Things have gotten better

The other day, my wife told me that I should write about how I have progressed over the years. She is right, as she usually is. As far as I know, no one really knows the cause of Avoidant Persoanlity. Im guessing its genetic, past down from the parents to their children. But in my life, there are events that I can point to that have made the condition much much worse. I am speaking of my time in the military. I will write about that next time.

When I go out of the military, I was a mess. I remember going to the mall. It was such a horrible experience. I felt like my mind was being split to everyone in the mall. It is like my mind was trying to evaluate everyone around me for threat levels. Anyone that was considered in my mind as a threat, which was most of them, would have to be avoided.

I would get so paranoid and overwhelmed with all this that I would have to leave after a pretty short time. When my wife and I 1st got married, we would fight a lot. Just about non-stop. Its a wonder that we survived at all.

We have been married for 9 year now. Its been almost 20 years since I left the military.
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Now I can go to the mall like normal people. Well almost. After about an hour or so, I will start to feel overwhelmed, but not as bad as before. I know when its time to go. But I do still have this very annoying thing. When I am on the 2nd floor of the mall, I have this small nagging thing in my mind that says to jump over the rail to the bottom floor. Its very annoying but of course is not gong to happen. But I do wonder as I get older if it will become a problem. When people get older, they tend to lose a bit of their mind control and sometimes do weird things. Especially if they go into Dementia or even full on Alzheimers.

I can meet people, but I still avoid large crowds. The larger the crowd, the more reserved I am. But its far better than it once was. I still think about trying to get help. If I knew of someone that I thought could help, I would try it. I have tried going to shrinks, but they seem to be of little if any help. I don't want to go to someone that has learned what an Avoidant is from a book and thinks they know how to treat it. I want to go to someone that is, or has been, an Avoidant.

Unless someone has lived being an Avoidant, I don't think they could help. They would not know what its really like to live with the disorder so I don't think they could possibly understand how to deal with it. So if I can find someone like this, I will certainly seek them out. But until then, I think God is my best choice. He is of course the best choice anyway, but God gives the ability to heal to docs and such.

I wished that I had contact with all Avoidants or as many as possible. But I don't know if this is possible. The very nature of being an avoid ant is to avoid things. Many Avoidants might not even bother being on-line. Many more probably don't actively search for help. Many more don't even know that they are an avoidant.

What I would like to know from other Avoidants is what they think caused their condition, if they have days that are better than others, and if anything seems to help.

For example, for me, I have found that certain vitamins help a lot. In fact, my wife calls them my "Happy Pills". They are from Advocare and are called MSN Max E. They are a bit expensive, but they are the only thing I have ever found that really helps. When I take these vitamins, I feel better. Some days I feel almost normal. (Though I am not sure what being normal actually feels like)

These are not magic pills. They don't magically take away the fear, the anxiety, the social awkwardness etc..., but they do take the edge off and on some days even more.

I have a poor diet. I don't eat veggies and very little fruit. So I would love to know if a poor diet is something that others Avoidants have. If that is the case that having a poor diet is a cause or contributing factor for this problem, then simply improving ones diet or taking good quality vitamins like Advocare might solve, or at least help.


If anyone out that knows how to contact more Avoidants and get the word out about this, I would appreciate it.





This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

What is an Avoidant Personality??

Since I have put my condition out there for everyone to see, I thought it might be a good idea to post on what an Avoidant Personality is.

There is lots of info on there on what it is to be an Avoidant. All you have to do is Google it. Here is a pretty good web site on it.

But what you won't find on most of these web sites is what it means to be one. What is it like to live, eat, and breathe as an Avoidant.

Basically, an Avoidant Personality is one that avoids relationships because because they don't know how to deal with them. The small things that most of you take for grantite are completely foreign to an Avoidant. Things like:

How to start a conversation
How to stop a conversation
How to approach someone to be friends
How to approach someone to ask for a date
What to do with your hands while you are talking
and on and on it goes

The funny thing is, that on my good days, you might never know I am an Avoidant. Even on my bad days, I can fool ya. I have gotten very good at hiding my condition. I can even fool professionals. I am really that good.

Its a bit like being 2 different people. On my good days, when I feel halfway normal, I am the good Christian Pastor. On my bad days, when the Avoidant is in full swing, I am so far gone, I am barely here.

I have had days when i felt completely disconnected. On these days, Its like watching a movie. There is someone else carrying out my life and all I can do is watch them. I am floating off in the distance somewhere,

I have lived this way for so long, that I really have no idea what its like to be "Normal". People scare me. Everyone frightens me including my wife. I fear all authority figures. When I am with people I cower, I don't look at them in the eye. I feel like everyone is superior to me. I feel like everyone is out to get me. Even kids are better than me.

I was diagnosed with this when I was in the Military. I went to a shrink and she diagnosed me with this disorder. I do have good days, which you will also read in my blog.I do have a few days when I feel almost good. Days when I can talk and relate to people. But the vast majority of days and ones that I can't function as a normal member of society. My life is filled with things that don't make sense.

I was told in the military that I would never meet a woman much less get married. Well, I got married, but being an Avoidant is a high challenge. When we fight, as all couples do, I just give in, I cower and won't speak up or fight back like a normal person would.

I just go to my corner and pout.

My job is to talk on the phones all day. Something that I hate with a passion. I don't like talking to people at all and really hate talking on the phone.

But in all of this, God gives me the straight to go on and even do good. I am a Pastor, which is beyond weird. I don't even like people, but yet I do like people, and this is what being a Pastor is all about.

So back to what it is to be an Avoidant. They should rename this disorder to Life Avoiders. Because that is really what it is. I avoid life and all costs.

Its an extreme form of social anxiety. its an extreme form of depression. Some days, its an extreme form of multiple personalities, Its just extreme!








This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

Coming out of the closet??

I bet that got your attention!

I wil be 51 years old this year. I am an Avoidant Personality. I am told that it was likely genetic, which means that I was probably born with it. There are things that happened in my life that made it worse. But I won't go into those things here.

I have always hidden my problem. I have feared to make it known to anyone other than my wife. I have feared that if people that knew me knew about this, I would be shunned, ostricized and judged.

To make these even worse, I am a Christian Pastor. How can I possibly be infected with a mental disorder? Luckily, I don't pastor anywhere right now. I just attend Church.

What if my friends knew?
What if my family knew?
What about the Church members?
What about people that I work with?
Would they look at me differently, or at all?
Would I ever be called on to Pastor anywhere again?

Well, these are questions that I have had no answer for all these years. I still don't know how people will react. I have lived in fear of this al my life. Well, I finally decided to come out of the closet. I will put this out there for anyone and everyone to know. Im not going to advertise it, but neither will I hide it anymore.

Paul had some sort of issue that God refused to remove from his body. We don't really know what it was. Most people think that it was a physical deformity of some sort. But what if he was an Avoidant or he had some other sort of mental issue?

Throughout the Bible, God didn't have any desire to use folks that had it all together. He never looked to use those that were perfect, had perfect diction, a perfect body, or even had anything at all going for them.

God used those that were, in the worlds eyes, defective. I think he did that on purpose.

So maybe there is hope for me. Maybe shedding light on my being an Avoidant is a good thing. I hope so.

So for better or worse, here i come!!!






This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

Me Help??

God made me a Pastor. Not quite sure why. Its hard being a Pastor when you really dont want to have anything to do with people.

All my life, I have been trying to figure out what God wanted me to do. And of course, if he wanted me to do something, why would he weigh me down with these problems to the point that I cant do them?

Well, my wife had a very good idea, as you usually does. She suggested that I should write a book about being an Avoidant. She suggested that perhaps the best ministry for me would be to speak to those that also suffer from this problem.

Makes sense for a couple reasons. First, if you have gone through some sort of experience with a problem in your life, you know it. You should write about what you know and are passionate about.

When we have an issue, and we recover from that issue, God usually wants us to minister to others that are struggling with the same issue. People can identify better with someone that has gone through what they are going through. Its the old story of; If you were an alcoholic, who would you want to talk to about recovering from Alcoholism? Someone that has never touched a drop? Or someone that has gone through getting drunk, passing out etc..., then was able to recover and even flourish without it?

I know for me that I would prefer to talk to someone that has recovered from being an Avoidant and not just someone that has read about it in text books. And the book would not just apply to Avoidants. Really anyone that has struggled with any problems like this. Mental issues like depression, anxiety, and a host of others might benefit. Maybe.

The question I am struggling with is should I start now to write about this while I am still in my midst of it? Or wait until god as delivered me?

So, I am going to try this out. Writing a book is a big scary endeavor for me. I have no idea where to start. I guess thats the hardest part about anything. Just getting started. I suppose in a way, I already have started. Im writing here. But to put this into a book format? Would anyone want to read it?


This is my log of my day to day 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 or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

1 day is good, another is not and so it goes in my life

Yesterday was a really bad day. Today I feel like Im back to normal. Well, as normal as can be expected. After all these years, I still dont understand what causes these things and how to prevent them. Or perhaps there is no way to prevent them. I wish I knew.

Yesterday, I didn't even want to get out of bed. I work from home. And most of the time, its not very busy. I felt like crawling under a rock and never coming out. My wife came home around noon or so. When she talked to me, it was as if I was not really there talking to her of hearing what she was saying. Perhaps that was how an out of body experience feels. It was an odd feeling. Like I was not connected to my body at all. Just going through the motions.

No idea what caused it. Perhaps it was the Avoidant thing. Perhaps it was not enough sleep. Perhaps it was a lack of nutrition. Or a combo of all the above.

I made it through the day as I always manager to do. Around 5pm or so, I actually started to feel better. Today, I feel pretty much normal again. My wife suspects that I have sleep apnea. Wow. What other problems can I pile onto this body of mine?

Or maybe, just maybe, the sleep apnea is the root, or at least a good chuck of it. I dont know. I wish I did. All I know is that i have a very hard time functioning in this world I live in. I think its only my leaning on my faith in God that I can manage at all.

I have an appt with the Va on the 30th. Just a regular check up, but I am going to have the doc look into the sleep apnea thing.








This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

My hypnotherapy session

I bet you are asking yourself why I went for Hypnosis after writing my last blog entry. Well, actually I didnt. This was a session I had a long time ago that I had forgotten about.

Hypnosis is a pretty secretive thing. At least it seems that way. I have seen all the commercials on TV, but they are just marketing fluff. They dont give you any real information on what to expect at all. And of the inquiries I have made with hypnotherapists, not one has given me any real indication of what a session involves or what to expect to calm my fears.

So I thought it might be helpful for me and others out there to write about my experience.

I was in the Air Force at the time. It was around 1983. I went because I was afraid of women. I would become physically ill when I was around them. When your single, which I was at the time, this complicates dating a bit.

So, I wanted help. Back then, I was young and didn’t think about things like consequences. I had a problem and this looked like it offered a solution. (I kind of miss the good ole days of not caring or having to think about things like what’s good or bad for me etc...)

I needed help and there it was, so I jumped at it. Of course now that I think about it, not thinking about if something was a good idea or not, got me in a lot of trouble. So on second thought, perhaps I am better off now.

It has been a long time ago, so I don’t recall much in the way of details. My memory is not very good. It never has been. At least not as far as I can remember.

I remember going into the Hypnotherapists office for my session. I don’t recall what he said or how he “put me under”. I do remember that I was conscience the whole time. I did not fall asleep like you see on TV and in the movies.

I felt like I was in control, but at the same time was not in control. He told me to sit upright in a chair, which I did. He told me to put my arms on the armrests of the chair, which I did.

The hypnotist told me to imagine (Not sure of the exact word he used) a balloon was tied to my wrist. The balloon had helium in it so it floated. Then he said that another was being tied to my wrist and then another.

With each one, I could feel my wrist getting lighter. Then after several of these imaginary balloons were attached to my wrist, my entire arm began to float. I do recall being in disbelief that this was actually happening. I never would have thought that I could be hypnotized.

But here it was. It seemed to be happening. The power of suggestion was actually making my arm rise just like when Anikan Skywalker rose to become Darth Vadar.

I don’t remember anything else from the session, or what happened afterwards. I have no idea if I ever went asleep or if I would have. Perhaps the whole thing is just about suggestions that the hypnotists makes while you are seemingly awake and in control. But in realty, since the Hypnotherapist was able to make my arm rise, I was not in control of what I did. He was.

So, this would seem to be the biggest reason not to go to Hypnotherapist. I was handing over control of my mind to another person. This is wrong. The only person that should have control over my mind is Jesus. No man or woman should be allowed to do this.

Throughout history, we have struggled with people in control. Dictators in the middle east and elsewhere have wielded control. Many have been unseated because the people decided they did not like the control they had over them.

We don’t even like the control that the President, Congress and Senators have over us. It’s the old saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely.

It goes way back to the Israelites when God took them out of Egypt. They were told by God that they should not have a king (A man in control over them). Only God was to rule over them. God knew that no man had this ability. Israel insisted they wanted a king to rule them. So God allowed this, but told them that it was a really bad idea and they would be sorry (My paraphrase)

When I went to this hypnotherapist, I allowed a person to have control over my mind and I let them make suggestions that would affect who I was and what I did. I don’t believe that anyone is good enough or righteous enough or trustworthy enough to be given this power. In fact, the Bible says exactly that.

Romans 3:10 tells us that no one is righteous, No not one. Luke 18:19 says that no one is good except God.

Let’s look at this logically. According to God, no one is good. So to give someone that is not good control over your mind is just plain dumb.

How about looking at hypnosis scientifically? We know very little about the human brain. The brain is the most powerful thing on earth. We really don’t know what all the brain is able to do, but estimates are that the control the brain has over our bodies is in the billions or perhaps even trillions. It controls everything from our heart beats, to how fast our nails grow. It controls our emotions, everything we feel, or don’t feel.

Modern day computers have hard drives (Storage or Memory Capacity) that are around 1 terabyte right now. They are no where even close to being able to do what the human brain can do. We have no way of measuring how much storage capacity the human brain has. This is mostly because the human brain, despite modern techniques, is still pretty mysterious. We just don’t know how the brain really works.

Now, I come back to logic. We have come to the conclusion that the brain has absolute control over who you are, what you do and what you don’t do. It controls every single function of your body from the biggest to the smallest including your emotions. We have no idea how the brain works with all its complexities.

So why in the world would anyone allow a mere man or woman, to take control of a mind that they know so very little about and put suggestions into it? Suggestions that we have no way of knowing what the full ramifications of those suggestions might be.

When I went to this Hypnotherapist, I was giving him permission to come into my mind and take control over it. Since my mind, which is another word for brain, has control over who I am, I was giving this person permission to take control of my life and tell me what I should and should not do.

This is God's domain. He is the only one that Christians should be looking to and giving permission to have control over us and tell us what we should and should not do.

Hmm, who else do I know that loves to take control of peoples lives, their minds, their wills and their very soles? I will give you a minute.

That would be satan. Since I was not giving this control to God, and since there is only 1 other power in the universe, I was effectively giving satan permission to take control of my mind and therefore my very life.

Isn't logic a cool thing?









This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com

I cant stands no more

It has been a while since my last post. I will be 51 years old in June 2012. I have lived with being an Avoidant Personality all my life. Though it is by belief that my time in the Air Force made my condition much worse. But that is another story that I wont go into here. (If people say that they are interested in that story I will start a new blog just for that)

It has been so long living with this, that its just normal for me. I have learned to live with it. But then I see others that are not afflicted with this condition and I am envious. I want that normal life that they seem to so effortlessly have. Why cant I have that? Why cant I have friends? Why cant I socialize and just be more normal?

Im pushing into my older years now. I think I deserve to be free from this. Dont I deserve that much from this life?

Being this way effects my wife, my daughter, my ministry and anyone I come in contact with. Its like an ever present rain cloud that I carry with me everywhere I go. Very few people understand me. Even my wife struggles with it. They dont deserve this.

So in my desperation, I revisited Hypnotherapy. Why shouldn't I? I see those commercials on TV that promise quick fixes and instant relief from afflictions. Though its mainly weight loss and smoking that they target. And why shouldn't they? Its a billion or even trillion dollar industry.

I know that this pursuit is illogical and just plain not a good idea. But at some point, enough is enough? In the words of Popeye, "That all I can stands I cant stands no more!!!

There comes a time when desperation overpowers reason and good judgement.

All my life I have held the belief that Hypnotism was wrong. It was an area that Christians should not be involved in. Playing with the mind is not a control that you should hand over to someone else. Only Jesus should have this. But Jesus has not done his part. It seems that he has failed me in this area.

So I emailed several Hypnotherapist and investigated this. After all, couldn't this be just another tool that God could use? Just like God uses doctors, medicine, and so many other things. Maybe Hypnotism is just another tool that he can use to heal us.

At least that was my justification.

As humans, we have the ability to reason. We can justify and rationalize anything. We can twist the Word of God around to say anything we want. After all, according to 1 Corinthians 10:23, inst everything permissible?

All one has to do in order to rationalize this is to leave out the rest of the verse. The rest of the verse says that though everything is permissible, not everything is beneficial.

I struggled with this and I am still struggling with it. The carrot that is being dangled in front of me is so very tempting. Hypnotism promises a quick and easy fix to my Avoidant Personality.

The other thing to consider is the fruits of a quick an easy fix. The Word says that we will know them by their fruits. Matthew 7:16

God is just not into the quick and easy things in life. But comon God. 50 years!! That seems like a stretch for taking ones time to me. In the end though, I have to believe that God has a way out for my being an Avoidant.

I dont think letting someone play around inside my sub conscience mind is a good idea. After a lot of prayer, thought and research, I have come back to my original conclusion. Hypnotism falls into the categories mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:9-13.

So I am back to the drawing board. Well, maybe not completely. Is it possible that Avoidant Personality is some sort of demon possession?

Oh, I dont mean possession of the sole. My sole belongs to Jesus. Where Jesus is, satan cant be. But what about the mind? Is it possible that Satan and his minions could posses that somehow?

This is my new direction. When I think about it, it makes logical sense. After all God tells us that our fight is not against flesh and blood, but principalities and powers. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

All my life, I have looked at being an Avoidant like a physical problem to be overcome by will power or better Corn Flakes. Well, maybe that was all wrong. Maybe it is an actual Spiritual battle that needs to be addressed as such.

I found a good web page that seems to talk along this line. It offers a Batyle plan that I think is very good.


I have to be rid of this Avoidant Personality thing once and for all. I have lived with it far too long. Its time to take my life back!

Comon Satan, if this is really your doing, lets rumble!!












This is my log of my day to day issues with living to Avoidant Personality Disorder. My hope is that in writing this, it will help myself and perhaps others that are also srtuggling with this disorder or another like it.http://www.AvoidantPersonality.com