Good Morning,
I try, as best I can, to keep my inner Avoidant at bay. I would like to see that it is all-together defeated. But I cant honestly cay that. In all my years as living as a Christian, I have learned just a few things. One of them is to be honest. As Christian, we get on this bandwagon called Positive Confession.
What I have learned is that all the positive confession in the world is not going to make this thing go away. I can walk around all day saying things like; "I am not an Avoidant. I am normal and I love people". Well, saying this all day is not going to make it so. Like Jean Luke in Star Trek. He would say; "Make it so #1."
Well, I am begging God to make it so. Or perhaps I am just telling myself to make it so. Not sure. To me, its a bit like one of those monks or people that chant in the airports, though you dont see these people much anymore. You know. the one that had bald heads and handed out flowers. What an odd group.
Anyway, the point is that if I go around saying this all day long, I think the only thing it is going to get me is tired. And maybe some odd looks from people that think I have fallen off the deep end!
We hear about positive confession a lot, or at least we did. Not sure its a popular as it once was. I think because most people discovered that it did not work. Like when you get a cold and we were told to just tell ourselves that we are not sick and dont have a cold.
It seemed more like a lie than the truth. The truth is that this body gets sick. We get colds, the flu, diseases and such. Yes, it is of course also true that Jesus died for our sins, and gave us power over sickness and death. But that does not mean that this body is not going to get sick or die.
The problem is us vs our body. We are not this body. We cannot get sick or die. Our spirit and true selves that it. So from that perspective, what Jesus said was true. But our bodies is a different story. It can and will get sick and eventually die. I have this Avoidant thing in me. It is real and a issue with my body.
Saying that it is not real is not going to make it unreal. What I do though is I do try to separate me from the Avoidant. I am not an Avoidant, but I do have this Avoidant in me. Its a simple, but important distinction.
I have been working on a book for a long long time now. I think its needed. There just are not any books out there written by Avoidants for Avoidants. We only have books from so called professionals that have learned about Avoidants from books.
What I am looking for are stories. I know it is asking a lot as Avoidants dont like to put themselves out there. But you will have to trust me on this. It will help you heal just telling your story. You dont have to put in here as a comment, though I recommend that.
One of the biggest lies is that you are alone. That there is no one out there like you. That you are the only one that is as messed up as you. This is a lie. The truth is that there are a lot just like you. We are have pretty similar issues. We need to all band together and share our stories, struggles and experiences. It will help you and your story will help others as well.
So lets share with each other and gets some light on this Avoidant thing. If you prefer, you can email me at Phillip@needsmet.us.
We can learn from each other and get some healing from this inner Avoidant.
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, July 1, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Black Outs and walking on egg shells
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Avoidants Unite and take courage
Today is a good day. When I was 1st diagnosed with Avoidance, I had a lot of bad days. Its important to know and admit where you have been so that you can praise God you are not there anymore, give God the glory for it, learn from the past and have a better future.
For example, I know why things happened in my life. I know because I can look back at them and see patterns and reasons for the mess. I know the traps I fell into back then, so now I can see how to avoid them. Because of my past, I can now have a better future.
We often want to run from our past. We look at our past and just want to forget it ever happened. We see the pain and want to wipe it clean like a dry erase board. We want to pretend that it never happened.
The problem with this is that if you do not recognize the mistakes of the past, and learn from them, you will likely make the very same mistakes in the future. Our past is there for a reason. Everyone has made mistakes. We are human. We mess up. Thats life. We all sin and fall short of the Glory of God.
Everyone leaves out no one.
I mess us, you mess up, your Pastor messes up, the president of the US messes up (some would say that he messes up more than most), your favorite actor or actress messes up. Even Billy Graham messes up.
Show me someone that does not make mistakes and I will show you someone that never does anything!
The point is that there is no such thing as a perfect person. I know you have all heard this before, but do you really believe it?
We live in a society where its just not cool to let your guard down and show your weakness and vulnerability. Men especially are not suppose to show weakness. Men have to be strong no matter what and have to always be cool and hold it together. (On a side note, I think this pressure to always be perfect is why men dont live as long as women)
Pastors are especially guilty of this. Many Pastors are put in high pedestals and are thought to be perfect and without sin. I think many Pastors enjoy this image and even encourage it.
We need to admit our weaknesses. When you are weak, God can be strong in you.
2 Corinthians 12:9
We need to look at our past and learn from it. The Bible is a great example of this. There are lots and lots of examples in the Bible of people that were not perfect and messed up. Even David, the man after Gods own heart (Acts 12:22) messed up. Not only did he mess up, he messed up very badly.
King David saw Bathsheba and decided that he wanted her. Bathsheba was married. Not only did David take her as his own, he had Bathsheba's husband killed so he could have her.
The point of this story, and all the others in the Bible, is that we all mess up. Even Jesus own Disciples messed up. These people learned from their mistakes, repented of them, and made their future better because of their failures.
I also love to use a more modern day (Sort of) analogy for this. Its from an episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Captain Picar had a run in with The Q. Q asked Picard if he regretted anything from his past. Picard said that he regretted a fight that he got into, so Q sent him back to his past so he could change it.
Picard avoided getting into the fight. Then Q sent him back to the present. Because Picard did not get into the fight, in the present he was no longer captain. You see, that fight, even though it was a mistake, was when Picard learned courage and to stand up for himself.
As a result of him not learning this, he no longer had the courage and ability to be a captain. The lesson here is simple but profound.
Don't ignore your past. Don't run from it. Don't pretend it did not happen. Instead, embrace your past and learn from it. If you go puling on the strings of your past, you might just unravel something that God was trying to build you up into the person that he needs you to be.
God can, and did use your past mistakes, to mold you and make you into the person you are today. The disclaimer here is not to let the past rule you either. Dont get angry over the past and let things bother you about it.
We see this all over the Bible. Joseph had a lot of really bad things happen to him. But God was using these things to mold him into the person that he needed him to be and also to get him into the place he needed him to be. If Joseph had said no, and tried to get out of those nasty things that happened to him, he might have never gotten to the place beside Pharaoh and been able to feed his people and save the Egyptians from starvation.
I remember way back when I was 1st diagnosed. I was in the Air Force. That was almost 35 years ago. Up until then, I was called a loner, a hermit, and worse. Most of the kids in high school thought I was gay because I didnt play sports, didnt like girls and I didnt work on cars.
The not liking girls part was fear of the opposite sex. I did not work on cars or play sports mostly due to fear of rejection and not thinking I could do it. Since then, I have filed Bankruptcy, had cars repoed, lost a house to foreclosure, lots more jobs than I can count and more.
I dont see any of this to seek pity or say woe is me. There was a time when I did. There was a time, when I let my past dictate my future. I had a poor past, so I decided that because of it, I was never going to be used of God or be any value to my family, myself, or the world.
Then I made the decision to not let that happen. Yes, it is a conscience decision to do this. Now I am a Pastor and a dad. I also run a non-profit ministry called Needs Met. God let me go through all these things so I could learn what it was like. I can empathize with those that are going through these things because I went through them.
I also have Avoidance so that I can know what others that have Avoidance are going through and try to help them. The point to all this is not Not Give Up. The more struggles you are going through, the more God can use you. Satan would not bother throwing all these things at you if God did not have a great purpose for your life.
The more Satan is working to destroy you, the more that you have great value in the Kingdom of God and he has great plans for you!
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.
For example, I know why things happened in my life. I know because I can look back at them and see patterns and reasons for the mess. I know the traps I fell into back then, so now I can see how to avoid them. Because of my past, I can now have a better future.
We often want to run from our past. We look at our past and just want to forget it ever happened. We see the pain and want to wipe it clean like a dry erase board. We want to pretend that it never happened.
The problem with this is that if you do not recognize the mistakes of the past, and learn from them, you will likely make the very same mistakes in the future. Our past is there for a reason. Everyone has made mistakes. We are human. We mess up. Thats life. We all sin and fall short of the Glory of God.
Everyone leaves out no one.
I mess us, you mess up, your Pastor messes up, the president of the US messes up (some would say that he messes up more than most), your favorite actor or actress messes up. Even Billy Graham messes up.
Show me someone that does not make mistakes and I will show you someone that never does anything!
The point is that there is no such thing as a perfect person. I know you have all heard this before, but do you really believe it?
We live in a society where its just not cool to let your guard down and show your weakness and vulnerability. Men especially are not suppose to show weakness. Men have to be strong no matter what and have to always be cool and hold it together. (On a side note, I think this pressure to always be perfect is why men dont live as long as women)
Pastors are especially guilty of this. Many Pastors are put in high pedestals and are thought to be perfect and without sin. I think many Pastors enjoy this image and even encourage it.
We need to admit our weaknesses. When you are weak, God can be strong in you.
2 Corinthians 12:9
We need to look at our past and learn from it. The Bible is a great example of this. There are lots and lots of examples in the Bible of people that were not perfect and messed up. Even David, the man after Gods own heart (Acts 12:22) messed up. Not only did he mess up, he messed up very badly.
King David saw Bathsheba and decided that he wanted her. Bathsheba was married. Not only did David take her as his own, he had Bathsheba's husband killed so he could have her.
The point of this story, and all the others in the Bible, is that we all mess up. Even Jesus own Disciples messed up. These people learned from their mistakes, repented of them, and made their future better because of their failures.
I also love to use a more modern day (Sort of) analogy for this. Its from an episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Captain Picar had a run in with The Q. Q asked Picard if he regretted anything from his past. Picard said that he regretted a fight that he got into, so Q sent him back to his past so he could change it.
Picard avoided getting into the fight. Then Q sent him back to the present. Because Picard did not get into the fight, in the present he was no longer captain. You see, that fight, even though it was a mistake, was when Picard learned courage and to stand up for himself.
As a result of him not learning this, he no longer had the courage and ability to be a captain. The lesson here is simple but profound.
Don't ignore your past. Don't run from it. Don't pretend it did not happen. Instead, embrace your past and learn from it. If you go puling on the strings of your past, you might just unravel something that God was trying to build you up into the person that he needs you to be.
God can, and did use your past mistakes, to mold you and make you into the person you are today. The disclaimer here is not to let the past rule you either. Dont get angry over the past and let things bother you about it.
We see this all over the Bible. Joseph had a lot of really bad things happen to him. But God was using these things to mold him into the person that he needed him to be and also to get him into the place he needed him to be. If Joseph had said no, and tried to get out of those nasty things that happened to him, he might have never gotten to the place beside Pharaoh and been able to feed his people and save the Egyptians from starvation.
I remember way back when I was 1st diagnosed. I was in the Air Force. That was almost 35 years ago. Up until then, I was called a loner, a hermit, and worse. Most of the kids in high school thought I was gay because I didnt play sports, didnt like girls and I didnt work on cars.
The not liking girls part was fear of the opposite sex. I did not work on cars or play sports mostly due to fear of rejection and not thinking I could do it. Since then, I have filed Bankruptcy, had cars repoed, lost a house to foreclosure, lots more jobs than I can count and more.
I dont see any of this to seek pity or say woe is me. There was a time when I did. There was a time, when I let my past dictate my future. I had a poor past, so I decided that because of it, I was never going to be used of God or be any value to my family, myself, or the world.
Then I made the decision to not let that happen. Yes, it is a conscience decision to do this. Now I am a Pastor and a dad. I also run a non-profit ministry called Needs Met. God let me go through all these things so I could learn what it was like. I can empathize with those that are going through these things because I went through them.
I also have Avoidance so that I can know what others that have Avoidance are going through and try to help them. The point to all this is not Not Give Up. The more struggles you are going through, the more God can use you. Satan would not bother throwing all these things at you if God did not have a great purpose for your life.
The more Satan is working to destroy you, the more that you have great value in the Kingdom of God and he has great plans for you!
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.
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Why cant Avpd be just gotten over?
It has been a while since I have written in here. I remember when I was first diagnosed with Avpd and began to search on the internet. I did find a few sites and blogs, but most all of them were old and had not been updated or written in for a while.
I will do my best to not let that happen here.
Monday was a bad day. Well, the day itself was of course not bad. A rant on myself that I have seen so many other places. People say that the day is good or bad, or that this or that is bad. Intimate objects and days do not have a life of their own. They cannot be bad or good. They just are.
Days are what we make of them. They are neither good or bad. If we have what we call a bad day, its because we have made it that way. My wife tells me similar things. We get in an argument and she says that the day in wrecked.
Huh? The day wrecked. I did not know that the day had its drivers license!
Dont tell her I said that.
Days are what we make of them. To say that Mondays are bad is foolish. Mondays are no different than any other day. Other than its the start of the work week. So the day itself has no value for either good or bad.
In the example above, I told my wife to get over it. We had an argument. Ya, so what? That does not have to effect the rest of our day just like a bad childhood does not need to cause the rest of your life to be bad. The reality is that its not always that easy that we can just Get Over it.
I wish it was that simple. Monday was a fine day, but the Avpd in me made me think it bad.
I was depressed, but it was more than this. It was if the plug had been pulled in my life that held in my faith and it had gone down the proverbial toilet. God it seemed was just not there. Its not that I questioned his existence. Thats foolish.
Its just not logical that this world and us could be a random occurrence. Believing in that takes way more faith that to believe that an intelligent being created it all. So that was not the issue at all.
The issue was that I questioned that he was involved. Events in this world seem to be quite random. Good happens to bad people and bad happens to good people. It all seems to be quite random. Maybe God just has better things to do than be involved in our daily lives. Or maybe its that free will ties his hands and he cant.
Well, that was my mind set on Monday. I cried out to God and yes, even shook my first at him.
Then the next day, I find myself full of faith again. It seems that I cannot not spout scripture and be positive about God and life.
I wish I could be this way all the time. I blame it on the Avpd in me. But I hate to use this as an excuse to be this way. I should be able to just Get Over it, Right?
Then why cant I?
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.
I will do my best to not let that happen here.
Monday was a bad day. Well, the day itself was of course not bad. A rant on myself that I have seen so many other places. People say that the day is good or bad, or that this or that is bad. Intimate objects and days do not have a life of their own. They cannot be bad or good. They just are.
Days are what we make of them. They are neither good or bad. If we have what we call a bad day, its because we have made it that way. My wife tells me similar things. We get in an argument and she says that the day in wrecked.
Huh? The day wrecked. I did not know that the day had its drivers license!
Dont tell her I said that.
Days are what we make of them. To say that Mondays are bad is foolish. Mondays are no different than any other day. Other than its the start of the work week. So the day itself has no value for either good or bad.
In the example above, I told my wife to get over it. We had an argument. Ya, so what? That does not have to effect the rest of our day just like a bad childhood does not need to cause the rest of your life to be bad. The reality is that its not always that easy that we can just Get Over it.
I wish it was that simple. Monday was a fine day, but the Avpd in me made me think it bad.
I was depressed, but it was more than this. It was if the plug had been pulled in my life that held in my faith and it had gone down the proverbial toilet. God it seemed was just not there. Its not that I questioned his existence. Thats foolish.
Its just not logical that this world and us could be a random occurrence. Believing in that takes way more faith that to believe that an intelligent being created it all. So that was not the issue at all.
The issue was that I questioned that he was involved. Events in this world seem to be quite random. Good happens to bad people and bad happens to good people. It all seems to be quite random. Maybe God just has better things to do than be involved in our daily lives. Or maybe its that free will ties his hands and he cant.
Well, that was my mind set on Monday. I cried out to God and yes, even shook my first at him.
Then the next day, I find myself full of faith again. It seems that I cannot not spout scripture and be positive about God and life.
I wish I could be this way all the time. I blame it on the Avpd in me. But I hate to use this as an excuse to be this way. I should be able to just Get Over it, Right?
Then why cant I?
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.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Life for me is all about patterns and routine. I have learned what works and what does not work. I have had to learn these things. I think for an Avoidant, its critical to learn these things. Way more so than it is for a Normal person. It seems a bit, or maybe a lot, like RainMan. If you remember that movie, Rainman was a Savant. A Savant is a type of Autism.
To an Autistic person, life is a constant routine. Routine represents safety and comfort. Anything that is outside of this routine is danger and the unknown. If you recall in the movie, anytime something happened that was not a part of RainMan's normal daily routine, Rainman became extremely agitated and difficult.
It was only the routines in his life that provided him any sense of comfort and safety. Avoidants are not all that different. In order to survive life, people, and this world, we must develop ways to cope with our surroundings. These cooing mechanisms are critical to develop and maintain.
Even normals develop these, but in the life of an Avoidant, they are critical!
Over the course of my life, I have learned some of these patterns and ways of coping with things. For example, yesterday, was one of my not-so-good days. In the past, such a day would have taken me completely out. Now, I know what to look for and how to cope when these days happen.
In Addition to being an Avoidant, I have a bad diet. I eat no veggies at all and little to no fruits. Though I do love Strawberries. I have no idea if its the Avoidant, or the poor diet, or a combo of both that is the issue with this.
I probably need to back up just a bit. I searched for a long long time to try to find something that would help me with the Avoidant in me.
I segment my life in various pieces. Not unlike our calendar. We have BC (Before Christ) and AD (After Death). Non-Christian revisionists are trying to take God out of the picture by going with BCE (Before common Era) and CE (Common Era).
The divider in our history is Jesus.
In my life, I have the similar time periods. There is my life before my wife, then after my wife. Then there are other segments as well like "Before Pills" and "After Pills". My life before the pills was terrible. There would be days when I could not even get our of bed. Especially Mondays.
There was days when I was so depressed, that I wanted to chuck it all.
I tried many various pills. I even went to see a Chinese doctor once that told me the problem was due to my eating too much spicy food ( I love hot stuff). I tried many other things many of which I cannot even remember. One day, my wife suggested these vitamins. I do not know if she suggested these because of my diet or what.
I decided to give them a try. My wife calls them my Happy pills. Weather the diet, or the Avoidant, or both, they do the trick for me. They do not eliminate the Avoidant issues, of course, but I say that they Take the Edge off. Yesterday, I did not take them.
I found myself in a depression all day long. I should have jumped up and taken them as soon as I recognized this. But I did not. The main success that I have found is to recognize this pattern. When depression happens, I know that tomorrow is a new day. The next day, I take my pills and everything is different.
I have learned not to make any big decisions while in these depressed states. Every single time, without fail, the very next day, all is better. For example, yesterday, I wanted to end the Church, end Wednesdays Movie nights and just go back to a normal life.
I have made this mistake before. I just re-started ministry. A few weeks back, everything looked black. The Church was not getting anyone coming to it, the Avoidant services were not getting anyone responding, and it all just seemed futile. I had sunk into a depression. So I sent out an email saying that I was quitting ministry.
I had failed to recognize the pattern in my life and made a hasty decision. I hope that everyone will forgive me for giving in to depression.
These patterns in my life are that the following day would always be better. Even Jesus knew this. Not to say that Jesus suffered from being an Avoidant, but Jesus knew that we would suffer from this and other things. Lamentations 3 says that His mercy's will be new every morning.
So anytime I suffer from Depression, or anything else like this, I know to just wait till tomorrow. Because tomorrow is a new day and things will look better in that new day.
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.
To an Autistic person, life is a constant routine. Routine represents safety and comfort. Anything that is outside of this routine is danger and the unknown. If you recall in the movie, anytime something happened that was not a part of RainMan's normal daily routine, Rainman became extremely agitated and difficult.
It was only the routines in his life that provided him any sense of comfort and safety. Avoidants are not all that different. In order to survive life, people, and this world, we must develop ways to cope with our surroundings. These cooing mechanisms are critical to develop and maintain.
Even normals develop these, but in the life of an Avoidant, they are critical!
Over the course of my life, I have learned some of these patterns and ways of coping with things. For example, yesterday, was one of my not-so-good days. In the past, such a day would have taken me completely out. Now, I know what to look for and how to cope when these days happen.
In Addition to being an Avoidant, I have a bad diet. I eat no veggies at all and little to no fruits. Though I do love Strawberries. I have no idea if its the Avoidant, or the poor diet, or a combo of both that is the issue with this.
I probably need to back up just a bit. I searched for a long long time to try to find something that would help me with the Avoidant in me.
I segment my life in various pieces. Not unlike our calendar. We have BC (Before Christ) and AD (After Death). Non-Christian revisionists are trying to take God out of the picture by going with BCE (Before common Era) and CE (Common Era).
The divider in our history is Jesus.
In my life, I have the similar time periods. There is my life before my wife, then after my wife. Then there are other segments as well like "Before Pills" and "After Pills". My life before the pills was terrible. There would be days when I could not even get our of bed. Especially Mondays.
There was days when I was so depressed, that I wanted to chuck it all.
I tried many various pills. I even went to see a Chinese doctor once that told me the problem was due to my eating too much spicy food ( I love hot stuff). I tried many other things many of which I cannot even remember. One day, my wife suggested these vitamins. I do not know if she suggested these because of my diet or what.
I decided to give them a try. My wife calls them my Happy pills. Weather the diet, or the Avoidant, or both, they do the trick for me. They do not eliminate the Avoidant issues, of course, but I say that they Take the Edge off. Yesterday, I did not take them.
I found myself in a depression all day long. I should have jumped up and taken them as soon as I recognized this. But I did not. The main success that I have found is to recognize this pattern. When depression happens, I know that tomorrow is a new day. The next day, I take my pills and everything is different.
I have learned not to make any big decisions while in these depressed states. Every single time, without fail, the very next day, all is better. For example, yesterday, I wanted to end the Church, end Wednesdays Movie nights and just go back to a normal life.
I have made this mistake before. I just re-started ministry. A few weeks back, everything looked black. The Church was not getting anyone coming to it, the Avoidant services were not getting anyone responding, and it all just seemed futile. I had sunk into a depression. So I sent out an email saying that I was quitting ministry.
I had failed to recognize the pattern in my life and made a hasty decision. I hope that everyone will forgive me for giving in to depression.
These patterns in my life are that the following day would always be better. Even Jesus knew this. Not to say that Jesus suffered from being an Avoidant, but Jesus knew that we would suffer from this and other things. Lamentations 3 says that His mercy's will be new every morning.
So anytime I suffer from Depression, or anything else like this, I know to just wait till tomorrow. Because tomorrow is a new day and things will look better in that new day.
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.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Should a Pastor just be a Christian Chearleader?
I had to back off for a while from both the On-line Church and the Avoidant group. I found that I was just getting to busy. So my family life suffered and I was not spending any time working on our family finances.
I have seen so many well-meaning people in ministry let their families down while they ministered to others needs. While it sounds all holy to spend all ones time meeting others needs and working on the Church, if this comes at the costs of your, or my, family then its sin.
The proper alignment for priorities is;
God
Family Life
Financial Support of your family (Work or business)
Ministry
I have re-aligned my priorities, so I am back now. Every since I started with the Church and in working with Avoidants, I have struggled with how honest to be. Its hard to be in ministry. Often I feel like as a Pastor, I are supposed to blow smoke and ignore reality. I feel like its our job to be Pastoral cheerleaders. Just ignore what is going on in our lives and in the lives of others and just keep telling ourselves and everyone else that all is fine and dandy.
I see this example in so many other Churches and Pastors. I guess I fell into the same trap And perhaps to a point, it is what we need to do. People on the outside need hope and coming to Church is what they do in order to get told that things will be ok.
Perhaps that is the difference. Its ok to tell is how it is as long as you end with hope that God is in control and all will be fine. Well, from here out, I am going to try hard to do just that. I will try to tell the truth of how things are going and where I am at. And if that openness and honesty gets me in trouble with the Christian world, then so be it.
So here is my first attempt at more honesty.
----------
All my life I have felt like an outsider. I have felt disowned and rejected by the world. Becoming a Pastor has not helped this. In fact, its only made it worse. I have found that a lot of the Christian world, the Pastorial and Church world is just plain mean.
Passions, if you want to call it that, run very very deep. I tend to think that its not passion when it leads to anger, fear and yes, even violence. It has turned from being something of God to something of that dark place. But this is what I find so very often. Especially from Pastoral Church leadership. I am not sure if its all intentional or just bad leadership.
But for whatever reason, this is what I have found. So many Pastors that seem all nice when it comes to their Church membership, and to those that raise their hands to get saved, but to outsiders and especially other Pastors, they can be down right mean.
Churches that I have dealt with are very competitive and jealous. They run their Churches more like businesses, and very fiercely defend themselves against anyone that would want to come into their Church, or maybe share in their marketing strategies.
Now, in saying this, I know there are exceptions out there. I know there are good Churches and good Pastors out there that love to share, love to help others, love helping young Churches, and think little to nothing of their own financial health. But these Churches and Pastors seem to be few and far in-between.
I am hoping and praying for each and every Avoidant out there as well as myself. Its been tuff. But hang in there. God is blessing my family and will bless you if you are working according to his purposes. Stay tuned for more later
Pastor Phillip
NeedsMetChurch.com
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.
I have seen so many well-meaning people in ministry let their families down while they ministered to others needs. While it sounds all holy to spend all ones time meeting others needs and working on the Church, if this comes at the costs of your, or my, family then its sin.
The proper alignment for priorities is;
God
Family Life
Financial Support of your family (Work or business)
Ministry
I have re-aligned my priorities, so I am back now. Every since I started with the Church and in working with Avoidants, I have struggled with how honest to be. Its hard to be in ministry. Often I feel like as a Pastor, I are supposed to blow smoke and ignore reality. I feel like its our job to be Pastoral cheerleaders. Just ignore what is going on in our lives and in the lives of others and just keep telling ourselves and everyone else that all is fine and dandy.
I see this example in so many other Churches and Pastors. I guess I fell into the same trap And perhaps to a point, it is what we need to do. People on the outside need hope and coming to Church is what they do in order to get told that things will be ok.
Perhaps that is the difference. Its ok to tell is how it is as long as you end with hope that God is in control and all will be fine. Well, from here out, I am going to try hard to do just that. I will try to tell the truth of how things are going and where I am at. And if that openness and honesty gets me in trouble with the Christian world, then so be it.
So here is my first attempt at more honesty.
----------
Passions, if you want to call it that, run very very deep. I tend to think that its not passion when it leads to anger, fear and yes, even violence. It has turned from being something of God to something of that dark place. But this is what I find so very often. Especially from Pastoral Church leadership. I am not sure if its all intentional or just bad leadership.
But for whatever reason, this is what I have found. So many Pastors that seem all nice when it comes to their Church membership, and to those that raise their hands to get saved, but to outsiders and especially other Pastors, they can be down right mean.
Churches that I have dealt with are very competitive and jealous. They run their Churches more like businesses, and very fiercely defend themselves against anyone that would want to come into their Church, or maybe share in their marketing strategies.
Now, in saying this, I know there are exceptions out there. I know there are good Churches and good Pastors out there that love to share, love to help others, love helping young Churches, and think little to nothing of their own financial health. But these Churches and Pastors seem to be few and far in-between.
I am hoping and praying for each and every Avoidant out there as well as myself. Its been tuff. But hang in there. God is blessing my family and will bless you if you are working according to his purposes. Stay tuned for more later
Pastor Phillip
NeedsMetChurch.com
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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