Signs and Symptoms
People with avoidant personality disorder are preoccupied with their own shortcomings and form relationships with others only if they believe they will not be rejected. Loss and rejection are so painful that these individuals will choose to be lonely rather than risk trying to connect with others.
- Hypersensitivity to rejection/criticism
- Self-imposed social isolation
- Extreme shyness or anxiety in social situations, though the person feels a strong desire for close relationships
- Avoids physical contact because it has been associated with an unpleasant or painful stimulus
- Feelings of inadequacy
- Severe low self-esteem
- Self-loathing
- Mistrust of others
- Emotional distancing related to intimacy
- Highly self-conscious
- Self-critical about their problems relating to others
- Problems in occupational functioning
- Lonely self-perception, although others may find the relationship with them meaningful
- Feeling inferior to others
- In some more extreme cases — agoraphobia
- Utilizes fantasy as a form of escapism and to interrupt painful thoughts
Read more about this topic: Avoidant Personality Disorder
Famous quotes containing the words signs and, signs and/or symptoms:
“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and I will multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Exodus 7:3.
“Time has an undertaking establishment on every block and drives his coffin nails faster than the steam riveters rivet or the stenographers type or the tickers tick out fours and eights and dollar signs and ciphers.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“Murderous desire, hatred, distrust are nowadays the accompanying signs of physical illness: so thoroughly have we embodied our moral prejudices.—Perhaps cowardice and pity appear as symptoms of illness in savage ages. Perhaps even virtues might be symptoms.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)