Three Cheers for Insomnia!

Been on Wellbutrin for about a month. Can't say it's really helping me any, but I do have a tad bit more energy & some of the generic achiness is gone. I've been trying to ween off the Elavil, and I think I've forgotten to take it at all over the past week, and I woke up almost exactly four hours after falling asleep this morning. Yeah, don't think that's going to work.

Avoidant personality disorder (as opposed to just having an avoidant personality) happens to be one of the lesser researched personality disorders. Part of the problem is that it shares so many traits with social phobia/anxiety, antisocial personality disorder, schizoid/schizophrenia, the autism spectrum, and has also been called 'hypersensitivity'. Personality disorders usually prevent, or interfere with, normal everyday lives. APD means a person doesn't just avoid their emotions, but also anything that might stir up emotions, especially dealing with other human beings, meaning they usually withdraw completely. They have a hard time keeping a job because the minute they get comfortable they run, and it's the same for relationships. A lot of people who have the dreaded fear of commitment (including people who abandon their families) may have APD.

According to the shrink, the personality types are still valid models, and yes, I am avoidant. I probably do not have an actual personality disorder because I can still go about my daily activities, which in our world today relates more to me being able to hold down a steady job than it does my internal life and relationships. That doesn't mean my behavior cannot develop into a full-blown disorder (or may actually be APD but I've coped by finding jobs where I'm relatively isolated so it doesn't count), and as a matter of fact, unless I take active steps to stop certain behaviors, I may end up w/other problems surfacing as I get older.

I make a lot of automatic assumptions without testing them. I automatically assume no one wants to hear what I have to say about anything, so I don't talk much. I automatically assume no one wants to get to know me, so even if someone interests me, I don't make any 'first moves'. I automatically think anyone who tries to get to know me is going to earn my trust and confidence - and then find some way to humiliate me - so I don't let other people get close.

I do, every once in awhile, try to break out of my shell & engage in a conversation. For me, since I don't have much practice, that means saying strange things at strange times. Which makes people look at me like I'm nuts, or move away from me a few feet, and reinforces my belief that no one wants to hear what I have to say, or get to know me. I have a hard time getting involved in 'girl talk', too. The longest conversation I've had in a long time is with a kid at my job who likes zombie culture. We sat & went over our plans for making it through the impending apocalypse for about 15 minutes. Zombies are not a widespread topic of discussion among my other co-workers, unlike being fat, reality t.v., dating & make-up.

I also seem to be in a codependent marriage that reads like a Godsdamned text-book case study.

Type IV avoidants hide out in a codependent relationship with one person to avoid having healthy relationships with many people. They sink into one relationship to avoid all others. Some are dependent on their family. Others are dependent on a lover with whom they form a merger relationship that protects them from the anxiety associated with relationships outside of the primary relationship. - from Distancing: Avoidant Personality Disorder, Revised and Expanded by Martin Kantor, MD.

I didn't even have to read the whole book to find that, either, just the frikkin blurb on amazon. Rob has issues, including social anxiety/phobia, he's a loner & a homebody. Many times I find myself justifying not inviting people to the house (and preventing friendships) because, "well, if they want to be friends with me, they have to be friends with Rob, because he's a social retard, acts like an over-eager puppy around new people and generally finds some way to make everything awkward or alienate people or make them uncomfortable, and I can't make friends or do things without including Rob because he gets lonely & feels rejected", which for the most part is true but it's also horribly, horribly convenient for me. It gives me an excuse - as long as I'm with Rob I can keep everyone else (including, thankfully, my family) at arms' length. Same with our messy, cluttered, dog-hair covered house. Can't invite anyone over or reciprocate house invitations because, well, look at this dump. I've known that I use Rob as an excuse for a long time, but I finally brought it up to him & he was like, "I don't mind. I will continue to enable you and your avoidant behavior as long as you want me around". Gee, hun, thanks for your support (and yes, we've both been to AA, why did you ask?).

It's the automatic assumptions and tendency to be alone that could get worse as I get older. It means the difference between being eligible for organ donation when I die and no one knowing I've died until I start to smell (unless I go before Rob, in which case I may end up a mummified corpse somewhere in the house). I avoid dealing with stress as much as I avoid dealing with any other strong feeling, which is setting me up for some sort of vague cardiac incident in my future or something. I'm still not clear on how stress is a killer, but, whatever. The lack of social interaction and an inability to deal directly with my emotions is probably not helping the depression much.

I'm thinking part of my self-sabotage at the County might have been related to the fact that I was not as isolated as I'd hoped to be and was forced into dealing directly with stress-monkeys. Speaking of which, I don't like to work at our handicapped-accessible window at the front desk because it's got a low counter. Low counters mean people can reach out and touch you - and it's not always a handicapped person that's being helped out there. It's where the managers & supervisors tend to accumulate, so there are often very angry people within striking distance at that window. I now understand that my future employment choices are limited, meaning I would probably not be a good grief counselor because crying people are gross.

There are some natural advantages to being avoidant, at least for me. In a way, being able to cross a few choices off my 'what am I going to do when I grow up' list is a relief. I can accept and relax into the thought of working with technology more & people less. I've been thinking of myself as not being able to feel anything, but apparently what I do is prevent myself from feeling things strongly enough to embarrass myself by displaying my emotions - which means anything beyond a polite chuckle at an amusing circumstance. So, I'm not a drama queen. I keep all the emotional bullshit isolated and compartmentalized. I am not easily overwhelmed. I can be civil to anyone, including people I don't like. I avoid workplace drama just as easily as I avoid every-day drama. I avoid altercations. It's part of what gives me the ability to enjoy sex without feeling the need to be emotionally involved with whoever I'm fucking. I don't get jealous. I remain a stable anchor in chaotic or stressful times. No one ever knows where they stand with me, which is useful when plotting the downfall of my enemies.

I don't know, it puts me at a weird place. In a way, it seems like an excuse for being an isolated loner who hates other people and moves robotically through life. But in another way, it's a tool for understanding deeper motivations for my sometimes unfathomable behavior.