Dive into your creative stream
Hi! Hope you don’t mind if I take a different angle here:
It is absolutely possible to experience some symptoms but not all, and still need and deserve help.
I’m kind of inferring, Anon, so this might not be what you’re talking about. Let me say up front that if you want to pursue an official diagnosis, for any reason, that’s totally fine!
But also?
You don’t have to be diagnosed for your struggle to be valid.
You don’t even have to be diagnosable.
And you don’t have to reach a “bad enough” point before you deserve to feel better.
Our culture puts forward the idea that only some people – people with Real Problems™ – get to have feelings, need help, or spend time trying to be happy. But that’s complete nonsense. Everyone needs to do those things, and everyone deserves to.
It’s okay to recognize how miserable you feel, or admit how much you’re struggling! You’re allowed to care about being happy.
You’re a good enough, real enough, valid enough person already. Your feelings matter. You matter -- and you don’t have to do anything to “earn” that, or to deserve to feel better and be happy.
Now…
Having a name for a specific condition or group of conditions, like AvPD and PD’s in general, is useful because similar problems usually behave in similar ways. (And honestly! So many PD’s have overlap!)
These labels aren’t a permanent stamp of “Here’s What’s Wrong With You.” They exist basically to point you in the right direction – to help you understand what’s happening, and which treatments are likely to help you.
If you relate to the experiences of people with AvPD, then the treatments that help AvPD will probably help you, too. Even if you never meet the official criteria for “having the disorder.”
Maybe you’re just Avoidant-ish … but you might discover that solutions like DBT, self-care, and social support still work really well to help you function and live the way you want.
The most important thing is finding things that work for you. And maybe getting an official diagnosis is part of that process for you. If so, that’s fantastic, good luck! But, it’s not a prerequisite.
You’re allowed to need help at any point, so don’t wait for that moment before you start to work on getting better. We are all learning, growing and trying to take care of ourselves. And you belong here just as much as the rest of us.
<3
is it possible to experience some symptoms of avpd (or any pd) but not all and still have avpd? (it's ok if not, you don't need to spare my feelings haha)
Hello.
Yes and no. It depends what you mean. The current diagnostic criteria states 4 out of 7 symptoms need to be present in order for a formal diagnosis plus the general PD criteria. You definitely don’t need all of them but you do need 4 or more. For more information, visit our What Is AvPD? page.
- Jay.