nowhere: all-encompassing was PRECISELY the word I was trying to think of!! It was right there at the tip of my mind but I couldn't get to it!

As I said in my first post... I view social anxiety as situation-specific. I did not say performance-specific, although that is what the quote said. Quite frankly, it's a lot easier to find information from DSM IV. With social anxiety, there are situations (sometimes many, sometimes few) that cause someone anxiety. With AvPD, it is more invasive - there isn't really a let up.

With AvPD there's more issues in the core of the person - their entire self-concept is basically faulty. Inherently AvPD believes that everything about themselves is wrong and worthless and that no one would ever care for them. Social anxiety is more a fear/anxiouness over what other people will think of whatever it is the person is doing.

I think it's more of a slight difference in thinking.

SA: "What if I trip while on the dance floor? Or step on someone's foot? Or bump into someone's drink? People will think I'm such a klutz! I'm never going to be able to that club again if I do!"

AvPD: "What if people see me dancing? I'm going to be the only person there who can't dance, and no one will ever like me. Anyone I'm there with will hate me because they'll see what a horrible person I am, because I don't know how to do something simple like dance. No one would ever want to even get a drink with me again!"

That's basically how I view the difference. SA is more of a fear of being viewed negatively in a certain way. AvPD associates pretty much everything with the same reaction - that they'll be exposed as a human being who is always inferior.

Not sure if that makes sense. It's clearly easy to swap the two around hence the debate with the diagnosis.

But you are asking for our opinions, and not for the interpretation of a professional. If you already know so much then I'm not really sure why you're asking. It's hard to put out my own thoughts and interpretations, and I'm rather freaked out about responding a second time as you decided to take the quote I gave you and twist my own words around....

ETA: I will also go through and tell you my thoughts and feelings about myself while writing these two posts, which is pretty close to how I feel about every post I ever make:

- I'm an idiot for even trying to help
- everyone else will have much better responses
- I will never think of the right words to express what I'm trying to say
- the other person must think I'm rude and *****y for saying something
- I don't know what I'm talking about
- I shouldn't waste someone's time with writing to them because nothing I say is going to be good
- I'm annoying
- I write too much/too little - I should be able to explain my thoughts concisely
- someone will be mad at me for saying something that disagrees with them
- I should delete my post
- I should delete my account so that they'll never have to see me again
etc etc