Alora Fane

Some venting about the Avoidant and Dependent Personality Disorders that likely hinder me, awkward phone calls with friends, embarrassment while dog walking, and how much of a mental mess I generally am.

My parents have been away on yet another holiday this week. I could barely concentrate on Monday and Tuesday because either I had thoughts about the neighbouring community hall I was tasked with looking after hanging over me, or the fussy, needy dog just wouldn’t settle down unless I sat right next to it in the rooms it’s accustomed to being in (so not my room where my PC is). Annoying.

On Tuesday night, I got a random phone call from one of my two (?) remaining friends, who I hadn’t talked to in months but who I messaged in a fit of loneliness a week or two ago - despite assumptions of her having ghosted me - hoping to reconnect. She said she hadn't reached out to me in months because she thought I’d been ghosting her, which I have some scepticism about, but whatever. We talked on the phone and it went fine; quite well, even! We talked fluently for hours, and I went to bed feeling better, like I’d been awoken from some kind of prolonged mind-rotting half-sleep, as often happens when these rare social sunbeams pierce the usual dark clouds. Or something.

I do video calls with the other friend, and we plan them in advance, though it’d been a month or two since the last. We had one planned for last Wednesday, which I postponed to this Wednesday because of an hours-long power cut. I thought since the phone call the day before went so well, this one would too.

But it absolutely didn’t! It was incredibly awkward, and I was cringing hard for the next two days; I still am now, though thankfully the embarrassment's faded a lot. Awkward pauses where we both ran out of things to say, which I tried to recover from by rambling about something I was explaining poorly and could clearly see she wasn’t remotely interested in, and… ugh. About half way in, it became obvious - or at least to my delusional demons - that I’d made some horrendous misstep - imagine you’d accidentally made a racist joke/implication to someone of the target race, for an idea of the kind of feeling I mean - and it set off this avalanche of embarrassment/self-loathing that made it difficult to concentrate on anything else either of us were saying. Eventually I just cut the conversation short out of sheer embarrassment.

We’re both the sort of people who worry about making social missteps and cringe afterwards, so I have been wondering whether we were feeling the same afterwards, blaming ourselves. But I’m inclined to believe it’s imbalanced because she lives with her boyfriend, while I’m isolated, so I don’t have the support to work through it or to resist the feelings of unworthiness or ineptitude. If she feels she’s faulty, evidence around her suggests otherwise, but if I fear I am, at least in the social domain, a look at my life situation only confirms that.

I tried to take the dog out for a walk to maybe distract myself, which felt like a big deal because I hadn’t been out in ages. It kept just stopping when I tried to walk certain ways, though, as if it knew the path it wanted to go and that wasn’t it, which was odd because I’ve taken it out before along those routes and this behaviour is new. At one point along some narrow path flanked by trees, a group of like six people - some children - with a couple of dogs were walking toward me, so I tried to turn off to the left (which was the way home that I was intending to go anyway), the dog dug its feet in the ground and refused, I tugged the collar gently to try and convince it, and the collar came off over its head! Thankfully it didn’t run away and calmly let me put it back on, but the group of strangers were obviously watching and laughed at the silliness of it. While I know they weren't laughing with malice, it was still embarrassing.

Things like this seem to happen every time I go out, and they just lend evidence to the negative thoughts that I'm some bumbling fool constantly tripping over my own feet and words in a way that’d make anyone around me uncomfortable. And it’s that discomfort of others that’s the worst thing in the world for me, which I want to avoid at all costs. I believe that I'm someone who can't survive in the real world, so I shouldn't even try. I should either just hide away forever, or off myself, so then I don't have to inflict myself on anyone else ever again.

Those warped thoughts are difficult to shrug off, and draining to the point of exhaustion; I've spent much of the week since those events just feeling beaten down, tired, heavy, headaches, avoiding messages even when there's a chance to connect (the friend I talked to on the phone expressed interest in doing more calls soon; a person on Reddit seemed eager to talk with me on Discord, but I've yet to add the account name they sent me). I just feel overwhelmed and like I can't cope.

These are the sorts of feelings people often describe in the Avoidant Personality Disorder subreddit, so they largely seem to be a manifestation of that mental condition. Though they've certainly been getting worse for me over the past few years.

My parents being away always makes me wish I had my own place in the long term, so that I might be more motivated to do something about all this... When they're in an adjacent room, I get too complacent, don't force myself to deal with stressful things - like answering the door - because they'll do it. It's infantalising, and I acknowledge that, but the desire to escape it is less powerful than the comfort it provides. There's no sufficient motivator.

I miss being away at uni, fending for myself... though that was also the worst time in my life mentally, which makes me concerned about how I'd fare if sentenced by my own demons to essentially a life of solitary confinement.

Every night, my mind fills with things I know I should do - I should try volunteering! I should get therapy! - but I don't know how to take the first step. I probably need to see my GP (General Practitioner, doctor; I don't know if the term is universal) first to get started with therapy... but the surgery is like a 30 minute drive away, and I can't drive, meaning I'd have to brave buses for the first time in years (though I used to do that without issues), or get a lift from my mum, which I feel embarrassed about at this age. I recently learned there's a GP surgery like a five minute walk away from where I live, and if I were to switch to that it'd be way more convenient to attend appointments so I'd make them more readily (I also need to see a GP about an ingrown toenail, which I've been putting off for months)... but I keep putting that off because-...

Have I written here before about Dependent Personality Disorder? That's often comorbid with Avoidant Personality Disorder, and it's likely something I have as well. ∞ The wikipedia article says ∞:

Dependent personality disorder (DPD) is characterized by a pervasive psychological dependence on other people. This personality disorder is a long-term condition in which people depend on others to meet their emotional and physical needs, with only a minority achieving normal levels of independence. ... Symptoms can include anything from extreme passivity, devastation or helplessness when relationships end, avoidance of responsibilities and severe submission.

People who have dependent personality disorder are overdependent on other people when it comes to making decisions. They cannot make a decision on their own as they need constant approval from other people. Consequently, individuals diagnosed with DPD tend to place needs and opinions of others above their own as they do not have the confidence to trust their decisions. This kind of behaviour can explain why people with DPD tend to show passive and clingy behaviour. These individuals display a fear of separation and cannot stand being alone. When alone, they experience feelings of isolation and loneliness due to their overwhelming dependence on other people. Generally people with DPD are also pessimistic: they expect the worst out of situations or believe that the worst will happen. They tend to be more introverted and are more sensitive to criticism and fear rejection.

Those of you who've been munching popcorn to the freak-show-train-wreck spectacle of my deranged rantings about my pitiful life over the years should hopefully see me in that description. I do, at least.

It's interesting though how in the creative domain, I'm largely able to make decisions of my own - I've made games and websites and all sorts of things without anyone's help, and if anything I resist others trying to direct my course - but when it comes to Real World stuff, even trivial things leave me feeling like I have to at least have someone else present while I make a decision.

It's not even that I want them to make the decision for me - the idea of having some doting carer who literally wipes my arse for me fills me with disgust - but rather it's like I need someone else to share the responsibility, so if things go wrong - as I assume they will - then all the fault won't entirely rest on me, or that someone else would know what I really meant to do so I might look slightly less of a fool or monster, or something like that? Or at the very least I have someone present to rant at to take the edge off after the mistake has occurred, rather than just being trapped with the unbearable spines in me with no way to shake them off.

Either way, it's not an easy combination of mental deformities to navigate life with. I know I need to do something about it, but... most of us know we need to eat healthy and exercise, but it's so much easier to just watch ourselves get fatter and fatter. I wonder what percentage of people transcend the steady descent, and what people, personality traits, or privileges they relied on to do so.

I don't know where I should start, what I should do next week. One thought is that once I've recovered enough from the current mental fog, and my parents have taken the dog off my hands, I could maybe talk with that friend about maybe finding a place to move out to; maybe we could talk regularly and she could just be there to talk at while I try and figure out some life things. There's a big assumption that nobody would ever want to play such a role for me, though, which is an obstacle. But I don't really know what else I can do at this point.

Oh, or I suppose just making progress with Atonal Dreams is what I really need to focus on right now. I feel like I can't - or shouldn't - move on with my life until that's out of the way; I don't want to go out and get a Normal Job until I found out whether or not Atonal Dreams will succeed; I don't want another ghost of a failed project haunting me for the rest of my life. Hopefully I'll be able to get somewhere with that next week...

5 COMMENTS

Slothboy2531~2Y

Good points. Multiple areas of attack, in theory. A bit unfortunate that even your plan to move out - to gain independence - involves getting the approval of your friend in order to succeed and move in with her, presumably to form some kind of codependent relationship. Sure, it might work out, but if it doesn't, where does that leave you in terms of options?

As to your point about wanting to wait until getting a "Normal Job" - surely that's not mutually exclusive! If you get a basic, part-time job someplace and work on Atonal Dreams in your remaining time, that could be a good routine as well.

Thinking of these things as matters of all-or-nothing investment ultimately be unhelpful. So much about overcoming your real-life anxieties is about finding ways to take it slow and expose yourself to novelty gradually, which for you, if at all, only seems to happen online. That kind of habit-building, really, doesn't depend so much on the strength of your initial resolutions as on practice and repetition. Find small, regular things that you can do which give you a sense of achievement (!) aside from your work. That could be a hobby that you practice with other people or for instance a daily walk or jog (so that getting minor attention from strangers isn't as soul-crushing).

I don't find it uninteresting to read about, but do you really find this sort of rumination helpful? Cathartic, perhaps, but the very process of ruminating on such things for you seems to end up reinforcing the significance of exactly those demons. The point of a CBT-based approach, presumably, would be to rewire such tendencies. So that when you find yourself starting to cringe at whatever it is that currently occupies you, you find a way to do literally anything else.

If you think you don't know what the first step is - for volunteering, therapy, whatever - unfortunately the first step always is reaching out, so being able to do that is a useful thing to practice!

(what terrifies you so much about buses? This may be my personal bias as someone who grew up taking a lot of trains in the city, but public transport is like the definition of anonymity - you sit down, plug in headphones, tune out the world, get out at your stop once you're there. That's pretty much what everyone else does, in my experience!)

As to your point about wanting to wait until getting a "Normal Job" - surely that's not mutually exclusive! If you get a basic, part-time job someplace and work on Atonal Dreams in your remaining time, that could be a good routine as well.

Thinking of these things as matters of all-or-nothing investment ultimately be unhelpful. So much about overcoming your real-life anxieties is about finding ways to take it slow and expose yourself to novelty gradually, which for you, if at all, only seems to happen online. That kind of habit-building, really, doesn't depend so much on the strength of your initial resolutions as on practice and repetition. Find small, regular things that you can do which give you a  sense of achievement (!) aside from your work. That could be a hobby that you practice with other people or for instance a daily walk or jog (so that getting minor attention from strangers isn't as soul-crushing).

I don't find it uninteresting to read about, but do you really find this sort of rumination helpful? Cathartic, perhaps, but the very process of ruminating on such things for you seems to end up reinforcing the significance of exactly those demons. The point of a CBT-based approach, presumably, would be to rewire such tendencies. So that when you find yourself starting to cringe at whatever it is that currently occupies you, you find a way to do literally anything else.

If you think you don't know what the first step is - for volunteering, therapy, whatever - unfortunately the first step always is reaching out, so being able to do that is a useful thing to practice!

(what terrifies you so much about buses? This may be my personal bias as someone who grew up taking a lot of trains in the city, but public transport is like the definition of anonymity - you sit down, plug in headphones, tune out the world, get out at your stop once you're there. That's pretty much what everyone else does, in my experience!)

Tobias 1115~2Y

Sorry about the lack of clarity: I didn't mean I'm interested in moving in with a friend, just that it'd be easier to go through the process of looking with someone than to just do it all alone for the DPD-related reasons I briefly described. The end result would be finding somewhere to live alone, which has its own mental risks.

I really don't think I could work on Atonal Dreams and a 'normal job'; maybe a decade ago, but not now. Maybe a reason you don't see many older people doing indie dev in their free time. I can barely handle just AD now.

I've tried many 'getting out there!' daily habits over the years. I used to go for two hour-long walks a day, and to several groups and classes each week. I'm not starting from scratch here. The thing about personality disorders though is that hey're malformations of the mind's foundation, and old habits re-establish if not constantly fought against. I'm just in a rut at the moment.

Some people express issues only when they want advice, others do so because the process is itself therapeutic, cathartic; I'm the latter. I felt significantly better after writing this post. If anyone else can get anything out of them too, that's a nice bonus.

The bit that put me off buses until my mid-twenties was how exactly to handle the initial interaction when you get on. Which exact words to say. That's something people with social anxiety typically experience - Reddit example: [LINK] - but which must be very odd to people without the condition. The last two times I used buses I had embarrassing interactions with the driver - one time I dropped change all over the floor and had to pick it up, the next the driver came to the upper level of the (double decker) bus where I was sitting to tell me I'd paid with a bank note that'd recently been discontinued - so my broken brain is primed for further embarrassment and I've not been sufficiently motivated to push through that.

I really don't think I could work on Atonal Dreams /and/ a 'normal job'; maybe a decade ago, but not now. Maybe a reason you don't see many older people doing indie dev in their free time. I can barely handle just AD now.

I've tried many 'getting out there!' daily habits over the years. I used to go for two hour-long walks a day, and to several groups and classes each week. I'm not starting from scratch here. The thing about personality disorders though is that hey're malformations of the mind's foundation, and old habits re-establish if not constantly fought against. I'm just in a rut at the moment.

Some people express issues only when they want advice, others do so because the process is itself therapeutic, cathartic; I'm the latter. I felt significantly better after writing this post. If anyone else can get anything out of them too, that's a nice bonus.

The bit that put me off buses until my mid-twenties was /how exactly/ to handle the initial interaction when you get on. Which exact words to say. That's something people with social anxiety typically experience - Reddit example: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialanxiety/comments/u8tk6h/how_do_you_get_the_bus/ - but which must be very odd to people without the condition. The last two times I used buses I had embarrassing interactions with the driver - one time I dropped change all over the floor and had to pick it up, the next the driver came to the upper level of the (double decker) bus where I was sitting to tell me I'd paid with a bank note that'd recently been discontinued - so my broken brain is primed for further embarrassment and I've not been sufficiently motivated to push through that.

Tama_Yoshi82~2Y

About creators oversharing (the question you asked in the other blog), I've seen a few popular youtubers give in to what one might consider oversharing, often talking about queer issues, coming out, or having to deal with certain mental conditions, or even bullying. It usually comes off neatly, but these people tend to have "media training" - or you could say that they became popular because their views are clear and acceptably formulated. Not to be a pessimist (I'm usually not!!!), but it seems like the best kind of "oversharing" comes from people who have enough social support to develop the maturity to understand themselves, and to understand how to convey their struggle to an audience of tens of thousands upwards to a million. I think this is true for most things; even mentally-sound hermits tend to be perceived negatively, even if they're an artistic or scientific genius - a lot of trail-blazers won't be understood, but will create a following of people to redigest their ideas in a more accessible ways. This... happens... in philosophy.

The web of social relations that are weaved through works by people with varying types of personalities is complex, and can be both fortuitous and unfortunate (unfortuitous?).

It certainly seems like you're looking for ways to express yourself in a way that you won't fear the crushing burden of backlash cringe; I can relate to some extent, I prefer talking to people with odd personality quirks, because at least then I feel like no matter the amount of misteps I make, I know they also make misteps, so it's fair (although I have other reasons; in part like I said in a previous comment, idiosyncratic people are interesting).

I'm not sure how you plan to find ways to express yourself. It seems your friend isn't enough, and my understanding is that your blog is mostly a last-ditch effort (I can't imagine it's as satisfying as having a good heart-to-heart). One thing I've noticed is that being in the uniquely rare position of being among a group quirky people - especially artists or nerds - can feel a lot more comforting than just talking to the one person (where you eventually run out of things to say). I'm saying uniquely rare, because a lot of group gatherings are usually loud, and not something I enjoy, but the quieter group gatherings are more satisfying, because I can actually understand what people are saying (that is an important part of it!!!) and my odds of being invested is larger, plus if I don't speak for 10 minutes it's usually okay, and in other cases I can just change the sub-group of people I'm with (another thing, groups usually split in sub-groups, so you can choose your conversation partner).

But as I said, these gatherings are uniquely rare, and I'm not familiar with a lot of ways to easily get them. They sound like university club stuff (which they are in my case), and years ago I went to a competitive local weekly smash bros tournament that was somewhat like this (God I haven't played video games with gamers in ages).

Anyway, connections! I do tend to look back at past interactions and cringe, too, often things that happened YEARS ago, when I was objectively more cringy. This blog hasn't really been a source of cringe for me, even if I do the occasional ramble. I don't think I judge you negatively for any of the stuff you write in your blogs. They seem open and transparent, and often a bit systematic, as something made extracted of visceral necessity. Difficult to scoff at something so genuine. It'd feel tantamount to shaming a person for coming out of the closet (is this a dubious metaphore? I don't think it is?).

If I had to guess, I'd say the discomfort that arises from "aphotic dwellings" is mostly second-hand, as a result of not being able to react properly or help the person that's expressing the struggle. I know some people who struggle a LOT, and sometimes I just cross my fingers that whatever I tell them doesn't make their lives worse because they misinterpret a sliver of negativity. That can definitely be wearying, like walking on eggshells. I had a friend who just blocked me on social media for... complex... reasons. It felt like that; they turned most conversations in an eggshell nightmare. I even defended them, as the last conversation I remember having with them - not even in a patronizing way. So imagine if they blocked me anyway. You can probably observe how the eggshells-walking is pathologizing even in this very paragraph, as I'm defending myself trying to care for them. That's what it can be like.

Another tangent and a half. It got to me, this one.
Have you watched the DrK video with the girl that suffered from social avoidance? I'm guessing not, it was hours long... But it was pretty neat. DrK has a lot of these conversations, that are essentially formalized over-sharing "not therapy" sessions.

The web of social relations that are weaved through works by people with varying types of personalities is complex, and can be both fortuitous and unfortunate (unfortuitous?).

It certainly seems like you're looking for ways to express yourself in a way that you won't fear the crushing burden of backlash cringe; I can relate to some extent, I prefer talking to people with odd personality quirks, because at least then I feel like no matter the amount of misteps I make, I know they also make misteps, so it's fair (although I have other reasons; in part like I said in a previous comment, idiosyncratic people are interesting).

I'm not sure how you plan to find ways to express yourself. It seems your friend isn't enough, and my understanding is that your blog is mostly a last-ditch effort (I can't imagine it's as satisfying as having a good heart-to-heart). One thing I've noticed is that being in the uniquely rare position of being among a group quirky people - especially artists or nerds - can feel a lot more comforting than just talking to the one person (where you eventually run out of things to say). I'm saying uniquely rare, because a lot of group gatherings are usually loud, and not something I enjoy, but the quieter group gatherings are more satisfying, because I can actually understand what people are saying (that is an important part of it!!!) and my odds of being invested is larger, plus if I don't speak for 10 minutes it's usually okay, and in other cases I can just change the sub-group of people I'm with (another thing, groups usually split in sub-groups, so you can choose your conversation partner).

But as I said, these gatherings are uniquely rare, and I'm not familiar with a lot of ways to easily get them. They sound like university club stuff (which they are in my case), and years ago I went to a competitive local weekly smash bros tournament that was somewhat like this (God I haven't played video games with gamers in ages).

Anyway, connections! I do tend to look back at past interactions and cringe, too, often things that happened YEARS ago, when I was objectively more cringy. This blog hasn't really been a source of cringe for me, even if I do the occasional ramble. I don't think I judge you negatively for any of the stuff you write in your blogs. They seem open and transparent, and often a bit systematic, as something made extracted of visceral necessity. Difficult to scoff at something so genuine. It'd feel tantamount to shaming a person for coming out of the closet (is this a dubious metaphore? I don't think it is?).

If I had to guess, I'd say the discomfort that arises from "aphotic dwellings" is mostly second-hand, as a result of not being able to react properly or help the person that's expressing the struggle. I know some people who struggle a LOT, and sometimes I just cross my fingers that whatever I tell them doesn't make their lives worse because they misinterpret a sliver of negativity. That can definitely be wearying, like walking on eggshells. I had a friend who just blocked me on social media for... complex... reasons. It felt like that; they turned most conversations in an eggshell nightmare. I even defended them, as the last conversation I remember having with them - not even in a patronizing way. So imagine if they blocked me anyway. You can probably observe how the eggshells-walking is pathologizing even in this very paragraph, as I'm defending myself trying to care for them. That's what it can be like.

Another tangent and a half. It got to me, this one.
Have you watched the DrK video with the girl that suffered from social avoidance? I'm guessing not, it was hours long... But it was pretty neat. DrK has a lot of these conversations, that are essentially formalized over-sharing "not therapy" sessions.

GrayNine35~2Y

Have you considered using Uber or Lyft? My anxiety means I can't drive, and there's no good public transportation where I live, but whenever I use Uber I can get places without much interaction beyond "hi" and "thanks."

Tobias 1115~2Y

My understanding is that those services only run in cities? I live in a sleepy seaside town full of old people. I'd find it more awkward than a bus anyway because it feels less anonymous and I've not done it before. I wouldn't want to use a taxi for similar reasons.