Things That You Should Know About Anxious And/Or Avoidant People

The following facts are some things that you should know about

people with Social Anxiety and/or Avoidant Personality Disorder.

It should be noted that Avoidant Personality Disorder is a facet of Social Anxiety, and that people who deal with these two disorders can also be dealing with other disorders, therefore having all of the characteristics mix and mesh and overall just making life very difficult. Some common co-occurring disorders include Anxiety, OCD, Depression, Eating Disorders, PTSD, Bipolar, Cyclothymia, Dysthymia, Panic Disorder, ADD, ADHD, etc., and can even develop some addictions.

WE ARE MORE THAN JUST "PRIVATE PEOPLE".

Self-Disclosure is more than just uncomfortable or complicated; It feels so wrong. We can't just go around telling our whole life story to every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sally, let alone minuscule little details about ourselves, like our thoughts, opinions, ideas, plans, and feelings. There is probably only one person in this whole cruel world who gets to see even a fraction of our "true authentic selves".

WE FIXATE AND WORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING.

Most of the time, when certain uncomfortable or scary situations appear, we are obsessing over each and every little thing that could go wrong and how it could go wrong. We fixate on the big things. We fixate on the little things. We fixate on winky-faces, appointments, and the things that you say.

WE CAN'T BE OURSELVES IN FRONT OF OTHERS.

Sometimes, we act really harsh on the outside, because we feel like we can't and/or shouldn't be ourselves on the inside. Of course we wish we could "join in the fun" and not fixate and/or worry about every little detail, but that's just not who we are. We don't WANT to be the prude / bummer / buzz kill / party pooper, or whatever other word there is for basically being a let-down-failure-person.

WE NOTICE EVERYTHING.

"I notice everything, like every dirty secret that you spread today. Let's set this record straight." Cue some "A Day To Remember" right here, because we notice everything.  Yes, we know that you think that we are jerks. We know that you think that we are anti-social. We know that you think that

we think that we are better than everyone else. But here's a little clue, because you desperately need one: WE ARE NOT LIKE THAT AT ALL. You just really don't even know anything about us.

WE INWARDLY JUDGE YOU FOR OUTWARDLY JUDGING OTHER PEOPLE.

We judge your judgments, because we know that being intolerant and inconsiderate is fair to no-one. As previously stated, we notice everything. We don't just notice when you're being a total jerkface to us, but we notice when you're being a total jerkface to other people, too. We may or may not speak up about it. It's generally a lot easier for us to stick up for other people than to stick up for ourselves.

WE ARE SECRETLY SUPER SENTIMENTAL AND EMOTIONAL.

Some of us bottle it all up inside, while some of us secretly cry over everything, we would just

die before we actually admitted that to the whole wide world though. (BRB, about to die now.)

IT ACTUALLY HURTS INSIDE THAT WE CANNOT BE OURSELVES

WITH OTHER PEOPLE, SO WE JUST TRY TO CONVINCE OURSELVES

THAT WE DON'T EVEN NEED THOSE OTHER PEOPLE. FOR REALS.

We don't really actually hate you, we just spend so much time trying to convince ourselves that we don't actually need you or like you, but somewhere deep down inside our souls, we know that we do, and we know that we can't open up to you, and we know that it hurts, because we really wish we could, but we can't, and so it's literally technically killing us inside of our little smooshy souls.