Having this Avoidant thing inside is a constant battle. I am always having to examine everything I say and do. I am married and have a daughter. Anything that comes from the Avoidant could be wrong, wreck the marriage and even my relationship with my daughter.
Its like walking on egg shells 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I cannot not be in my guard. If I let it down even for a second, the Avoidant could rise up and cause problems. All this treading lightly is very tiresome. In the last 10 years since I have been married. I have gone from a nice head of brown hair to a much thinner receding head of grey.
I am not saying in any way that marriage has not been good or worth it. In fact, I will say just the opposite. If it was not for my wife and child, I think it very possible, or even probable, that the Avoidant would have completely taken over in my life. Its only this constant battle that I have to be aware of that lets me stay in control and keep the Avoidant at bay.
What I am battling here lately are Black outs. I do not know if these are caused by the Avoidant, or the epilepsy that I had as a child, or a combo of both. I have had these all my life. I had an episode in the military at Lackland AFB. I had just graduated from Basic Training.
My parents drove to San Antonio to see me. We went off base and toured the city. But all this was unknown to me. A few weeks later was Christmas. I was looking at a photo album and noticed some pictures with me in it. I did not recognize them. It was like looking at a total strangers pics. My parents were in the pics as well and it looked like San Antonio.
I asked my parents about them and they told me that it was our day in San Antonio ofter graduation from Basic Training. I had no idea. It was an entire day that was missing from my life. To this day, I have no memory of this.
I have had other episodes like this throughout my life. I plan on going to the VA to get it looked at. I have no clue what to expect or if anything will come of it at all. Those out there that are Avoidants should be able to empathize on this.
I fear going to the VA. What if they find something? What if they do not find something? Either scenario seems just as bad.
This is my log of my issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder and others like it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyKSgW-IeaK851gvIjjthije0kOwg3tZxVqKXSC1xXg/viewform I am trying to get more information on this disorder so that we can find commonalities. Perhaps if we can learn more about this, we can figure out how to combat it and get better lives for us all.
Avoidant Personality
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Avoidants gets a bad rap
I have dealt with having Avoidant Personality for a long long time. There are certain things that I know to aviod. These things are triggers to make things worse and cause flare ups. I know this, but my wife does not. She has learned a lot about me and deals with it very well.
But there are just some things that I fear she may never get or really understand. I cant really talk to her about it because she will just tell me to get over it. The famous last words that we Avoidants seem to hear all the time. "Just Get Over it"
Trust me, and us, if it was that easy, we would have done it years ago. But the reality is that we cant just Get Over It. This would be like telling an Orange to quit being an Orange. An orange cant quit being an orange. Its just not possible.
Its also not possible for us to just Get Over It. It just does not work that way. No more than someone with cancer can just will that they are not going to have cancer anymore. The benefit, if I can call it that, of having a physical illness is that people can see it and have sympathy for you.
If one does have cancer, this has physical symptoms that others can see. They then make certain allowances for it because they can see that the person with the cancer cant do certain things.
Unfortunately, when someone, like us, has a mental issue, it cannot be seen. There are no physical symptoms that others can grab ahold of and have empathy for. So when we have issues, they are often seen as something that should be able to be got over.
Such is the case with last night. I was all set for a normal evening of maybe some computer work, maybe some outside work, and some good TV watching. Then the people down the street messaged that they wanted to come talk to us. Our daughter and their daughter are good friends. They wanted to take our daughter with them on an overnight camping trip. They wanted to come talk to us about this in an attempt to convince us that it was ok.
The Avoidant in me does not like last minute surprises. And its even worse when the surprise is company. And worse still when the company wants to sell me something. Which in this case, they wanted to sell me that they could take my daughter on a camping trip. Then worse still when it involves wanting to take my daughter with them.
So, when the company came over, the Avoidant was prepared for battle. It was not going to behave or be nice or communicative. This is exactly what happened. And as expected, after the company left, my wife was not happy. She told me what I did wrong and had this scowl on her face that I could have been better.
I dared not try to tell her why as I did not want to be told to just Get Over it. So goes the life of an Avoidant that is married to a normal. I wish there was a way to help her understand more, but I am not sure there it. Its one of those things that until you have lived it. its just not possible to really understand.
To be fair, my wife does very well. She does try I know. But its just hard for her to really get it. Avoidants have no real physical symptoms, so there is nothing for her to see as an illness that she can feel sorry for and relate to. Sometimes I wish I did have cancer so that she could actually get it and feel sorry for me.
This is my log of my issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder and others like it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyKSgW-IeaK851gvIjjthije0kOwg3tZxVqKXSC1xXg/viewform I am trying to get more information on this disorder so that we can find commonalities. Perhaps if we can learn more about this, we can figure out how to combat it and get better lives for us all.
But there are just some things that I fear she may never get or really understand. I cant really talk to her about it because she will just tell me to get over it. The famous last words that we Avoidants seem to hear all the time. "Just Get Over it"
Trust me, and us, if it was that easy, we would have done it years ago. But the reality is that we cant just Get Over It. This would be like telling an Orange to quit being an Orange. An orange cant quit being an orange. Its just not possible.
Its also not possible for us to just Get Over It. It just does not work that way. No more than someone with cancer can just will that they are not going to have cancer anymore. The benefit, if I can call it that, of having a physical illness is that people can see it and have sympathy for you.
If one does have cancer, this has physical symptoms that others can see. They then make certain allowances for it because they can see that the person with the cancer cant do certain things.
Unfortunately, when someone, like us, has a mental issue, it cannot be seen. There are no physical symptoms that others can grab ahold of and have empathy for. So when we have issues, they are often seen as something that should be able to be got over.
Such is the case with last night. I was all set for a normal evening of maybe some computer work, maybe some outside work, and some good TV watching. Then the people down the street messaged that they wanted to come talk to us. Our daughter and their daughter are good friends. They wanted to take our daughter with them on an overnight camping trip. They wanted to come talk to us about this in an attempt to convince us that it was ok.
The Avoidant in me does not like last minute surprises. And its even worse when the surprise is company. And worse still when the company wants to sell me something. Which in this case, they wanted to sell me that they could take my daughter on a camping trip. Then worse still when it involves wanting to take my daughter with them.
So, when the company came over, the Avoidant was prepared for battle. It was not going to behave or be nice or communicative. This is exactly what happened. And as expected, after the company left, my wife was not happy. She told me what I did wrong and had this scowl on her face that I could have been better.
I dared not try to tell her why as I did not want to be told to just Get Over it. So goes the life of an Avoidant that is married to a normal. I wish there was a way to help her understand more, but I am not sure there it. Its one of those things that until you have lived it. its just not possible to really understand.
To be fair, my wife does very well. She does try I know. But its just hard for her to really get it. Avoidants have no real physical symptoms, so there is nothing for her to see as an illness that she can feel sorry for and relate to. Sometimes I wish I did have cancer so that she could actually get it and feel sorry for me.
This is my log of my issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also struggling with this disorder and others like it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1tyKSgW-IeaK851gvIjjthije0kOwg3tZxVqKXSC1xXg/viewform I am trying to get more information on this disorder so that we can find commonalities. Perhaps if we can learn more about this, we can figure out how to combat it and get better lives for us all.
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