I totally can relate to this. I have done it for as long as I can remember. Like you, it is usually a one-on-one conversation, and a lot of times it is an argument, or I am telling people off around whom I would normally keep quiet, i.e. a boss/manager or a teacher, especially scenarios that have already happened where I shut down instead of speaking up. When I'm alone, I will even speak my parts out loud. It can be jarring when I suddenly find myself yelling at an imaginary person across from me or laughing at a funny joke they told. I think this is actually a fairly normal thing that most people do. It's kind of like a form of meditation. I think it's interesting that you said you feel worse afterwards, because I typically feel better, at least now that I've learned it is perfectly healthy and not necessarily a symptom of anything. I view it as a form of self-soothing a lot of the time. I will say that it happens more often in periods of peak isolation, so that could explain why maybe it is more common or intense with people who have AvPD.
This is the only part of my mind I have never shared with anyone, my therapist knows I have a constant daydream stream flowing but I never went into details because I feel ashamed about these kinds of “fantasies” .Knowing someone else has my exact (and I mean that literally) experience is comforting and I’m thinking that maybe I’m not a shitty person , maybe some brains are just wired differently idk if it makes sense.
I'm not officially diagnosed with AvPD but I do have this type of intrusive daydreams. Even as a child I had always had a very wild imagination and it never left as I grew up, instead it became kinda obsessive and kinda intrusive. I do have daydreams about success and about getting hurt or dying but they are not as common. For me the most common one is about me being completely different person and having a completely different life, or even living in a completely different imaginary world. And don't get me wrong I don't have a horrible life but I feel this need to escape reality nonetheless.
I related to this on such a deep level. One of my most common fantasies is about being in a hospital, and having people express care they never showed to me and regretting it i guess? It feels really obsessive like you described. I generally always relate to your videos, but when you said fantasizing about death i shook because I really wasn't expecting you to say it, but i knew that you were !? I don't know if that makes sense. It honestly takes up a large part of my days, since at times it's the only thing i can think about. Dreaming of my own funeral has honestly caused me to be distracted with my everyday tasks, and it's not even like i'm trying to kill myself or anything. It's just like this constant thinking I want attention and care, but like you said, I know that it doesn't turn out that way. Sometimes it'll even go so far to where i'm pretending to be the other people and writing things about my passed self, but I know that's when the intrusive thoughts have gotten a little too intrusive. The relationships/friends one is big too. And the success. I just imagine myself doing all of these big things that I know i'll never be able to accomplish, but it gives me some sort of motivation. And i know that even if i was able to do any of the things, it would be so physically hard to get by telling other REAL people about it. Some weeks it's worse than others, especially if i have some project im working on. At times, it's the only thing i can focus on and it will shift my being the entire day. After I realize what my mind has been taken up by, I feel so guilty and ashamed that I was idealizing people like that, but then i just go back to it again and again. I'm really looking forward to your book, you're one of the few people i've stumbled apon that has been able to articulate my experiences so thoroughly. I start to tear up each time I watch one of these because of how shocked i am! It's like watching myself, a little older, in a video. Thank you for making me feel less alone Jake.
Ok wow, so many of these ‘non typical’ symptoms you’ve discussed in your videos are so deeply relatable and idk why but I’ve never even thought that they could be attributed to my avpd. You articulate these topics and experiences so well, thank you!
I also want to say, although I don't know anything about your personal life or the people around you, but based on my own experiences with AVPD, people probably like and care about you a lot more than you think. They probably get the message that you want to be left alone (whether you actually do or not) and aside from that, don't know what to "do about you," but it doesn't mean they don't like you or don't care. I could be wrong, I've heard horror stories from people who's parents really didn't care about them, but odds are it's just the AVPD causing you to think negatively about yourself.
Yeah, I've put a ton of thought into it while in different states of mind, and I still really have no idea, and I know that's partially AvPD talking, and partially reality. Guess that's what the death fantasies are about really, just wishing I could know what the truth is. At the end of the day, it's pointless to wonder, as the only thing that really matters is whether the people I know have a better life with me around, and vice versa, and knowing that requires less guesswork.
I used to have these kinds of daydreams and fantasies constantly. Into my 20's and early 30's, I would replay scenarios from my past, especially high school, as the idealized "normal" version of myself that I wanted to be, having imaginary conversations with people I used to know and things like that. In my case, I'd say it was caused by regret for all of the missed opportunities and the subconscious desire for a do-over. At some point I got tired of thinking about that stuff, and broke the habit by just putting it out of my mind when it would arise and trying to keep my mind focused on the present. I can relate to the thoughts about death, too. I wouldn't say I fantasize about my death, but at times I think about it a lot. Not in the sense of worrying about it, but the inevitability of death and the mystery of how and when it will happen is fascinating in a weird way. I also have had a lot of thoughts about suicide, although I hasten to clarify that I have never truly felt suicidal. In my mind, there is a big difference between feeling suicidal, and just thinking about suicide. When I'm at my lowest in terms of feeling alienated and hopeless, I've had thoughts to the effect that people around me would finally understand what I've been through all my life if I killed myself. Although when I consider that in a more clear-headed state of mind, I don't think it would make them understand at all. It would just hurt them terribly, which I don't want.
There's definitely a big difference in feeling suicidal and just thinking about it, as someone who's experienced both. I can't say I've figured out how to put these sorts of thoughts out of my mind yet, but maybe someday.
i wouldn't call these intrusive thoughts, because i have those and they are extremely distressing during and afterward, are entirely involuntary, and they're never something i desire, they never feel good, and they can even potentially trigger panic attacks. but i have that tendency to obsess and daydream hyper-idealistic scenarios, perfect situations that can't and will never happen in reality. mine are mainly relationship related, and they can almost be euphoric in the moment, i can craft every detail to be exactly what i wish someone would do, and i could feel safe and even convince myself that i'm loved by the imaginary person i'm with, which has never happened in reality. but as soon as they end, i feel empty and hopeless because i don't have that and never will. i worry that the more i think about my perfect dreams, where someone loves every part of who i am and makes me feel like i can be myself and relax with someone without regretting it, the more unhappy i will be if i ever do end up in a relationship, and the more unrealistic my expectations will be. when you said "i can't handle anything going wrong" i felt that so bad 😭 i also have similar "sympathy" scenarios, where i do something similar to what you described (most commonly failed attempts), and people finally believing me or taking me seriously, or validating me. i also imagine myself doing the things i think about but never allow myself to express, like anger outbursts, confronting people, doing things i've made impossible for me to do out of fear and fawn response. my theory is that all this daydreaming is a coping mechanism to fill the endless-seeming time we spend feeling so empty and alone. it gives us the life we want for a little while, and it's a way of sort of meeting our needs or desires by imagining them being met. i'm also a heavy fiction consumer and have used the "fantasy escape" coping since i was little, and i think that probably plays a part for me personally; fictional romance has probably given me ideas and shown me scenarios that aren't realistic, and i crave them anyway. i hope i can get your book sometime when i have the money! from watching your videos i get the feeling your book will help me feel less alone and give me insight to AvPD. i could only find so many resources and research online 😅 i appreciate every new resource that comes along, and thank you for writing and sharing despite the fear that must come with it.
Jake, I've been basically watching your videos chronologically since last night (gonna watch all of them for sure), and already wanted to comment on the first one, but as soon as I wrote the whole thing, I deleted everything. :D But I feel now I seriously have to write something and sorry if it'll end up a bit too rambly, but maybe you'll find it helpful or encouraging in some way or something. I just wanted to say that I hugely appreciate your effort of sharing your experiences with people. It takes loads of courage and resilience to share about your AVPD brain and all the difficult and painful things it causes. I mean, I sort of do this too, because I'm a blogger who writes about all kinds of things that I feel strongly about, and AVPD is part of me so I write about that too, but writing and talking on camera are two different things. It's also super brave of you that you keep on doing this despite a family member has found your channel. I have as good a relationship with my family as you can with AVPD but if someone of them found my blog that would likely be the end of my content-creating "career". Thank you so much for doing this and I hope you will be able to keep going. As you've said yourself, this is such an awfully under-researched condition, and prior to coming across you, I've only found accounts of people with AVPD who seem to be fairly high-functioning, at least in comparison to me. Which is obviously only logical, because low-functioning people like me usually just delete everything they write, but it just adds to one's so-called feelings of inadequacy when one sees that there don't seem to be any other people who deal with similar stuff really if they manage to graduate from uni, have a family etc. You and I seem to be fairly close on the AVPD spectrum though, which I feel really sad about because I feel you and wish you didn't have to deal with this, but it also feels comforting in a way, and I hope that seeing comments from people who deal with similar difficulties has been a bit of a comfort to you as well. I pretty much relate to everything you've shared until this video (down to the sarcasm thing, had no idea it could have anything to do with AVPD :D ) except for anhedonia which you seem to experience a lot. I have persistent depressive disorder/dysthymia as well and I do experience longer or shorter periods of anhedonia as part of it, but it's thankfully not a constant feature for me, and at this point it's pretty much just pursuing my interests/passions, along with my Christian faith and my cat, that keep me adrift, even if sometimes there are days when I have to fake my enthusiasm a little for my own sake because I feel like regardless of how much I'm into something, it doesn't make my life any less pointless in the long run. For that reason I really feel for people who have more anhedonia. I also found it interesting when you said in one of your videos that you don't like sharing your interests or things you like with other people, in which I'm the opposite for the most part. I often also feel very self-conscious about it as well in case someone won't like it or will criticise it even slightly but my drive to share what I enjoy is usually stronger, so if they do end up disliking it I just get cringe fits for years afterwards. And as much as I pretty much live my whole life in my room, I generally do like online interactions, though usually only in the form of blogging or penpalling or rather epalling since it's via email and occasionally some Reddit or RUclips comment , but definitely no social media, no huge forums, no real time chats/instant messaging unless with family or people I know REALLY well, and duh obviously absolutely no Skyping or Zooming or other such. ANd re daydreaming/intrusive thoughts, I definitely experience it too and it's fairly similar to yours as well. Maladaptive daydreaming is its own psychiatric entity apparently, but I bet there's some link between it and AVPD, because it's just like an extreme form of escapism in a way, and escapism is a thing that even just normal introverts often do to an extent. Also at least for me it's pretty much an addiction of sorts, and addictions of all kinds are apparently common for AVPD folks, this one is just such that people who are too scared of disinhibiting effects of psychoactive substances fall into. :D I also get it when I do some specific things, or in response to some aesthetically pleasing and fun sensory stimuli like music. The thing itself is very pleasant, so much so that sometimes I'll deliberately carve out some time specifically for daydreaming, but yeah, falling back down to Earth afterwards can really suck, so I go back to daydreaming as soon as I can. I also get the success ones a lot, which tend to be disgustingly egotistic. ANd relationship ones are frequent for me too. They can be so vivid sometimes that it feels like if I'd go one step further, I would believe that it's true, even though I don't have any psychotic tendencies or anything like that. I used to get the death ones a lot when I was younger, currently my suicidal thinking is a lot more just like some white noise in the background so I have them less, but if I do, they're absolutely spectacular and dramatic, to the point that it gets ridiculous, like straight from some Gothic novel or something. :D I also have other daydreams about all kinds of things, which don't necessarily reflect what I would like to happen in real life, but it's either fun to just daydream about them for a little while and then move on, or it just simply happens by itself. And I also have like complete separate worlds in my brain, populated by real people I like, all kinds of made up people and creatures, some have been made up actively by me, and others more subconsciously and involuntarily or something, and if there's no good material for a spectacular, egotistic daydream, I just go hang out in one of those worlds. I understand being "extra-smiley" or any other facial expressions that seem inappropriate, happens to me a lot as well. It's like a defensive mechanism in a way, I guess, perhaps from the same category as sarcasm. OK yeah, this has really turned out long. :D Thank you once again for what you're doing. Hang in there. 🤗💜
Thank you so much for writing this! I really did love to read it, it makes me feel a lot less alone. That's exactly why I wanted to make these videos - there are a pretty small amount of people talking about having AvPD in the first place, and most of them are a bit more functional than us. I definitely felt especially bad that I seemed to be the only one having this much trouble, but it really helped me to accept that my struggles were real, no matter what, when I talked about it out loud. And it turns out that there are quite a few of us in a similar place. I completely get what you mean about sharing interests. I would absolutely love to have someone to talk to about the music I like, or game design stuff, I just have a really hard time actually doing it. It doesn't help that, in addition to the main fear of being judged, I also tend to get super obsessed with niche things in a way that makes me feel like I'm going to really weird people out. Hopefully, I'll (eventually) make progress on not feeling that way as much. I like online interactions a lot more since I started making these videos. I think it's mostly because one-on-one conversations are a lot easier (and more interesting) for me. With RUclips/email there's no anxious feeling like I'm having a conversation in front of a crowd, like Reddit sometimes feels like. And, as much personal and subjective stuff as I'm sharing, I'm still pretty much sharing facts about myself, and not opinions. Yeah, the daydreaming is definitely something some people without AvPD also do. For me, it just feels particularly intrusive/obsessive, just kinda going through the same thoughts every few hours like "still haven't actually done that thing yet, huh?". It's super weird to be smiling about a nice scenario for a second, and then to get mad at myself for still being the same guy sitting in his house. Thanks again for your comment :) It would be cool to read your blog, if you're comfortable sharing it (and my email is on the About section of the channel if you would want to send it that way), but I totally get if you'd rather not. Either way, thanks for the kind words, and the same to you :)
@@JakeAvPD I can now understand why you find it so difficult to share your interests with other people, as I saw the video where you talked about your parents. I'm so sorry it was like that for you... Having really niche and even obsessive interests is really cool! :) I don't know, maybe I'm in the minority with this, but I tend to like people who are like REALLY into something, and something that not everyone else likes. Even if I don't necessarily share their interest. But it's just cool for me when people really love something and it's like hearing them almost makes the thing interesting for me. :D Even more so if we actually do share the interest in question. So if I am like that, perhaps more people feel the same and wouldn't be weirded out. Still, I understand that taking the risk could feel rather scary for you. I agree that it's a lot easier and less pressuring when you just share stuff about yourself rather than something factual and objective. Yes, the daydreaming in AVPD is certainly more difficult to deal with and more pathological in a way. I'll email you the link to my blog in a little while, I sure don't mind you reading it. :)
I always day Dream about me giving tips about adapting to avpd to other avpd people(making tips up in my head) or explain it to others or hating myself for being like this. Sometimes day dreaming do motivate myself to do stuff but a lot of times they do make me procastinate from sudying which has affect my grades significantly. I want to find other means of motivation instead of daydreamin. For now diet has been a great help.
It's awesome that diet is helping you. For me, I tend to feel like I get just a bit of motivation on my own, and then the daydreams distract me and often take it away. Weird stuff. I wasn't able to focus on schoolwork much at all after I turned 17, it's hard with AvPD. I wish you the best of luck.
I had no idea fantasies were an AVPD thing. This has been my main coping mechanism for my whole life. I can think of periods of months where I did almost nothing but sit on my bed staring at the wall, talking to myself. In school, I’d imagine “rescuing” girls or starting the nerd uprising or becoming a rock star etc and these things got me through those years. Some days I can barely see real life. Also the death part. I would imagine other people’s sympathy at first as well. Over time it became a way to remind my nervous system that the anxiety it was feeling was not infinite. If all else fails, that’s an option. Picturing it would ease some of the agitation. I’m not diagnosed but I’m looking into this because I’m struggling with a lot of these symptoms, thanks for the info.
Yeah.. i can relate very obviously. that's really interesting. TY. I'm trying adhd meds.. but.. not sure about it. It'a kind of Walter Mitty thing, you should watch this film if you don't already have. Ben Stiller is immerged in heroic situations, romantic fantasies.. I'm afraid i'm more avpd than adhd, like you. So sad to hear about those suicidal thougts my friend. That's hard having avpd, really. You're young, you're smart and you figurated it out by yourself. That's a very good point. We probably can't really heal from such a thing, but you can damper it! And that's what you're doing now! So, congratulations for this work on yourself, and for sharing it with others IRL. Good job!
I can completely relate to all your symptoms not just in this video but others, what has been helping me a lot with Avpd and social anxiety was doing a lot of introspection into why i do and think the things i do but without judging myself for it. One channel that really helped me with this is called wu wie wisdom, check out their video on the golden thread method, once you do that you will understand why people like us who have avpd think so negatively sometimes and hopefully you'll have some compassion and understanding for yourself other than blaming yourself. Another channel that helped me was teal swan. I statrted this healing journey about a month and a half ago and i can tell you I've improved so much and my avpd symptoms are definitely decreasing.
I would not say my "intrusive thoughts" manifest in the same way as you describe them to manifest, but I definitely have them as well. Even the thoughts about death, which I only have when the depressive episodes are at their highest levels, which can happen with intervals and frequency from just a few times to a lot. If I'm lucky those thoughts don't appear for a several months, but they always come back and sometimes really heavy. I'm so used to it that I'm not even freaked out by them anymore. Other "fantasies" I generally experience as "fun". Sometimes I believe it's my mind trying to "live out" the things I can't manage to realise in real life. But most of the times when I snap out of them, it comes with a realisation if my own inadequacy. Which on the other hand I also realise that those in adequacies are not true by definition as well, even though it feels like "something" is blocking me from "being adequate" which I can't control. As for AvPD in general, I feel like there are multiple "patterns" for different people with AvPD but a lot of those patterns have overlap with eachother. And that's what perhaps makes it difficult to study AvPD because therapists really, and then I mean really need to read between the pages with people like us, to just make an attempt to get close to those patterns and the way they affect us. At a first glance the pattern is not the same, even though in a sense it is the same after all.
@@JakeAvPD Yeah that's a huge obstacle. For me it went fairly easy though as I am a huge rational thinking person. And I rationalized therapy was the only thing I could do to at least try to "fix" myself. Also triggered by being partial suicidal. It took a great effort to go and show up every session though. The hardest part was opening up in those sessions, and that took a really long time and several therapists before I was at a point of doing so. About 6 to 10 therapists (I lost count) before I found the right one. The not so right ones, also never found out I had AvPD and they only treated me for Depression and some side effects of which I later learned where caused by AvPD.
Wow. I also have the type of intrusive thoughts/daydreams in which I achieve some kind of success and it happens pretty much every time I start working on something. Like you said, they feel nice while they’re playing in my head but once they’re gone, I feel terrible and like I shouldn’t think about myself in such an idealistic and overly positive manner. Apart from being avoidant, I have ocd and I always thought that those were ocd intrusive thoughts. Thank you for the video!!
Yeah, when it happens it makes me feel narcissistic, even though I spend most of my time hating myself...which is confusing, to say the least. I was also thinking about how similar it is to internal OCD. I guess whether it's really an element of AvPD, or just comorbid OCD for some of us, isn't really important, as it might be a fairly common issue for people with AvPD to deal with either way. Thanks :)
@@JustSomeDude31 I think that's probably true, in the sense that AvPD is such a life-encompassing disorder both while it's developing and while you're dealing with it later. The core of it is social anxiety due to poor self-esteem, but obviously that usually leads to a whole lot of other issues. I think what's most important is recognizing what's "wrong" with you, and why, so you can forgive yourself for it and make progress. For me, learning about AvPD made a huge difference-that's what I was missing in my understanding of myself. Knowing whether a mental health professional might also make a comorbid diagnosis is less important, for me personally. I try to reflect on and talk about my experiences under the label of AvPD because that's how I personally see them, while also noting that the label is, in my opinion, of secondary importance to understanding our experiences.
@@JakeAvPD I agree completely, knowing I have AvPD helps indeed with understanding myself better. I also see a comorbid diagnosis as less of a significance because I see AvPD as the root cause of such comorbidities, whether that may be true in practice or not. Of course negative life experiences in early life and/or also later in life also can shape comorbidities, wich for me are most definitely true as well, but I think those are empowered by the influence of AvPD. AvPD feels like the all encompassing umbrella to everything that feels wrong to me. Therefore when I got diagnosed with it and they explained to me what it basically meant, and when I learned more about it, it was like I found a missing piece of myself. Wich most definitely was a good thing because afterwards, even though slowly I started to make "progress".
I fantatize about other lifes I could be living, or in the future. Just normal stuff, nothing extraordinary, but I am always happy there. I talk to myself, out loud if I am alone, where I talk to someone imaginary and I tell them about this good life I am living.
Oh and fantazasing about killing myself of course, I see myself packing my things in boxes in bags, separating things to give away or to keep haha I want to leave my shit in order, I don't want to bother people XD
I hope you get an opportunity in the future to talk to a doctor, but in the meantime, I think what might be most beneficial is to just try to understand what things you'd like to change, and why they are the way they are now. For me, that was helpful because I determined that my social anxiety wasn't because I was just so introverted that I didn't want to talk to other people; it came from my fear that everyone disliked me, which itself came from my low self-esteem...which in turn came from how others had made me feel about myself throughout my childhood. So, whether I knew I had AvPD or not, I wanted to change how I felt about myself, so that I could change how I felt that others would feel about me, and have a more fulfilling, interactive life.
@@redbeans5104There is a study, called "Struggling to be a person", where people with AvPD explain how they are feeling, maybe this could help you to evaluate if you have AvPD, too. It's more specific than for example the DSM description, but still scientificly. (I saw myself a lot in it, also I asked my boyfried if he has similar feelings, but he don't, so I kind of excluded that it's written so generic, that just everyone sees themselves in it.) I can tell you the authors, if you're interested but can't find it.
I would say that's how it seems for me, yeah. I definitely wouldn't have these sorts of thoughts so often if I wasn't so fixated on these shortcomings, or if I didn't feel like they were there in the first place.
I totally can relate to this. I have done it for as long as I can remember. Like you, it is usually a one-on-one conversation, and a lot of times it is an argument, or I am telling people off around whom I would normally keep quiet, i.e. a boss/manager or a teacher, especially scenarios that have already happened where I shut down instead of speaking up.
When I'm alone, I will even speak my parts out loud. It can be jarring when I suddenly find myself yelling at an imaginary person across from me or laughing at a funny joke they told. I think this is actually a fairly normal thing that most people do. It's kind of like a form of meditation.
I think it's interesting that you said you feel worse afterwards, because I typically feel better, at least now that I've learned it is perfectly healthy and not necessarily a symptom of anything. I view it as a form of self-soothing a lot of the time. I will say that it happens more often in periods of peak isolation, so that could explain why maybe it is more common or intense with people who have AvPD.
This is the only part of my mind I have never shared with anyone, my therapist knows I have a constant daydream stream flowing but I never went into details because I feel ashamed about these kinds of “fantasies” .Knowing someone else has my exact (and I mean that literally) experience is comforting and I’m thinking that maybe I’m not a shitty person , maybe some brains are just wired differently idk if it makes sense.
I'm not officially diagnosed with AvPD but I do have this type of intrusive daydreams. Even as a child I had always had a very wild imagination and it never left as I grew up, instead it became kinda obsessive and kinda intrusive. I do have daydreams about success and about getting hurt or dying but they are not as common. For me the most common one is about me being completely different person and having a completely different life, or even living in a completely different imaginary world. And don't get me wrong I don't have a horrible life but I feel this need to escape reality nonetheless.
I related to this on such a deep level. One of my most common fantasies is about being in a hospital, and having people express care they never showed to me and regretting it i guess? It feels really obsessive like you described. I generally always relate to your videos, but when you said fantasizing about death i shook because I really wasn't expecting you to say it, but i knew that you were !? I don't know if that makes sense. It honestly takes up a large part of my days, since at times it's the only thing i can think about. Dreaming of my own funeral has honestly caused me to be distracted with my everyday tasks, and it's not even like i'm trying to kill myself or anything. It's just like this constant thinking I want attention and care, but like you said, I know that it doesn't turn out that way. Sometimes it'll even go so far to where i'm pretending to be the other people and writing things about my passed self, but I know that's when the intrusive thoughts have gotten a little too intrusive. The relationships/friends one is big too. And the success. I just imagine myself doing all of these big things that I know i'll never be able to accomplish, but it gives me some sort of motivation. And i know that even if i was able to do any of the things, it would be so physically hard to get by telling other REAL people about it. Some weeks it's worse than others, especially if i have some project im working on. At times, it's the only thing i can focus on and it will shift my being the entire day. After I realize what my mind has been taken up by, I feel so guilty and ashamed that I was idealizing people like that, but then i just go back to it again and again. I'm really looking forward to your book, you're one of the few people i've stumbled apon that has been able to articulate my experiences so thoroughly. I start to tear up each time I watch one of these because of how shocked i am! It's like watching myself, a little older, in a video. Thank you for making me feel less alone Jake.
I appreciate this comment so much, thank you :)
Ok wow, so many of these ‘non typical’ symptoms you’ve discussed in your videos are so deeply relatable and idk why but I’ve never even thought that they could be attributed to my avpd. You articulate these topics and experiences so well, thank you!
Thank you :)
I also want to say, although I don't know anything about your personal life or the people around you, but based on my own experiences with AVPD, people probably like and care about you a lot more than you think. They probably get the message that you want to be left alone (whether you actually do or not) and aside from that, don't know what to "do about you," but it doesn't mean they don't like you or don't care. I could be wrong, I've heard horror stories from people who's parents really didn't care about them, but odds are it's just the AVPD causing you to think negatively about yourself.
Yeah, I've put a ton of thought into it while in different states of mind, and I still really have no idea, and I know that's partially AvPD talking, and partially reality. Guess that's what the death fantasies are about really, just wishing I could know what the truth is. At the end of the day, it's pointless to wonder, as the only thing that really matters is whether the people I know have a better life with me around, and vice versa, and knowing that requires less guesswork.
I used to have these kinds of daydreams and fantasies constantly. Into my 20's and early 30's, I would replay scenarios from my past, especially high school, as the idealized "normal" version of myself that I wanted to be, having imaginary conversations with people I used to know and things like that. In my case, I'd say it was caused by regret for all of the missed opportunities and the subconscious desire for a do-over. At some point I got tired of thinking about that stuff, and broke the habit by just putting it out of my mind when it would arise and trying to keep my mind focused on the present.
I can relate to the thoughts about death, too. I wouldn't say I fantasize about my death, but at times I think about it a lot. Not in the sense of worrying about it, but the inevitability of death and the mystery of how and when it will happen is fascinating in a weird way.
I also have had a lot of thoughts about suicide, although I hasten to clarify that I have never truly felt suicidal. In my mind, there is a big difference between feeling suicidal, and just thinking about suicide. When I'm at my lowest in terms of feeling alienated and hopeless, I've had thoughts to the effect that people around me would finally understand what I've been through all my life if I killed myself. Although when I consider that in a more clear-headed state of mind, I don't think it would make them understand at all. It would just hurt them terribly, which I don't want.
There's definitely a big difference in feeling suicidal and just thinking about it, as someone who's experienced both. I can't say I've figured out how to put these sorts of thoughts out of my mind yet, but maybe someday.
i wouldn't call these intrusive thoughts, because i have those and they are extremely distressing during and afterward, are entirely involuntary, and they're never something i desire, they never feel good, and they can even potentially trigger panic attacks.
but i have that tendency to obsess and daydream hyper-idealistic scenarios, perfect situations that can't and will never happen in reality. mine are mainly relationship related, and they can almost be euphoric in the moment, i can craft every detail to be exactly what i wish someone would do, and i could feel safe and even convince myself that i'm loved by the imaginary person i'm with, which has never happened in reality. but as soon as they end, i feel empty and hopeless because i don't have that and never will. i worry that the more i think about my perfect dreams, where someone loves every part of who i am and makes me feel like i can be myself and relax with someone without regretting it, the more unhappy i will be if i ever do end up in a relationship, and the more unrealistic my expectations will be.
when you said "i can't handle anything going wrong" i felt that so bad 😭
i also have similar "sympathy" scenarios, where i do something similar to what you described (most commonly failed attempts), and people finally believing me or taking me seriously, or validating me. i also imagine myself doing the things i think about but never allow myself to express, like anger outbursts, confronting people, doing things i've made impossible for me to do out of fear and fawn response.
my theory is that all this daydreaming is a coping mechanism to fill the endless-seeming time we spend feeling so empty and alone. it gives us the life we want for a little while, and it's a way of sort of meeting our needs or desires by imagining them being met. i'm also a heavy fiction consumer and have used the "fantasy escape" coping since i was little, and i think that probably plays a part for me personally; fictional romance has probably given me ideas and shown me scenarios that aren't realistic, and i crave them anyway.
i hope i can get your book sometime when i have the money! from watching your videos i get the feeling your book will help me feel less alone and give me insight to AvPD. i could only find so many resources and research online 😅 i appreciate every new resource that comes along, and thank you for writing and sharing despite the fear that must come with it.
😊 I'd be delighted to email you a copy of the ebook, if you're cool with reading digitally! Feel free to get in touch at jakeavpd@gmail.com anytime :)
@@JakeAvPD oh, that would be awesome!! i'll email you ^^
Jake, I've been basically watching your videos chronologically since last night (gonna watch all of them for sure), and already wanted to comment on the first one, but as soon as I wrote the whole thing, I deleted everything. :D But I feel now I seriously have to write something and sorry if it'll end up a bit too rambly, but maybe you'll find it helpful or encouraging in some way or something.
I just wanted to say that I hugely appreciate your effort of sharing your experiences with people. It takes loads of courage and resilience to share about your AVPD brain and all the difficult and painful things it causes. I mean, I sort of do this too, because I'm a blogger who writes about all kinds of things that I feel strongly about, and AVPD is part of me so I write about that too, but writing and talking on camera are two different things. It's also super brave of you that you keep on doing this despite a family member has found your channel. I have as good a relationship with my family as you can with AVPD but if someone of them found my blog that would likely be the end of my content-creating "career". Thank you so much for doing this and I hope you will be able to keep going.
As you've said yourself, this is such an awfully under-researched condition, and prior to coming across you, I've only found accounts of people with AVPD who seem to be fairly high-functioning, at least in comparison to me. Which is obviously only logical, because low-functioning people like me usually just delete everything they write, but it just adds to one's so-called feelings of inadequacy when one sees that there don't seem to be any other people who deal with similar stuff really if they manage to graduate from uni, have a family etc. You and I seem to be fairly close on the AVPD spectrum though, which I feel really sad about because I feel you and wish you didn't have to deal with this, but it also feels comforting in a way, and I hope that seeing comments from people who deal with similar difficulties has been a bit of a comfort to you as well.
I pretty much relate to everything you've shared until this video (down to the sarcasm thing, had no idea it could have anything to do with AVPD :D ) except for anhedonia which you seem to experience a lot. I have persistent depressive disorder/dysthymia as well and I do experience longer or shorter periods of anhedonia as part of it, but it's thankfully not a constant feature for me, and at this point it's pretty much just pursuing my interests/passions, along with my Christian faith and my cat, that keep me adrift, even if sometimes there are days when I have to fake my enthusiasm a little for my own sake because I feel like regardless of how much I'm into something, it doesn't make my life any less pointless in the long run. For that reason I really feel for people who have more anhedonia.
I also found it interesting when you said in one of your videos that you don't like sharing your interests or things you like with other people, in which I'm the opposite for the most part. I often also feel very self-conscious about it as well in case someone won't like it or will criticise it even slightly but my drive to share what I enjoy is usually stronger, so if they do end up disliking it I just get cringe fits for years afterwards. And as much as I pretty much live my whole life in my room, I generally do like online interactions, though usually only in the form of blogging or penpalling or rather epalling since it's via email and occasionally some Reddit or RUclips comment , but definitely no social media, no huge forums, no real time chats/instant messaging unless with family or people I know REALLY well, and duh obviously absolutely no Skyping or Zooming or other such.
ANd re daydreaming/intrusive thoughts, I definitely experience it too and it's fairly similar to yours as well. Maladaptive daydreaming is its own psychiatric entity apparently, but I bet there's some link between it and AVPD, because it's just like an extreme form of escapism in a way, and escapism is a thing that even just normal introverts often do to an extent. Also at least for me it's pretty much an addiction of sorts, and addictions of all kinds are apparently common for AVPD folks, this one is just such that people who are too scared of disinhibiting effects of psychoactive substances fall into. :D I also get it when I do some specific things, or in response to some aesthetically pleasing and fun sensory stimuli like music. The thing itself is very pleasant, so much so that sometimes I'll deliberately carve out some time specifically for daydreaming, but yeah, falling back down to Earth afterwards can really suck, so I go back to daydreaming as soon as I can. I also get the success ones a lot, which tend to be disgustingly egotistic. ANd relationship ones are frequent for me too. They can be so vivid sometimes that it feels like if I'd go one step further, I would believe that it's true, even though I don't have any psychotic tendencies or anything like that. I used to get the death ones a lot when I was younger, currently my suicidal thinking is a lot more just like some white noise in the background so I have them less, but if I do, they're absolutely spectacular and dramatic, to the point that it gets ridiculous, like straight from some Gothic novel or something. :D I also have other daydreams about all kinds of things, which don't necessarily reflect what I would like to happen in real life, but it's either fun to just daydream about them for a little while and then move on, or it just simply happens by itself. And I also have like complete separate worlds in my brain, populated by real people I like, all kinds of made up people and creatures, some have been made up actively by me, and others more subconsciously and involuntarily or something, and if there's no good material for a spectacular, egotistic daydream, I just go hang out in one of those worlds.
I understand being "extra-smiley" or any other facial expressions that seem inappropriate, happens to me a lot as well. It's like a defensive mechanism in a way, I guess, perhaps from the same category as sarcasm.
OK yeah, this has really turned out long. :D Thank you once again for what you're doing. Hang in there. 🤗💜
Thank you so much for writing this! I really did love to read it, it makes me feel a lot less alone. That's exactly why I wanted to make these videos - there are a pretty small amount of people talking about having AvPD in the first place, and most of them are a bit more functional than us. I definitely felt especially bad that I seemed to be the only one having this much trouble, but it really helped me to accept that my struggles were real, no matter what, when I talked about it out loud. And it turns out that there are quite a few of us in a similar place.
I completely get what you mean about sharing interests. I would absolutely love to have someone to talk to about the music I like, or game design stuff, I just have a really hard time actually doing it. It doesn't help that, in addition to the main fear of being judged, I also tend to get super obsessed with niche things in a way that makes me feel like I'm going to really weird people out. Hopefully, I'll (eventually) make progress on not feeling that way as much.
I like online interactions a lot more since I started making these videos. I think it's mostly because one-on-one conversations are a lot easier (and more interesting) for me. With RUclips/email there's no anxious feeling like I'm having a conversation in front of a crowd, like Reddit sometimes feels like. And, as much personal and subjective stuff as I'm sharing, I'm still pretty much sharing facts about myself, and not opinions.
Yeah, the daydreaming is definitely something some people without AvPD also do. For me, it just feels particularly intrusive/obsessive, just kinda going through the same thoughts every few hours like "still haven't actually done that thing yet, huh?". It's super weird to be smiling about a nice scenario for a second, and then to get mad at myself for still being the same guy sitting in his house.
Thanks again for your comment :) It would be cool to read your blog, if you're comfortable sharing it (and my email is on the About section of the channel if you would want to send it that way), but I totally get if you'd rather not. Either way, thanks for the kind words, and the same to you :)
@@JakeAvPD I can now understand why you find it so difficult to share your interests with other people, as I saw the video where you talked about your parents. I'm so sorry it was like that for you...
Having really niche and even obsessive interests is really cool! :) I don't know, maybe I'm in the minority with this, but I tend to like people who are like REALLY into something, and something that not everyone else likes. Even if I don't necessarily share their interest. But it's just cool for me when people really love something and it's like hearing them almost makes the thing interesting for me. :D Even more so if we actually do share the interest in question. So if I am like that, perhaps more people feel the same and wouldn't be weirded out. Still, I understand that taking the risk could feel rather scary for you.
I agree that it's a lot easier and less pressuring when you just share stuff about yourself rather than something factual and objective.
Yes, the daydreaming in AVPD is certainly more difficult to deal with and more pathological in a way.
I'll email you the link to my blog in a little while, I sure don't mind you reading it. :)
Thanks man :)
Lookin swole Bogan, keep on that TRT!
I always day Dream about me giving tips about adapting to avpd to other avpd people(making tips up in my head) or explain it to others or hating myself for being like this. Sometimes day dreaming do motivate myself to do stuff but a lot of times they do make me procastinate from sudying which has affect my grades significantly. I want to find other means of motivation instead of daydreamin. For now diet has been a great help.
It's awesome that diet is helping you. For me, I tend to feel like I get just a bit of motivation on my own, and then the daydreams distract me and often take it away. Weird stuff. I wasn't able to focus on schoolwork much at all after I turned 17, it's hard with AvPD. I wish you the best of luck.
@@JakeAvPD thank you! I wish the best of luck on your journey too!!
I had no idea fantasies were an AVPD thing. This has been my main coping mechanism for my whole life. I can think of periods of months where I did almost nothing but sit on my bed staring at the wall, talking to myself. In school, I’d imagine “rescuing” girls or starting the nerd uprising or becoming a rock star etc and these things got me through those years. Some days I can barely see real life. Also the death part. I would imagine other people’s sympathy at first as well. Over time it became a way to remind my nervous system that the anxiety it was feeling was not infinite. If all else fails, that’s an option. Picturing it would ease some of the agitation. I’m not diagnosed but I’m looking into this because I’m struggling with a lot of these symptoms, thanks for the info.
Yeah.. i can relate very obviously. that's really interesting. TY.
I'm trying adhd meds.. but.. not sure about it.
It'a kind of Walter Mitty thing, you should watch this film if you don't already have.
Ben Stiller is immerged in heroic situations, romantic fantasies..
I'm afraid i'm more avpd than adhd, like you.
So sad to hear about those suicidal thougts my friend.
That's hard having avpd, really. You're young, you're smart and you figurated it out by yourself.
That's a very good point. We probably can't really heal from such a thing, but you can damper it! And that's what you're doing now!
So, congratulations for this work on yourself, and for sharing it with others IRL. Good job!
All of the scenarios you said are very real for me , even the death one and how you said you want people to have sympathy and stuff
I can completely relate to all your symptoms not just in this video but others, what has been helping me a lot with Avpd and social anxiety was doing a lot of introspection into why i do and think the things i do but without judging myself for it. One channel that really helped me with this is called wu wie wisdom, check out their video on the golden thread method, once you do that you will understand why people like us who have avpd think so negatively sometimes and hopefully you'll have some compassion and understanding for yourself other than blaming yourself. Another channel that helped me was teal swan. I statrted this healing journey about a month and a half ago and i can tell you I've improved so much and my avpd symptoms are definitely decreasing.
Thanks for the recommendations. I'm glad it's been helping you!
I would not say my "intrusive thoughts" manifest in the same way as you describe them to manifest, but I definitely have them as well. Even the thoughts about death, which I only have when the depressive episodes are at their highest levels, which can happen with intervals and frequency from just a few times to a lot. If I'm lucky those thoughts don't appear for a several months, but they always come back and sometimes really heavy. I'm so used to it that I'm not even freaked out by them anymore.
Other "fantasies" I generally experience as "fun". Sometimes I believe it's my mind trying to "live out" the things I can't manage to realise in real life. But most of the times when I snap out of them, it comes with a realisation if my own inadequacy. Which on the other hand I also realise that those in adequacies are not true by definition as well, even though it feels like "something" is blocking me from "being adequate" which I can't control.
As for AvPD in general, I feel like there are multiple "patterns" for different people with AvPD but a lot of those patterns have overlap with eachother. And that's what perhaps makes it difficult to study AvPD because therapists really, and then I mean really need to read between the pages with people like us, to just make an attempt to get close to those patterns and the way they affect us. At a first glance the pattern is not the same, even though in a sense it is the same after all.
That makes sense, and that's assuming we manage to go to therapy in the first place, which is certainly an obstacle!
@@JakeAvPD
Yeah that's a huge obstacle. For me it went fairly easy though as I am a huge rational thinking person. And I rationalized therapy was the only thing I could do to at least try to "fix" myself. Also triggered by being partial suicidal. It took a great effort to go and show up every session though. The hardest part was opening up in those sessions, and that took a really long time and several therapists before I was at a point of doing so. About 6 to 10 therapists (I lost count) before I found the right one. The not so right ones, also never found out I had AvPD and they only treated me for Depression and some side effects of which I later learned where caused by AvPD.
Wow. I also have the type of intrusive thoughts/daydreams in which I achieve some kind of success and it happens pretty much every time I start working on something. Like you said, they feel nice while they’re playing in my head but once they’re gone, I feel terrible and like I shouldn’t think about myself in such an idealistic and overly positive manner. Apart from being avoidant, I have ocd and I always thought that those were ocd intrusive thoughts. Thank you for the video!!
Yeah, when it happens it makes me feel narcissistic, even though I spend most of my time hating myself...which is confusing, to say the least. I was also thinking about how similar it is to internal OCD. I guess whether it's really an element of AvPD, or just comorbid OCD for some of us, isn't really important, as it might be a fairly common issue for people with AvPD to deal with either way. Thanks :)
@@JakeAvPD Personally I believe AvPD can't live without comorbidity, but I could be terribly wrong in that.
@@JustSomeDude31 I think that's probably true, in the sense that AvPD is such a life-encompassing disorder both while it's developing and while you're dealing with it later. The core of it is social anxiety due to poor self-esteem, but obviously that usually leads to a whole lot of other issues. I think what's most important is recognizing what's "wrong" with you, and why, so you can forgive yourself for it and make progress. For me, learning about AvPD made a huge difference-that's what I was missing in my understanding of myself. Knowing whether a mental health professional might also make a comorbid diagnosis is less important, for me personally. I try to reflect on and talk about my experiences under the label of AvPD because that's how I personally see them, while also noting that the label is, in my opinion, of secondary importance to understanding our experiences.
@@JakeAvPD I agree completely, knowing I have AvPD helps indeed with understanding myself better. I also see a comorbid diagnosis as less of a significance because I see AvPD as the root cause of such comorbidities, whether that may be true in practice or not. Of course negative life experiences in early life and/or also later in life also can shape comorbidities, wich for me are most definitely true as well, but I think those are empowered by the influence of AvPD. AvPD feels like the all encompassing umbrella to everything that feels wrong to me.
Therefore when I got diagnosed with it and they explained to me what it basically meant, and when I learned more about it, it was like I found a missing piece of myself. Wich most definitely was a good thing because afterwards, even though slowly I started to make "progress".
I fantatize about other lifes I could be living, or in the future. Just normal stuff, nothing extraordinary, but I am always happy there. I talk to myself, out loud if I am alone, where I talk to someone imaginary and I tell them about this good life I am living.
Oh and fantazasing about killing myself of course, I see myself packing my things in boxes in bags, separating things to give away or to keep haha I want to leave my shit in order, I don't want to bother people XD
@@juliana_f_c I catch myself talking out loud to myself sometimes, too. I get it so much :( I really hope things get better for you.
@@JakeAvPD Thank you, I wish the same for you, I know it will 🙂
I can understand what you say! I am also suffering by AvPD and it can be very hard. ❤
Hang in there ❤
Hai bro, I often get confused whether I got AVPD or I'm just an INFJ.. I want to go to the doctors but I don't have the money.
I hope you get an opportunity in the future to talk to a doctor, but in the meantime, I think what might be most beneficial is to just try to understand what things you'd like to change, and why they are the way they are now.
For me, that was helpful because I determined that my social anxiety wasn't because I was just so introverted that I didn't want to talk to other people; it came from my fear that everyone disliked me, which itself came from my low self-esteem...which in turn came from how others had made me feel about myself throughout my childhood.
So, whether I knew I had AvPD or not, I wanted to change how I felt about myself, so that I could change how I felt that others would feel about me, and have a more fulfilling, interactive life.
@@JakeAvPD I’m so happy seeing your reply ❤️ Thankfully I found your channel 😭😭😭 I hope you having a great day ❤️
@@redbeans5104 Thank you
@@redbeans5104There is a study, called "Struggling to be a person", where people with AvPD explain how they are feeling, maybe this could help you to evaluate if you have AvPD, too. It's more specific than for example the DSM description, but still scientificly.
(I saw myself a lot in it, also I asked my boyfried if he has similar feelings, but he don't, so I kind of excluded that it's written so generic, that just everyone sees themselves in it.)
I can tell you the authors, if you're interested but can't find it.
This is all about self hatred and dealing with it?
I would say that's how it seems for me, yeah. I definitely wouldn't have these sorts of thoughts so often if I wasn't so fixated on these shortcomings, or if I didn't feel like they were there in the first place.