Do I have Aspergers? Or just AvPD?

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Okay, so I've been doing research about AvPD lately; and every symptom fits me 100 percent - every single damned symptom I've seen come up.

I'm constantly worrying about what others think of me, I am super sensitive to negative criticism/rejection, I feel that I am inadequate and greatly over-exaggerate stuff, I sometimes use fantasy a means to escape painful thoughts I might have, I'm highly self conscious about every single thing I do.

Me having AvPD is actually probably the only reason I'm here, I don't have ANY of the major symptoms that distinguish an Aspie.

Not understanding social cues - never had a problem with this whatsoever

Making friends - always had friends especially earlier in life but as my AvPD deepened I began to lose some (but I also gained a few somehow lol)

Sensory overload - never been prone to this at all

It's pretty sad that I'm here; as I actually realize the only reason I'm even wondering this is because of my AvPD and my need to feel inadequate/inept.

Please love and accept yourself either way!

And you are most welcome here. In my view, we can use always use open-hearted "bridge persons," people who have had some of the same experiences, but perhaps not all, and thus might be able to teach us real skills. Now, for starters, I have not really heard of AvPD. Might you be able to provide a link for a good site or two.

So can someone give me some more symptoms that distinguishes Autism? Or can I pretty much close up shop and stop worrying?

Thanks for the welcoming.

Anyways, I guess Wikipedia is always a nice place to start; just go there and search AvPD (I can't post links)

Mike, some of the social anxiety may overlap. Myself, I think I often try and "excel" socially. I try and perform at a very high level and worry that I don't. Yeah, that's kind of ridiculous. Why don't I just enjoy the other person, enjoy the situation, and (in zen-like fashion?) accept that the damn thing's not going to be perfect, not by a long shot.

I think AvPD stands for Avoidant Personality Disorder. Seems like a lot of these personality disorders start to blur into each other. Both AvPD and SPD (Schizoid Personality Disorder) would describe people who shun social involvement but for different reasons. The time you are diagnosed is significant too. People who were diagnosed before Asperger's was recognized may have gotten a false diagnosis.

Yeah, Asperger's may have only been widely recognize the last (?) ten years.

No one online can diagnose you with Asperger's, a personality disorder, or otherwise. I will say that it really doesn't sound like an ASD, though. I recommend teaming up with a good psychiatrist or neuropsych and expressing your concerns in order to get appropriate treatment.

I say, merely be satisfied with a pretty good psychiatrist or neuropsych (and frankly, a lot of them don't even meet that standard).

So, take it as a series of medium steps. And if the person is not a good listener or is trying to pigeon-hole you into a box, go see someone else.

I understand that, but it is called AvPD for a reason; even though you may realize it's the best thing to do you're most likely gonna avoid it.

I do feel however that I can conquer whatever I have though, usually I can get these bursts of confidences in which I really excel in every aspect of life; but of course my AvPD brings me back down. Right now I'm trying to get into a permanent burst of confidence and just clear my mind of everything; to do this however I need to confront things that's been on my mind and this is one of them.

Maybe because if a person is socially isolated, for whatever reason, kind of have to crank up your energy to get things done. Whereas if there's social support, 'So, how was that health club? Seem alright, or kind of a rip-off?', then everything in daily life and building for the future is just a whole lot easier.

And then there's the whole Catch-22 aspect, when I don't have a social support, and I'm trying to build one up (somehow that's too nervously goal-directed, and kind of puts people off . . . so I have to deal with that)

Last edited by AardvarkGoodSwimmer on 09 Aug 2010, 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

If this counts for anything, I have been able to change my way of thinking somewhat. Before, if someone said something hurtful to me I would play it over in my head for days and just feel impotent rage. I have never been able to dismiss it, but I have been able to "let it go" a little easier. It will never come naturally to me, but I've been able to recognize self destructive ways of thinking and try to divert them. You have to learn to look at your thoughts dispassionately and evaluate them for their logical value. I know someone who falls apart whenever anybody gives her something green because she hates the color green and of course that means they secretly disrespect her. She's given the color green an immense amount of power in her life, when really, it's just green. My point being I think some personality disorders could be helped by learning to challenge your thoughts.
I was thought to have schizoid personality disorder in the mid 70's but I don't dislike people. They just make me very tired and I think that's a neurological thing.

I used to think I had schizoid personality disorder, but after some experimentation, I noticed that it didn't fit me completely. Then I thought I had Avoidant Personality Disorder. I told my psychiatrist about my feeling of why I thought I had these disorders and he told me that he didn't think I had either. Finally, he said that I should look into Asperger's. I had heard of it before, but never really considered it, because it seemed like a far of possibility. After reading more about it, it seems to fit me more than the other disorders.

I think SPD and APD will eventually be incorporated into Asperger's as the symptoms are pretty much similar.

I still don't know what my diagnosis is.

Me, too! And in a funny way, I kind of like not knowing for sure.

Both Asperger's and SPD (or at least the names) will much probably be removed from the next DSM.

But this raise an interesting question - in the 70s, there was only "schizoid personality disorder". Then, the DSM-III splited SPD in 3 distinct conditions - Schizoid, Schizotypal and Avoidant; at more or less the same time, Lorna Wing proposed the concept of "Asperger's Syndrome", covering many people that before could have been diagnosed as schizoid (note also that Wing wrote their paper largely as a reply to Sula Wolff, who was of the opinion that "autistic psychopathy" was simply the child/juvenile form of SPD).

But, if we came to the conclusion that SPD, AvPD and AS are more or less the same thing (at least, I could identify myself with both the 3 conditions, althoug less with AvPD than with AS or SPD), these note mean that the diagnostic evolutions of the last 30 years were largely a lost of time? After all, we will come to the same situation that was in the 70s, only with the name "Asperger's Syndrome" in the place of "Schizoid Personality Disorder".

Are you sure of that? After all, a possible way of not understanding social cues is... not understanding that not understand.