i've been thinking and i think i have a theory about avpd based on all the things i've been reading and listening to lately.
i think avpd consists of/comes to be because of these things:
initial traumatic experience (that included some kind of rejection or ostracization)
no healthy way to process trauma or co-regulate with anyone
dissociation from the "real you" (it is associated with shame due to initial trauma, but also perhaps out of self-protection)
coping mechanism to make up for dissociated "real you" (masking, agoraphobia, social anxiety, co-dependency and/or enmeshment ("safe person"),...)
relational self via the "real you" remains underdeveloped or not there at all (so this could be b/c of masking, not engaging at all, ...)
lacking experiences of being "experienced by another person" as described in the infamous article/study as well as this post and this post.
this then spirals into the known avpd symptoms
the dissociation part is the important part though. i think this is key. the reason why people with avpd report this feeling of not being there, feeling invisible, etc... is because of this i think. for me i always felt like i was a robot or running on a "low flame". and when i use the term "dissociation" i'm using it as it is used in trauma and cptsd circles. a kind of detachment and separation from our own true being, feelings, thoughts, etc...
and when you're dissociated, it's hard to truly interact with people and practice that relational self muscle. instead, if you even have relationships with others, they are superficial, involve a lot of masking & mirroring and can only be kept up for so long, because that is exhausting in the long run. it's impossible to be genuine or vulnerable when you're not really there and not really being honest for the fear of repeating the trauma (shame and fear). and the more time passes with us desperately trying to engage others without our "real self" being in the drivers seat, the more we feel out of sync with everyone else and the more the formation of our relational self suffers and remains underdeveloped or not there at all. everything begins to compound into the known symptoms.
i don't know i've been going through old stuff (journals and letters) of mine and i'm so confused, but i'm trying to think through it all in the hopes of finding a way out. as always. 🥲 maybe the theory makes sense to others, too?
at the heart of the suffering with avpd is suspicion. suspicion of the world around us, the people around us, their actions and what they means for us and potentially our safety. every micro-expression, unconscious body language is taken apart and evaluated.
in my case, it is from here that everything else fans out. avoidance, hypervigilence, anxiety to do the simplest things such as run errands, talking on the phone, sending job applications, interacting with people, epecially new people... at the core of it all is the suspicion that nothing is as it seems. that there is some plot i am unaware of and need to stay away from.
pre-avpd, i was still a child, i never thought i was important enough or had done anything egregious enough to warrant anyone “plotting” against me. it just didn’t make sense. i was not a bully, i was not popular enough to warrant jealousy from other kids. i was just average and had no enemies to speak of, who does at eleven?
i think it is because of this (and my trigger, explained here) that my mind grew overly suspicious of everyone and everything. if there had been something to explain the behaviour of my bullies, outside of the fact that they just didn’t like me, i think i would have been able to stomach it better, i don’t know. but there was no reason behind their bullying, which meant from then on, my brain was going to watch out and try to protect me from anyone and everything. whether i liked it or not.
it is normal to be nervous when interacting with new people, whether we’re kids or grown ups. after all as humans, we natually do not want to be rejected or abandoned by the group. as a “former” extrovert i still remember the thrill of walking up to kids on the playground or at family gatherings excited that i had found someone to play with. however, the thrill/fear that i felt then was small and didn’t stop me from interacting, i just pushed through it. and even if there was rejection and they didn’t want to play, the rejection didn’t linger, i would simply find someone else, or play on my own in the meantime.
however, post-avpd, my mind has never been the same and it started slowly. after that summer, we moved again and i changed schools again. i remember telling myself that this time things would be different, after all i had finally left those insufferable girls behind me. in fact i remember walking up to them, after all that had happened, and telling them that i would be moving away soon and wouldn’t have to deal with their bullshit anymore. lil eleven year old me actually told off her bullies, can you imagine?!
anyway, the new school full of new kids was upon me, but i just couldn’t stop the programing that was suddenly running in the back of my brain. suspicion.exe had been started and there was no way to turn it off. every friendly face i encountered felt like it might be hiding a smirk, like it might just be a ploy to get me to let my guard down. after all, exactly that had just happened and it had nearly cost me my life. how was i to know what was genuine and what was a plot? i kept my guard up and slowly turned cold.
i’m sure puberty hormones as well as age played into this as well, but i also became extremely fearful of humiliation and embarassment. not exactly the best thing when you’re at an age where you’re supposed to be learning to make mistakes, grow up and do many things for the first time. but mistakes = embarassment and potential for humiliation. and that meant possible rejection, abandonment or even worse, so the avoidance slowly crept in. i started avoiding other kids, activities, places, etc... unless i was 100% sure i would be safe somehow.
my mother said she observed me, the playground aficionado and lover of swings and slides everywhere, back away from one and insist on going home when i saw a group of kids there. this had been unheard of before, but she just assumed i was growing older and didn’t want to play childishly anymore. little did she know that everything had become a potential trap for humiliation to me, speaking to other kids, speaking to boys, saying something in class, etc...
a few years after that, i viscerally remember being afraid to order something from mcdonalds on my own. this is coming from someone who had spent every visit as a child in those god forsaken ballpits. but suddenly, i just couldn’t, couldn’t even go inside the restaurant. just picturing myself going to mcdonalds, set me off and made me feel ill. if it hadn’t been for a friend who unknowingly gave me a tutorial on how to do it, i would never have stepped foot in one ever again.
making friends became hell, because i seemingly couldn’t read people anymore, couldn’t decide whom to trust and whom not to. in fact, pre-avpd trust had never even crossed my mind. we either got along or we didn’t. if we did we were friends, otherwise we weren’t, no hard feelings. now, i suddenly found myself trying to figure out whom it was even safe to even talk to and whom not. all the while suspicion.exe rattled away in my brain, constantly making me feel i was in danger. looking back, i can say that every friendship i have ever had since (an they are not many), has been somewhat onesided from my end. i never revealed my true feelings, fears and problems, since those too were potential sources of humiliation. and i didn’t trust anyone enough to not use that against me. even though i had several bffs during my teen years, girls with whom i hung out one on one for years on end, i can say that non of them knew what was actually going on in my head, because i never told them. i wore a mask, a mask that was essentially me but watered down, and nothing real ever came to the surface. in fact this level of trust, that you could just tell your friend what you are really thinking and feeling or whom you have a crush on or some other secret thing, is alien to me now that i think about it.
a lot has happened since then obviously, i’ll probably return to this subject again, to explain how suspicion has affected me since. but i can sadly say that that programing is still running today. with other settings of course, but it’s still there. i should also add, none of this was conscious. i was doing all these things, but i wasn’t even aware. only in looking back am i able to connect the dots like this.
avpd also carries with it, this inability to properly connect with people in a deeper level. maybe inability isn't the right word, but the process of forming these deep connections with others is impaired by thoughts and feelings linked to shame, fears of rejection. to the point where dealing with people becomes a chore of sorts, you kind of just want to get through it and come out on the other side, unscathed. you kind of think people are out to get and judge you, so you're not open, you're perhaps pretending or you outright avoid. you never connect on a deep level, you just interact and try to do the accepted "actions" that go with socializing, but never beyond that. and then you ghost and move on.
i was at my parents this weekend house and found a whole bunch of old letters i had received at ages 12/13 when i still had pen pals. and i had completely forgotten about these people. the amount of care they went through to keep in touch with me. i forgot that my childhood friend, who had moved to another country, had kept in touch with me for so long.
i ended up ghosting all these people mainly b/c i felt like they won't miss me anyway, i'm just a burden/nuisance. and because it felt like a chore to keep up with them, to keep up the facade. i also always felt slightly inadequate, like i can't keep up with them like i'm some kind of (emotional) eye-sore. so why bother, they're better off without me and have probably already forgotten me anyway?
but people cared and wrote me letters. it's weird, the feeling is weird.
i feel like i'm empty and have no true personality. like all i do is reflect back, mirror and mask with no true content within me. no anchor or own inner person.
or maybe not one that i feel safe truly expressing. i've been looking into frantz fanon and dubois' ideas of dissociated split person due to racism and racist experiences and my brain feels fucked. i'm also feeling scared, like it's impossible to recover or just get to a better, more manageable place.
these algorithms are getting out of hand... spotify made an an "Avoidant Mix" for me and it's not even half bad. not sure what the criteria are for picking "avoidant songs" but here we are.
if you search "made for you" and select playlists, you can see the other lists made for you. a selection of my more strange mixes include:
anti-anxiety mix
lonely sad mix
angry mix
dark and moody mix
witchcore mix
milk mix (this one just has some rnb songs i like???)
There are filters in my perception that stand between true reaction from others and what arrives my brain/remains in my memory. The filter is like a liar, always willing to corrupt information I‘m taking in. While "it" lies to protect me (trauma reaction) it‘s also debilitating over time.
It is said people with avpd tend to over-interpret what they take in: facial expressions, pitch, tone, body language, etc… It can even go as far as magical thinking, assuming to know what others think about oneself, even though they haven’t said anything outloud. I think that is the filter.
But I also think the filter is there for a reason. We have been let down and it might have come from unexpected places such as parents or supposed friends. It‘s easier to assume everything is awful anyway and guard against that, than having to navigate emotional eggshells constantly expecting the worst from those closest to us. The problem however with always assuming the worst is it wears you down slowly over time. And it makes even simple relationships with others very hard. It‘s a self-fulfiling prophecy.
new realization: i only hate myself when i compare myself of when i try to live up to other’s idea of me or who i should be. but i don’t really hate me me. just the feeling that i’m not enough as i am, creates the self-abandoning and and self-loathing thoughts.
solution: don’t live for others? especially those who’s opinion doesn’t matter anyway and you don’t care about anyway?
the only thing that is left is my lack of feeling safe. sometimes i care about random people‘s image of me because i feel unsafe and i guess hope that i can keep safe by influencing/living up a certain image of me?
but i‘ve started caring less and less about that too.
i have been thinking about things like shame and where it stems from and, for me specifically, it's link to racism. yesterday i listened to the newest episode of this american life, which featured the story of a nigerian medical student who had been studying in ukraine when the war broke out. he recounted what studying there had been like previously, and how he eventually managed to flee. one of the things that stuck out to me was his story on how he was treated throughout the ordeal, including not being let on trains that took off with empty seats, being sent back to lines numerous times or not being shown any empathy by his fellow humans. it wasn't something he was used to. i already knew the facts about the plight of african students trapped in ukraine, however, him recounting in detail how all of that felt for him, was an entirely different thing.
he said he became aware that the way he saw himself as a person, a nerdy, studious medical student with a bright future, did not align with how his surroundings suddenly perceived him: as an african man. on top of having to flee real life danger, it was the humiliation in this treatment, despite him following all rules and cooperating with everyone, that hit him hard. this man had only arrived in europe last summer and had until then never experienced being mistreated for being black before.
what is shame?
this is where my little theory comes in. by definition shame is feeling bad about who we are, not our actions, but who we are as a person. i think the way we humans make sense of who we are is based on two things, our self-perception of who we are and confirmation by others around us that we are who/what we think we are. i believe those things have to be in equilibrium, if not we feel unbalanced, shame, etc... i also think that we take the confirmation by others very seriously because we are social beings. meaning: the opinion of the community will always weigh heavier on us, even if we actively reject it, even if we know it to be wrong.
a simple example: if i know myself to be a great dancer, go to party and strut my moves and everybody is delighted, then that confirms what i thought about myself and i feel good. if however the opposite happens, i might feel embarrassed or even worse because what i thought about myself isn't actually true. what do i do now? i can either decide to accept that i'm not a good dancer, but still do it anyway, i can decide maybe dancing isn't for me after all, or i can take up classes to improve my dancing. either one of these things is about bringing self-perception and "group-perception" back into equilibrium.
but what happens when we cannot rely on the people around us? what if we live in a world in which how people think about us (as black people) has already been predefined and is inherently wrong? it would mean that how we see ourselves is forever at odds with how the community at large sees (and treats) us, and that we are trapped in an uphill battle. constantly either adjusting our self-perception or trying to adjust their perception by proving, that what they have been told is wrong and what they are doing is wrong. it means potentially being trapped in a shame spiral.
when rejection by the group happens, despite one not having done anything wrong, and despite knowing that one's own self-perception is different from what they think, one will eventually turn inwards in an effort to find a solution. being black is not something you can (or should have to) undo, it's not something you can stop being or get better at, like dancing. there is no way of outrunning racist stereotypes. and it is hard to always hold against the group-perception, because it weighs heavier by definition. human beings want to be accepted by their peers and want to be included in groups (whoever these groups may be) because (pre-) historically this meant safety. so eventually we begin to ask: maybe there is something wrong with me? there must be, otherwise this wouldn't be happening. or we begin to withdraw from groups in order to preserve ourselves.
internalizing (even toxic beliefs) is the brain desperately trying to cope with this imbalance. "well, if it isn't those out there who are wrong, it must be me." so you either begin to feel like you are what they say you are (shame), leave to exist outside the group (avoidance) or actively become what they claim (self-sabotage). maybe all three are possible at the same time, too.
knowing that the hate and misunderstanding is deliberate doesn't change much either, because that just reinforces your otherness and how much you don't belong to the group. you can go through life day after day, angry about how the group has rejected you, and knowing they are wrong to do so, but that inner balance is still askew, you still have the desire to be truly seen and understood, because you are human. it is a human necessity to be truly seen and accepted by those around us.
how to heal?
as always this is the part that i find hardest, because if i already knew how to heal, i would have done it. but i feel like for me personally, at least i now know where my shame stems from. where my fear of rejection and humiliation lies. and perhaps that can also lead me to disarm it and heal. obviously, i'm planning to move to africa eventually, but until then i still have to get through life. and i would like to do so in a state of being content and somewhat happy.
