Diagnoses and being ready for change

I wanted to give some of my thoughts, observations and hopefully something that might help? Please excuse my spelling and sentence structures as im not very intelligent.

Ever have that "I know that there is something wrong with me but don't know what?' Well, the only way the shed those thoughts and feelings is to find out who you are, which of course comes with diagnoses.

I guess my diagnoses was the furthest from my mind (which took over 9 months btw) and upon diagnoses i still had no idea to what it was.

I see allot of avie's unknown to them use distraction to keep their head above water. Always moving onto the next thing to stop the avoidance catching up and swallowing them.. always scared of the unknown.

Once diagnosed all it does is give you a connection and a reason to who you are and what makes you tick..... It doesn't mean you're cured all it does is give a name.
I read those who say "oh its just a label" and that to me shows that this is as far as they have come in their journey and have progressed no further.

Allot of people will then sit on the diagnoses without going forward or back and this is because they are still using distraction, always bouncing to the next idea.. always trying to stay one step ahead of the unknown (as i have mentioned above) they might use distraction for many years as that all depends on their social situation, till eventually they have run out of excuses. These excuses and distractions don't have the strength they once had so they spiral and go into a dark place.

The lack of excuses, the lack of distractions put you squarely in the hands of your psych.
Now IMHO until you have nothing, until you are lost to who you are will be the only time you are ready. I'm sure that will come up for debate but im talking about Avoidance.

You cannot change who you are until you are desperate and lost, and in need for help. You can have the best advice in the world but if your not desperate enough... it will just fall on deaf ears... hence being mentally ready.

Until you are ready and desperate enough all you will do is dig a deeper hole using distraction as a shovel. Now, i think this is also a important part of growth because its slowly running you down till you are mentally broken.

I see it as that you can't change a strong brain, so it has to be burnt out.

Rock bottom, well i guess there are different experiences.
This is my thoughts
Anyone who tells you that they are at rock bottom ISNT!!!
Those who have been will talk about the recovery.

Rock bottom well, who knows how long you have to stay there but its a important part of growth as its letting go of defenses. You're effectively trying to break and let go of a life time of built in automatic reactions and responses.

From here you still have to work your way back with lots of failures, though the saving grace is that you start fresh on your own (well with the psych) but its only you who does the work....

The psych gives you the energy and someone to fall back on... but it is ultimately you to get back to where you started off from.
YES, FROM WHERE YOU STARTED FROM!....

But what has changed is that you know who you are and what makes you tick, all the excuses that fed the avoidance aren't as strong. Its like your back to where you once were but better mentally prepared to who you are.
This stronger mindset lets you balance the avoidance thoughts with where the thoughts are coming from and in doing so building a stronger threshold.

Yes, you're still an avie with a million thoughts bouncing around your head but you can handle situations better than you once did.

As a negative what i have noticed is that over time that strength isn't as strong as it once was.
Its normal to be in constant thought but where i was welcoming these thoughts because i found Avoidance interesting i wanted to better understand the avoidance and put thoughts to actions to reasons blar, blar, blar.. these days that thirst is slowly subsiding and every available space in the head is filling with Avoidance.

Hopefully this helps or gives insight or gives discussion.

I welcome those within the AvPD family with responses if they so choose to. Those with different personalities if I could politely ask you to refrain so we can keep it as an AvPD topic.

I agree with what you're saying, that the diagnosis is just showing you where the starting line is.

Rock bottom for avoidants is pretty far down. Avoidants avoid help, so you have to have nothing left, no other sources of fuel, before you can really look at what's going on, peel the avoidant thoughts back, and choose how you will respond instead of just reacting. That said, I still don't think fear is a valid excuse to avoid a diagnosis.

It is true that when you know what's going on, it has less power over you. I, too, had never heard of AvPD when I was diagnosed. When I learned about it, I had something to fight back against all the thoughts that I was weird and wrong and a bad human being. No, I am a different human being, and I'm not a unique freak, and it's not a series poor choices I'm making to be this way, the same as everyone else with AvPD.

I think that traditional CBT therapy is not infallible - it just doesn't do enough. Obviously, there hasn't been much research on avoidant people, so the therapists and psychs are kind of working blind, and are missing some gaps that avoidant people have. We're never going to speak up about them, after all.

I think learning about yourself, and learning what thoughts are avoidant vs authentic and how to tell the difference, I think that's only part of what needs to be done. It does give you a boost of confidence - suddenly the world makes a little more sense - but that can actually end up biting you. You might start to reach out to people, but you've had no experience learning what makes someone trustworthy because you've never done it before, so you're vulnerable to be victimized by people who seem nice on the surface. Then the problem with that is, when that happens you start to second guess yourself again, and backslide.

It's too bad you feel like you are cycling back into avoidance Snap. That flies in the face of the theory that PD's get better as we age. It does appear that avoidance is something that we have to constantly work on to maintain our progress, either by learning more about it or having fewer interactions with people. I doubt either of those options are available to you, or you would have done them. Despite your protestations, I think you're pretty intelligent and you're not just sitting around unaware. Perhaps looking into non-avoidant human nature so you can feel less vulnerable? You've learned how you tick, if you learn more about how other people tick, maybe the combination can help keep the avoidance at bay.

*cough, cough*, sorry to put my nose here. Only to give you a hug!

Of course this is all your personal journey .

But I feel no one has to hit rock bottom to find help, people all over the world are getting help and its working for them.

Maybe you needed to hit " rock bottom" before you could find what you needed to improve your life.

I wish you the best.

I'm fine, I don't need a hug.
I just wanted to talk more about this subject. Sorry if it sounded heavy.

I agree that no one has to hit rock bottom before they find help... but finding help isn't enough to change... well, the person may change initially but then they will be defaulted back into their usual behavior.
I feel this is the strength of a personality disorder.
Remembering that its being brewing from early childhood so its not as if its something that can be switched to a different mode and if it can its not a personality disorder.

You can't change a strong brain...sure its a maladative brain but strong none the less... this is why i think you have to fall.

My psych would be the first to tell you that CBT is a waste of time on me. lol.
Maybe perfect on others!!!

That's always going to happen. The only approach i used was to learn more about the disorder using myself as the monkey and the scientist.
My interest in the disorder after years of being in the dark pushed me to learn as much as I could because I find it interesting and easy to understand as it (hopefully that doesn't sound rude or disrespectful) What I started noticing patterns in avies, yes, we are all different because we have other traits woven into us, but we are still connected by a common thread.

Getting better with age...
I think we condense and accept less than we once did.

The purpose of this thread is to shed some light for avies to provoke thought and understanding... and it may help partners of Avies who start to see their partner drifting away from them.
How I'm feeling isn't of concern and this thread and isn't to be read that way as I just wanted to show a larger picture of AvPD.