For as long as I remember, or at least as long as I'd like to, I've felt like I didn't belong, like everything I could do or could ever hope to do was diminished by the 'fact' that I couldn't or rather no one thought I could.
I suppose it began around kindergarten, when I became exposed for the first time to other children. At that point I didn't have a problem with working or playing with other children, but I was extremely sensitive even for a five year old. My teacher wasn't adept at speaking to children my age and would become angry when I wouldn't understand a certain situation or had trouble with another student. I began to experience, even at my age, bulling; much of which I didn't understand but ignored and continued to attempt interactions with other children. At home I suppose my mother had always been emotionally distant, ignoring and sometimes administering harsh punishment for my lack of happiness and complaints about things at school. My stepfather of course made it quite clear that he didn't want anything to do with the fact that I may have had a problem and became increasingly distant in all ways.
My first year of first grade was a blur, much of which I cannot recall. My teacher however, was determined to prevent me from proceeding to the second grade because I was not 'emotionally ready' and forced me to repeat the first grade.
By the middle of second grade, I began to become more reclusive, choosing to play by myself in the classroom and talk to other children less. Some of my teachers noticed and called my mother for a conference to place me in the local 'special ed' program (of course she did but denied that I had a problem) in fear that I may have a mental or emotional deficiency even though my I.Q. was significantly higher than most children my age.
In the third grade my mother and stepfather divorced and me, being a child with an optimistic view of his"father", was crushed when he began caring less about me and my sister which where forced to visit him every other weekend even though I just felt like an instrument in my stepfather's revenge.
My mother in the years to follow began to show signs of bipolor disorder, which I would come to learn she always had. She would snap at anything that was slightly displeasing to her and was increasingly cold as the years went by. For a period of two years she had absolutely no interest in anything I did, or anything that seemed to ail me. She have me everything I needed and cared for me as long as she was in the right mood.
In fourth grade I was referred to a psychiatrist. When I look back on this moment in my life I laugh of both the ridiculousness and the hopelessness of the situation. She had absolutely no experience with either children or the English language. She was evidently from Hungry (which I also thought was funny) so she missed a lot of words in between words and failed to grasp many things I would say so I always ended up just playing with the toys that she would have scattered about. Things would go on like that until finally I told my mother that I was "better", to avoid feeling anxious about going out into public.
As a child I was someone indifferent about going to public gatherings (church, the supermarket, etc.) and it never really bothered me until the sixth grade when I began to feel unwanted and confused. I began to stay home from church and find alternative things to do. I believe that year I found ways to keep myself in my room for longer periods of time rather than interact with the family. Once again bullying was a great factor, more so than it was in grade school and I began to notice things like I haven't before, things that people were saying were more amplified and I began listening more intently to how they said things more so than what they said. In sixth grade I lost my ability to make eye-contact.
By the end of that year I was reduced to having less than 10 very good friends as they had all either left or had betrayed me to some strange, social system that I still have trouble understanding. I was known around my school as someone that would cry on a dime and was ripe for a good teasing or two. I developed a habit that year of talking to myself quite a bit to avoid being lonely, but of course the other kids just thought I was crazy; so I became the Schizo-crybaby-mutt (mixed) with a dandruff problem.
Seventh grade I believe was the year that depression set in, and hit me very, very hard. The depression effected the way that I was able to work and interact with others. Early on in my life I would, like other children, invent fantasies and games to keep ourselves satisfied. However when the other children stopped their silly games mine continued in my mind. I suppose to some degree it I used it to help with my loneliness which seemed to get worse and worse as the days went on. I believe that my best grade that year was a C- which was in a very simple, point based reading class that the district forced us all to take (basically just read a Harry Potter book and you'll be fine.) so I basically failed that grade as well.
When I did get to eighth grade I found, who I believed to be, someone very special. I liked to be around her, she was kind and didn't call me names or cringe when I got relatively (a mandatory three feet) close; and that was good enough for me. When I got to the ninth grade I decided that I must be in love with her and, what I now diagnose as foolish, she must care for me as well. Over the course of those two years she cheated on me twice with two different people but of course I didn't care because she was beautiful and showed me the compassion that I've been longing for my entire life. All of a sudden though, she just cut contact with me, after she had asked me to a dance and failed to show up making me feel like an idiot. For the first time, I felt the pain of loss, the pain that only comes from betrayal...and I hated it. Every day after school from that time forward I would come home, go straight to my room and cry. It didn't matter why I cried, I just did. I wanted to force every bit of pain out of my body that I could and I just couldn't, it wouldn't go away. I suppose I wasn't as much sad at the loss of her than I was tired of a continuous scenario that didn't want to stop; as if the entire universe was out to crush me, as if God himself was angry at me for some sin that I had forgotten that I've committed. Around that time I think that I began to have enough of pain, of rejection. Around that time I believe people started to notice that I "never smile".
Sophomore year I believe was the year that I just let the symptoms of AvPD have their way with my body and my mind. I gave up making eye contact and making an attempt of looking somewhat happy, even for my few friends. I became pessimistic, looking at the world like it was a pile of filth and unimaginably unrecoverable. It was deluded, the whole lot of it with the whole lot of the people that lived in it. I saw nothing but the cruel, hateful nature of people....I became Jonah so to speak. I spent that entire year that year writing a formula in my mind of how to deal with people, of how to understand people (it is not effective) I stoped going anywhere with anyone for any reason by the end of my second semester, and hated talking to anyone if it wasn't worth my time. My social anxiety got worse, I almost fainted six times during passing time throughout the year, and I started to notice facial expressions and vocal ques more keenly as if I was looking for a reason for someone to hate me.
By Junior year I had made a pseudo-personality that seemed to mask most of my awkwardness, except for my smile of course. I sought to find the aliment that had made my life more difficult for the past thirteen years and that was, or rather what I thought was, Asperger's Syndrome. I thought it to be quite logical: I couldn't relate to anyone, I had strange habits, I got frustrated at simple things that I couldn't do and I was extremely adept at certain things; most importantly I was socially crippled. For half a year I went on thinking I was Autistic or at least had an Autistic spectrum disorder, which I now find funny and which some of my friends thought was funny when I tried to tell them. By graduation I wasn't sure what was wrong with me, somehow I had lost interest as the pain and confusion had returned by the end of my 12th year.
Up to now that is a somewhat rough rundown of my history and of me and my aliment. I'm not quite sure of what could cause my AvPD but I'm quite certain it's associated with my experiences with certain situations and people. I visited a number of medical websites and even wiki-peadia and found a simple list of symptoms often associated with AvPD.
(here is a link to the page)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder
AvPD is a crippling illness that will lead many people to live lives of isolation and loneliness. As I have experienced and continue to experience it will only continue to get worse. There is no cure for this disease, there is almost no way to get rid of it. But (as I've read) there are ways to make life easier for you, there is a way to make things a little better. Don't give up, your life is too precious to waste. If you need to talk to someone contact me by email (which I think is on my page) or leave a comment and don't worry: if it doesn't seem like I'll respond, I will. I'm just lazy like that. : )
