>>34291740
Free will and exposure therapy is what worked for me. Anytime you feel the need to be avoidant you need to do the opposite and expose yourself intentionally to situations that cause you to have the impulse. I grew up in a severely abusive environment and had to work on this with a therapist but there's no amount of talking or reflection that causes you to change. All you can do is take action, reflection only helps you understand the source and emotionally process that but its the active steps you take that matters

communicate explicitly. the avoidant behavior is social anxiety over feeling humiliated you need to express your own boundaries. you are allowed to need space, even living in the same house. you are allowed to say you need a weekend away. you will lose some women, but the only ones it will work with for you will stay

once you have someone who can not melt down you will feel free and not suffocated and most of the time just be able to catch yourself later that day and be sweet to them again

>>34292049
>>34292064
That's good advice, thank you Anons.

>>34292049
>Anytime you feel the need to be avoidant you need to do the opposite and expose yourself intentionally to situations that cause you to have the impulse
A bit of a backwards question, but is there a good way to fallback without crashing out while doing this and can't get out the encounters? Not all of them, but it's a weird gamble sometimes

>>34294251
Thank you for posting that question. I can EASILY guess if I rush this literal personality shift too quickly things may backfire on me and I may get burned out as a result... And that's something I clearly do not desire.
t. OP

Bump.

can you be fearful avoidant if you didn't grow up in an abusive environment?
i want intimacy, i feel some pushback to it but i think that's just because it's a thing i've put on a pedestal by virtue of not having it.

>>34299825
>can you be fearful avoidant if you didn't grow up in an abusive environment
I would say so. I don't think I grew up in an abusive environment, I guess my attachment style comes from having been lead on during my early teenager years and having had to do with people that suffer from particularly bad BPD later on in my life.
>i want intimacy, i feel some pushback to it but i think that's just because it's a thing i've put on a pedestal by virtue of not having it.
I can relate to that.

>>34299825
Probably. Growing up my parents never showed any affection towards each other, ever. Always wondered if that contributed to my avoidance of romantic situations.

>>34291740
Fear is learned. Fear can not be overcome, only allowed. So the trick is you allow the fear on purpose and then expose yourself to the action or situation that provokes fear while letting yourself feel it. Overtime you become desensitized to it and you no longer fear whatever social dynamic it was that made you avoidant.
You will still be avoidant though, but you'll have control over it able to switch it off and in with little discomfort.

I settled for just six or seven major players in my life: My wife, my kid, my father, my brothers, and a good friend or two. And that's it, besides the small handful of people I shut everyone else out and I prefer it like that. I don't require new connections

>>34300174
>having had to do with people that suffer from particularly bad BPD later on in my life.
I worded that wrong. It's not "having had to do" as much as "having relentlessly chased them despite them clearly saying they weren't interested more than once". I don't resent them, it's my fault for not having taken the hint.

>>34300208
That's good advice, I mean exposing oneself to situations that cause fear until one is desentivized to it. I would argue that one can even completely lose the trait if they put enough effort into it. Something similar to that worked for me and BPD, except I did not go out of my way to expose myself to situations that would have triggered it.

>>34300404
Thanks, and congrats on putting BPD into remission holy shit. That's arguably the most hardest psychological feat a human can undergo and must've taken a lot of hard work. And yeah it makes sense you didn't go out of your way to expose yourself to triggers for BPD. BPD becomes stronger when exposed to triggers so it requires an opposite approach, though I'm sure you already know that.

Do you think the former BPD & the avoidancy you have today are interlinked? It would make sense if it is. Because picture this: You had a disorder that flared up when around people, and you worked hard to stay away from people to get the BPD into remission after immense trial and error and blood and tears. So logically if I was in your shoes, I'd be shitting myself trying again at getting close to others out of fear of relapse or BPD coming back.

>>34300780
I didn't find curbing BPD to the ground in itself that hard. I studied its symptoms and actively contrasted them whenever I could feel them flaring up. Accepting I suffered from BPD and then studying the symptoms by reading "stop walking on eggshells" was the hard part. I didn't enjoy what was essentially looking into a mirror into what was the worst part of my personality and remembering all of the awful things I did and the people I hurt because of it.
I didn't know that exposure to triggers worsens BPD. I merely tried avoiding getting myself into situations that would make me get angry at the people I love. When that happened again after I did my so to say homework is the point I actively started changing.
About the BPD I used to suffer from and the avoidant attachment style being interlinked... honestly? I am not entirely sure. I would suppose I became avoidant after being lead on during my early teenager years, and the BPD, well I talked about it in >>34300250.

As for the rest: I'm anxious of getting close to who I want out of fear of rejection more than anything. I also think I lost the "fearful" part of the "fearful avoidant" already.

>>34300811
>Accepting I suffered from BPD and then studying the symptoms by reading "stop walking on eggshells" was the hard part. I didn't enjoy what was essentially looking into a mirror into what was the worst part of my personality and remembering all of the awful things I did and the people I hurt because of it.

I read that book too, a pretty damning book. I've known people with BPD who after reading a few chapters in, go into a meltdown and throw the book at the wall lol.

>I didn't know that exposure to triggers worsens BPD. I merely tried avoiding getting myself into situations that would make me get angry at the people I love.
Yeah it does. It's because BPD shared there exact same core mechanisms as cPTSD or PTSD does, it's more or less the twin disorder just with an interpersonal/relationship complex flavour on top. Which means it only flares up during interpersonal interactions and nowhere else. And the reason for that is human connection was the thing that electrocuted and incinerated the shit out of the person with BPD once before, typically in childhood. So the brain chooses BPD as a defense mechanic that fires off at anything resembling past abuse or past trauma. Developing extreme emotional hypervigilance to try and detect a tiny atom of potential conflict, and then retaliating as if there has been a gigaton conflict when in reality all that happened was the other person was only mildly annoyed or had a bad day.

The reason why avoidance helps BPDs paradoxically is because BPDs are initially still around the same people that broke them down. Family or specific friends of family or life long 'friends' who are equally as volatile yet the BPD normalised it and isn't aware at first.

Sincerity and bluntness might be your ticket you want. It's impossible to fear rejection once you meet someone who is as blunt as they are kind. They never lead anyone on, typically. They make things known right away. High functioning autists are this way

>>34300845
I certainly didn't feel like throwing it at the wall but fuck me if it wasn't stressful to read through it at times.
Yes I did read about how BPD works in a way like PTSD but I didn't dig much into it.
You also perfectly described how BPD is like but with a BIG caveat: in many cases, especially mine, I would go in nuclear mode even against things that never even happened in reality.
Yes, I agree on how avoidance helps people that suffer from BPD by keeping them away from the people that initially made them develop the condition in first place, BUT. There is a big difference from being merely "avoidant" and "fearful avoidant". The former is just people affected by it being dismissive of people that get too close to them, the latter is people affected by it actively pushing away those that get close to them.
Yeah, I do understand what you say about honesty and bluntness, but I would suppose something that also works is also going for somebody that I know for sure likes me back even if they are not super blunt or super direct.
Also, I strongly suspect am an high functioning autist myself. Could that explain why I didn't have an hard time overcoming BPD, but not the objectively bad attachment style I suffer from?

>>34300859
>even against
*even because of

>>34300859
>I would suppose something that also works is also going for somebody that I know for sure likes me back even if they are not super blunt or super direct.

Yeah I hear ya on that. I struggled a lot with this too, as I had and still have RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) courtesy of my ADHD. I perceive rejections that don't exist in reality, or slights, and I magnify things beyond their significance in my head. Which is where bpd & adhd overlap and share similarities.
So what helped for me with that problem is I tuned out of what people thought or said when I was feeling intense rejection anxiety. I instead focused on their nonverbal actions. This allowed me to identify who in my life was truly real and who was fake.

Example: You know two people. You need help with something, you ask person #1:

Person #1: Gets seemingly irritated or mildly angry. "Fuck sake, I don't have time for it. Why can't you just get it yourself?"

Person #2: "Oh sure thing, I'll definitely be glad to help you out, it's not a problem at all, I'll get right in it, consider it done my friend."

Person 1 sounds like a prick. Person 2 sounds like an angel.

Now focus on action and tune out of emotional language. And you may see:

>Person #1 sucked up their moodiness and went and gave you the help anyway despite feeling irritable, they had your back and did the action

>Person #2 did nothing. They talked a good game of being lovely and supportive but it was all for show, they are now ignoring you.

If you had to pick person 1 or 2, smart answer is pick person #1. Because even though they are a grumpy type, they are at least honest in speaking true to their feelings and they do the right thing in action. And actions always out weigh words, every time.

>Could that explain why I didn't have an hard time overcoming BPD, but not the objectively bad attachment style I suffer from.

Possibly. I'm not expert but personally in convinced BPD is what happens when autism meets PTSD.

>>34300909
>Yeah I hear ya on that. I struggled a lot with this too, as I had and still have RSD (rejection sensitive dysphoria) courtesy of my ADHD. I perceive rejections that don't exist in reality, or slights, and I magnify things beyond their significance in my head. Which is where bpd & adhd overlap and share similarities.
Huh. I didn't know an aspect of ADHD is imagining things that don't exist in reality and then amplifying them. This is making my head scratch in realization that multiple mental health conditions have overlapping symptoms. I'm not formally trained as a psychologist but that makes me think a sort of common method for healing from multiple conditions may be developed, given enough research is done on that.
The examples about the two people you made is perfect. Very few, if ANY people can lie through body language and what you said is very interesting, in how in your mindset words don't matter as much if the body language contradicts them. And obviously, actions are better than words every single time.
It's like what I always say about white lies: I would rather prefer being told the truth, no matter how hurtful it is, than being lied to. I would appreciate the honesty. While I would not be happy about the white lie that I got told to make me feel better, especially if I find out there is something serious that is being kept hidden to me by the white lie. Even more so if that something serious is something I could have easily fixed had I known right away, EVEN MORE SO if the problem or whatever compounded into something much harder to solve than it normally would be.
>Possibly. I'm not expert but personally in convinced BPD is what happens when autism meets PTSD.
That, I am not entirely sure of. But you seem to know your psychology well. I'd be interested in knowing more about that, I'd be interested even more in knowing if you think autism, at least the more high functioning forms of it, can be cured. I think it may be possible.

>>34300939
>This is making my head scratch in realization that multiple mental health conditions have overlapping symptoms
Oh yeah there's lots. It's not uncommon for someone with undiagnosed autism to get misdiagnosed as a BPD, or an undiagnosed ADHD to get diagnosed as an NPD. Unfortunately it happens frequently.

>I'd be interested even more in knowing if you think autism, at least the more high functioning forms of it, can be cured. I think it may be possible.
Sure. So Autism is fundamentally a neurodevelopmental disorder, it's neurological, so has to do with the nervous system the spaghetti wires that connect the mind to the body, that shit is fried and overly sensitive for autists.

Which leads to a very oddly similar internal experience that BPD seems to resonate with almost 1:1.

>Not feeling like a human. Or not being able to connect or feel others around you are human. Feeling like an alien among 'others'.
>Feeling empty inside nearly 24/7. Hollow ache and winds of anxiety is the default feeling
>Feeling like life or reality is constant pain, mentally, like everything weighs too much or cuts too much
>Feeling like you do not even know who you are, being unable to truly innately know your sense of self. Feeling faceless and without a face or life to call your own
>Having to mimick or mirror others in order to 'fit in', constantly prioritising and observing the behaviours or inclinations of others in order to appease/serve/appeal to it for the sake of trying to feel right in oneself.
>Black or white thinking is absolute. Either everything is shit or everything is good. Either "it's so over bros..." Or "we are so fucking back!".

Autism means reality is painful which means being too inwardly disrupted to have developed intuitive ways to socialize in a healthy trajectory, which leads to malformed ways to try and socialise in an attempt to control, well, everything. Because to autists that's what they feel is at stake, everything. They catastrophize often.

>>34300964
>>34300939
>Continued

Now autists are known for mental rigidity. Once they are set one way, they rarely if ever change their ways if they get stuck. This is because the main coping mechanisms autists depend on to preserve sanity and maintain functioning is a deep need for routine. For repetition and for things to stay the same if possible. If this is threatened or things start changing, they go into meltdowns or anxiety attacks or panic.

It's also worth pointing out: Autists also have a built in fear of abandonment, just
As BPDs. Because abandonment represents the quintessence of all pain or fear for the autist: A big sudden change to routine where they get emotionally crucified for being 'alien'. Found out for being faceless and rejected as some type of monster or whatever, it's their big #1 fear.

Now the reason I think BPDs are autists but with PTSD installed form somewhere is because most autists with no PTSD don't go on the offensive. They don't lie often, they're a bit naive and oblivious, they find ways to survive.

But PTSD turns anyone into a mental and emotional soldier thrown into an endless invisible war of suffering and unspeakable foreboding that never ends. If you equip that in top of Autism, what you end up with is a person with low sense of self, emotional hypersensitivity, afraid of abandonment and loss of control who will now do everything to fight back and not lose control, even if it means lashing out or hurting others, it's about survival.

Now if that becomes routine for an autist, it becomes very hard to unlearn. And I believe psychs encounter this and call it a "personality disorder" due to the face value stubbornness of the cyclical behaviour loops. When really it could just be autism being autism that got coded with severe trauma.

>>34300985
>>34300964
>>34300939
>Lastly

And if that isn't convincing enough that 'BPD' is actually autism + cptsd, here's what finally convinced me:

The patterns and supposed statistics. I can try to dig up supporting studies later but feel free to look into it too:

Autists & Adhds famously attract the other in social settings. In psychology they are described as being so fated to seek each other out unconsciously they go together like "Peas & Carrots". It's a weird and harmless phenomena.

Now guess what they say about BPD? They always somehow end up dating or being with NPDs and vice versa. They also somehow share the same codependent symbiotic unconscious magnetism for the other. What a coincidence right?

And finally: Autism has a 40% rate of also having ADHD as well, known as 'AuDHD".
Guess what the odds are that a BPD also has NPD comorbid? 40%.

It's almost as if when PTSD mixes with either neurodivergent disorder it presents as a "personality disorder".

>>34301037
>>34300939
Oh and I should offer the main advice I would like to get across, I went off track lol. So you say you went from anxious-avoidant to just avoidant. I think the change there is reflective of putting the BPD to sleep and returning to form of what you are and have always been: Intorverted.

That's perhaps simply what's unfurled and now revealed to you, but with BPD mixing things up and fogging your inner vision it may have been something you hadn't known for yourself innately. But now the dust is settled you're an introvert. And that's okay, what you do with that is embrace it and work with it. Does it mean the introversion is due to undiagnosed autism? Who knows. What's important is understanding you can simply be introverted and have a content life doing that, without missing out in human connection. It just means bringing people into your world, rather than trying to venture out into other people's

>>34300964

>Sure. So Autism is fundamentally a neurodevelopmental disorder, it's neurological, so has to do with the nervous system the spaghetti wires that connect the mind to the body, that shit is fried and overly sensitive for autists.
I heard something about that and I can relate to it to some extent. In myself the thing that comes to mind first is how I am reclutant to for example try new media even if I know it's something I'd like, in some cases I specifically avoid media I like because of the assumption I may either like it too much or dislike it. I suppose it's a matter of expectations and finding safety in the routine... It also manifests itself in social interactions.

And I find the behaviors you listed... Kind of odd in the sense that I can only relate to few of those, most of all the part about "not knowing the sense of self" which is a constant. Not being able to properly relate to others is something I managed to overcome with IRL interactions over time but doesn't seem to work well in this place, I mean 4chan in general. The "control mania" you described is also something I managed to overcome over time as well. Why put mental energy into stuff that is not directly related to my actions or words? Even if I were able to control everythihg that would be a violation of other people's agency. It's different from establishing and enacting boundaries, something I also learned to do over time albeit more recently.

>Now autists are known for mental rigidity. Once they are set one way, they rarely if ever change their ways if they get stuck. This is because the main coping mechanisms autists depend on to preserve sanity and maintain functioning is a deep need for routine. For repetition and for things to stay the same if possible. If this is threatened or things start changing, they go into meltdowns or anxiety attacks or panic.
That I can relate to very well sans the meltdowns, anxiety attacks or panic. It manifests in myself mostly as anxiety.
Cont.

>>34302574
cont.
The fear of abandonment I can't relate with anymore. I changed into becoming a kind of person that doesn't put much weight into abandonment: if people want to stay they'll stay, if they don't want to, let them do their own thing... With few exceptions.

>Now the reason I think BPDs are autists but with PTSD installed form somewhere is because most autists with no PTSD don't go on the offensive. They don't lie often, they're a bit naive and oblivious, they find ways to survive.
>But PTSD turns anyone into a mental and emotional soldier thrown into an endless invisible war of suffering and unspeakable foreboding that never ends. If you equip that in top of Autism, what you end up with is a person with low sense of self, emotional hypersensitivity, afraid of abandonment and loss of control who will now do everything to fight back and not lose control, even if it means lashing out or hurting others, it's about survival.
That's me when I still suffered from BPD. Not fun, social interactions when I used to be like that were borderline like a living nightmare.


>And if that isn't convincing enough that 'BPD' is actually autism + cptsd, here's what finally convinced me:
>The patterns and supposed statistics. I can try to dig up supporting studies later but feel free to look into it too:
>Autists & Adhds famously attract the other in social settings. In psychology they are described as being so fated to seek each other out unconsciously they go together like "Peas & Carrots". It's a weird and harmless phenomena.
I wouldn't call that an "harmless" phenomena. Mostly because I am convinced certain forms of autism, like mine, which I think is more like Asperger's rather than "proper" autism, can be overcome with enough social exposure, AND, I read many times in many places even from respectable sources that we shift our personalities and character in a way that mimicks the five or so people that we interact with the most.
cont.

>>34302579
cont.
Autists only interacting with other autists would only end up with reinforcing their behavior in my opinion. It's the same for interests too. I'm sure you get what I mean but I can't resist making this silly example:
If I interacted most of the time with say, an MMA fighter, a businessman and a painter, you would assume my interests and personality would align with theirs over time and over time I would also start getting into their interests and vice versa, right?
What if instead of them I interacted with 3 autists that are all either NEETs or pencil pushers, and their special interests were airplanes, trains, dinosaurs and other stereotypical spectrum stuff? I would also start to develop a personality similar to theirs or reinforce my autistic tendencies.
I know this from IRL, it's something I observed from having interacted with different kinds of people over time, and those that made me grow the most were either self admitted narcissists (which makes me strongly doubt they were narcissist in first place) or covert narcissist that were REALLY good at hiding their narcissism by... Not acting like a narc until they were pushed into a corner when I confronted them about wrong they did to me.
>Now guess what they say about BPD? They always somehow end up dating or being with NPDs and vice versa. They also somehow share the same codependent symbiotic unconscious magnetism for the other. What a coincidence right?
Eh not really. I would suppose BPD individuals that lack a sense of self would seek that out and compensate from people with an inflated sense of self, people that suffer from NPD being the perfect bill for that.
>And finally: Autism has a 40% rate of also having ADHD as well, known as 'AuDHD".
>Guess what the odds are that a BPD also has NPD comorbid? 40%.
>It's almost as if when PTSD mixes with either neurodivergent disorder it presents as a "personality disorder".
Huh. That I wasn't aware of. That's unsettling...
cont.

>>34302585
cont.
>Oh and I should offer the main advice I would like to get across, I went off track lol. So you say you went from anxious-avoidant to just avoidant. I think the change there is reflective of putting the BPD to sleep and returning to form of what you are and have always been: Intorverted.
>That's perhaps simply what's unfurled and now revealed to you, but with BPD mixing things up and fogging your inner vision it may have been something you hadn't known for yourself innately. But now the dust is settled you're an introvert.
I am aware I am introverted and I don't think that personality trait it's something that is set in stone. It depends on what kind of social circle I am in.
>And that's okay, what you do with that is embrace it and work with it. Does it mean the introversion is due to undiagnosed autism? Who knows. What's important is understanding you can simply be introverted and have a content life doing that, without missing out in human connection. It just means bringing people into your world, rather than trying to venture out into other people's
That I completely disagree with. That's like dismissing an objectively bad attachment style as an innate personality trait. I don't agree with that defeatist mindset.