AvPD Theory: Social Perfectionism

Being Kind doesn’t mean becoming a complete pushover. You can be kind and have very clear boundaries about what is and isn’t acceptable to you.

Levels of relationship, part 2: Safe people

(Part of my ongoing series of posts on Avoidant Personality Disorder. You can read part 1 of this post here.)

Having a safe person means so much.

When you have a safe person in your life, that relationship becomes really important. Here’s why.

With a safe person, I am welcome. It’s okay to exist.

They’ve demonstrated that they won’t hurt me, even when they have the chance. (They prove this by just literally not doing it, over time.)

They don’t react in the ways that I fear.

They’re consistently kind and supportive of me.

They’re actively considerate of my feelings.

A safe person cares about your feelings.

They really want to know how you feel, and they want to make sure you’re okay. How you feel actually matters to them.

And this is SO important for us -- because with AvPD, we are not good at dealing with our feelings. We’re not good at standing up for them, expressing them -- or even sometimes being aware of them.

So when someone proactively cares about how we feel, and maybe even encourages us (gently!) to open up ... it’s like they’re creating a space where our feelings are OK. It’s OK to have them, and to feel them, and to talk about them. And that’s something I don’t think people with AvPD get to experience much.

This could happen as subtly as you having an anxiety attack, and them acting calm and accepting instead of freaking out. You just get the sense that it’s okay. You’re okay with them.

Because our feelings are “allowed” in a relationship with a safe person, we’re able to let our walls down and let them see who we really are. It may only be a tiny bit of visibility, but it’s often a lot more than we have in any other relationship.

And when they respond positively to our self-revealing, we get emotional affirmation, and we can feel accepted. Which is hugely healing.

When we’re with them, we feel more like a whole person.

That emotional support and acceptance, in fact, is just like what people without AvPD get from their normal relationships.

And that’s why it’s so important to us. We have the same need for acceptance, friendship, and being liked as anyone else -- it’s just so much harder for us to receive it.

So with the rare person who can soften our defenses and let us feel safe being close to them ... that’s a treasure we never take for granted.

A note about dependency

I do think there’s some potential overlap with being dependent on someone (like with DPD or codependency). I became absolutely obsessed with my first safe person, and it wasn’t good for me or for them.

But I also think it's natural to value a “safe person” type relationship very highly, and to want to be close to them, and I don’t think that’s automatically unhealthy. This is just something we need to be aware of, and it’s a good idea to check on boundaries and comfort levels once in a while.

You can have more than one!

Just like people without AvPD can have more than one positive relationship, people with AvPD can have more than one safe person. It’s just equally rare to find a second person you “click” with that way. But there’s nothing automatically exclusive about it, and it can be nice to have more than one person to talk to.

It’s also a spectrum. Each relationship is unique, and it changes a little with every interaction. You might have one safe person who you’ve known for a long time, and then another one you’re still building a relationship with. The important thing is whether you get that sense of emotional support and acceptance from being with them.

And who knows? Eventually, you might just start calling your safe people “close friends” -- because that’s pretty much what they are for us.

It doesn’t make you unlovable or a horrible person if you don’t have many friends. It can be difficult to meet new people if you’re shy or quiet or have anxiety. It can be difficult to stay in touch with people if you can’t find the time or energy to remain in contact. It can be difficult to make new friends if you struggle to find people you click with or who are interested in the same things as you. None of those things mean you’re unlovable. 

✨Stay safe ✨

Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.

Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.

Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.

Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.

Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.

I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.

Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.

But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.

I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.

Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.

This January is not only a new year but a new decade, and so there is even more pressure to “start fresh,” change your life, and simply transform into an idealized version of yourself.

Please don’t feel pressured by this. Life is already difficult enough without stressing out over metamorphizing into a new person overnight. The best change comes slowly, so keep trying to add little bits of goodness and happiness to your life here and there, and most of all, be patient with yourself.

your bare minimum isn’t actually that bare or minimum. my dad once told me that there’s nothing in this world that’s easy and that’s true tbh. everything we do takes energy, time, and effort. even the little things. if you feel like you’re not doing enough please try to think about your circumstances and what’s currently available to you: chances are, there’s something that’s diverting or otherwise draining you. and to pull away from that and get something done regardless? well, i think that’s really admirable! please try to take pride in the things you do accomplish in a day, no matter how small or trifling you perceive them to be. you can’t be proud of your growth if you don’t notice where you already are!

Here’s the thing about personality disorders.

Among everyone I know with Avoidant Personality Disorder, I’m one of the happiest, most outgoing, and most emotionally secure.

I have strong, positive, intimate relationships in my life.

I feel comfortable interacting with strangers.

I even make friends easily.

(The secret they don’t tell you is that even when you’re good at it, not everyone is a good choice to try it with!)

But this week, despite all of those things,

I still turned off my phone to avoid a dreaded phonecall.

I was crushed by a moderate disappointment.

I genuinely worry that my friends have stopped liking me, and that I’m not welcome in my social groups anymore (“they’re finally onto me!”).

When someone confronted me about something, even without any overt hostility, I had an anxiety attack before I could respond. And after the conversation I cried in bed, so hard that when I got up, I had tiny fresh bruises around my eyes.

Most days, I have the impulse to take down posts that feel too personal, too confused, too me.

I doubt myself and everything I’m trying to do. Sometimes I still feel like hiding in a closet for the rest of my life would be a better idea.

And I obviously still struggle with all my usual avoidance problems -- like the effort it takes to leave the house.

There are extenuating circumstances, but...

...the thing about having a personality disorder -- or any mental illness! -- is that it’s always there in the background.

It’s usually always under the surface. It can affect everything in your life.

And even when someone seems to be doing really, really well, this is still something they have to be aware of and careful with. Sometimes, if you’re recovering, it feels like it’s always waiting to take over again.

There are always triggers. There are always situations that will prompt a disordered response. Sometimes you’ll be able to choose away from acting on that response, and sometimes you won’t.

And there’s never a time when self-care stops being important.

So if you’re struggling?

Don’t worry. It doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you, and it doesn’t mean you’re worse than everybody else. Because everybody has times where things are hard and awful.

It’s okay to talk about how much it sucks. We all need validation and support.

It’s also okay to deliberately focus on what’s good and what successes you’re having, if that’s helpful for you.

You can even do both at the same time. In spite of all the things I listed up there:

I turned my phone back on and called them back! I used my self-talk skills to cope with the disappointment! I kept showing up to my social group! I had the confrontational talk and survived! I didn’t take down any posts! I learned some things!

Most of us tend to downplay our victories and emphasize our faults and mistakes. Consciously doing the opposite of that can help us change our thought habits.

But mostly:

There’s no wrong way to heal. There’s no wrong way to get better, or learn what you need to learn. And you can get stronger and grow as a person, even when you have lots of bad days.

What works for you is good enough, and that’s all that matters. <3

“Darling, you deserve it all. You deserve love and peace and magic and joy dancing in your eyes. You deserve hearty, deep-belly laughter and the right to let those tears fall and water the soil. You deserve freedom and goodness and company and days of bliss and quiet too. You deserve you happy and healed and content and open. So keep going, darling. Keep going.”

— Unknown

Things to remember when you want to say "no," assert yourself, and ask for what you want

If I say “no” to someone and they get angry, this does not mean I should have said “yes.”

Saying “no” does not make me selfish.

Although I want to please the people I care about, I do not have to please them all the time.

It is okay to want or need something from someone else. 

My wants and needs are just as important as those of anyone else.

I have the right to assert myself, even if I may inconvenience others.