, i just go “oops, nevermind”, keep whatever useful things i learned from it in my “toolbox”, stop using the label itself, and move on with life

coming to my own understanding of how my brain works and using the labels that actually make sense to me means i actually get to have some autonomy for once — i get a community of people who understand my experiences and a better understanding of how to manage my symptoms and accommodate myself, without having to fear things like forced treatment or intensified discrimination

the idea that my neurotype makes me incapable of self-awareness and introspection is ridiculous — some people might feel that way about their own situations and need to rely on outside assessment as a result, but that experience is not universal

my understanding of my own mind is NOT second-rate compared to a psych’s, and i don’t need to put myself at risk just for a stranger to tell me what i already know

#sorry for how long my posts have been recently djsjd #like i said in the post articulating stuff is hard so sometimes it takes me A While to explain things well enough to post them #im Trying to break them up well enough that theyre not unreadable walls of text but ik they might still be hard for some people #poss.speaks #personal #discussion #not avpd #(well...its not Not about avpd but its not Directly related) #self diagnosis #pro self diagnosis #pro self dx #psych critical #anti psych #anti psychiatry #time for the Generic Disorder Tags™️ #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c #npd #actually npd #actually narcissistic #narcissistic pd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b #stpd #actually stpd #actually schizotypal

[avpdpossum]

if you can understand why i don’t want a “cure” for my autism or adhd, you should be able to understand why i don’t want one for my personality disorders

if you can understand that autism and adhd are just part of how my brain works, and that trying to “fix” them and make them go away would be detrimental to my mental health, you should understand that the same logic applies to my personality disorders

if you can understand that learning to manage, accommodate, and coexist with my potentially problematic/distressing autistic and adhd traits is far more healthy and effective than trying to erase them completely, you should understand that the same logic applies to my personality disorders’ potentially problematic/distressing traits

if you can understand that i don’t want to get rid of my autism or adhd because i would be a completely different person without them, you should understand that i don’t want to get rid of my personality disorders for the same reason

sure, some pwPDs do want a cure, they do want recovery, and they have every right to feel that way, but those of us who don’t want that also have every right to just exist and not be told to “fix ourselves” at every turn

if you believe that embracing neurodiversity is a good thing, you have to apply that to all types of neurodiversity, not just a few

#poss.speaks #discussion #community #comorbidities #avpd #actually avpd #actually avoidant #avoidant pd #avoidant personality disorder #cluster c #npd #actually npd #actually narcissistic #narcissistic pd #narcissistic personality disorder #cluster b #stpd #actually stpd #actually schizotypal #schizotypal pd #schizotypal personality disorder #cluster a #autistic #actually autistic #adhd #actually adhd #neurodiversity