Avoidant personality disorder, one of the least heard of mental health conditions and how its hard to understand but i challenge myself daily

 I go to a group therapy for people with personality disorders predominantly borderline personality disorder which i have traits of ( my mood is up and down triggered by situations rather than chemical unlike bipolar which is caused by chemical imbalances, im impulsive with money and binge eating but that is because of my bulimia, I self harm and become suicidal when in crisis) but when I was diagnosed by a psychologist I scored highest for avoidant personality disorder which is an anxiety based personality disorder which is a severe form of social anxiety. 

Its hard explaining to people that when your struggling you are anxious and go quiet, struggle to talk and end up crying when you feel inferior, awkward etc. as obviously you end up quiet and crying ( its great being me...not)I don't live up to my label, my diagnosis explains how I have been my whole life. Avoidant personality disorder is caused by an anxious attachment in early childhood which if left untreated becomes personality disorders in adulthood. Apparently the first 2 years of a child's life is when healthy attachments are made. Apparently i was born caesarian then was kept in hospital as wouldn't stop being sick ( I guess I was born bulimic lol), then my birth mum got septicaemia and died then me and my sister went to foster carers then were adopted then my parents had a demanding 4 year old who had lost her mum and a baby to look after so i just became the quiet clingy one. As a child I was known as the kid that didn't speak who was so quiet no one could ever hear me, who would cry all the time when I felt I wasn't good enough unfortunately it has never left me. As a child it was commented on all the time, It made it hard for me to make friends and not only did I have no friends for the majority of my school days I got bullied. If I sat at a table everyone else sat on another table, I sat on the school bus on my own and would have things thrown at me ( including hairbrush to brush my bushy eyebrows which I then overplucked), if we had to pair up in a lesson I usually ended up on my own, and team sports I was never picked I was always last and then everyone on whatever team I ended up groaned so I cried every pe lesson but I had nearly full attendance the pe teacher even said we all know Tracy isn't good at pe but she brings her kit every time and never misses ( I did like that teacher). Anyway obviously those experiences back then have affected me my whole life and I have always struggled to fit in socially, I've had a few good friends in my adult years my first good friend I met when I was 18 ( I actually had no one to invite for my 18th birthday pathetic as that sounds) but I'm still friends with that friend, she is often busy with her husband and son and work, normal life into our 40s.

But I have always let my anxieties about not feeling good enough hold me back for fear of rejection, criticism, humiliation all part of a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder. I've always avoided relationships and don't trust many people but once I'm with people I'm comfortable around im not as quiet and anxious although I have days my anxiety is bad I can still be quiet or avoid social situations and staying at home is my safe place, although I do try challenge myself even on my bad days I rarely miss choir or if I have arranged meeting a friend. Although I'm socially anxious i'm not a loner I actually hate being on my own and get really lonely, the depressing part of avoidant personality disorder is you end up alone but only because of anxiety. I love being with friends and can actually talk for England when I'm around people I feel comfortable with, I'm usually better when with a few people i struggle more in bigger groups or people who i don't feel as comfortable around. 

I'm in Facebook groups and often people with avpd avoid work or social situations that mean being with people so I am proud I did work for 17 years, 10 of those years as a support worker helping others with mental health problems and learning disabilities but I knew I had to be confident for them as they needed my help so it made me push myself but I think it got exhausting constantly pushing through my anxiety, I got accepted to train as a mental health nurse but then my avoidant personality disorder convinced me I wouldn't be good enough and that along with other reasons  made me feel I was a failure and deserved to be dead thankfully my suicide attempts failed and I'm still here. I also taught horse riding and it was through training horses by lungeing them ( exercising them on the floor using a long line and your voice) and teaching that I had to speak louder to be heard. 

After the year I was in hospital my social anxiety got worse again as I had stopped working and being around people apart from other people with mental health problems, I have self harm scars on my arms and feel self conscious of them which makes being around normal people harder too I wear long sleeves all year but feel uncomfortable in hot weather especially when anxious too.

I joined a choir 2 and a half years ago to challenge myself to mix with people again to make friends and sing which I love doing. I sung in a church choir for all of my childhood and then didn't sing for years apart from on my own and then after I stopped working due to my mental health went to a singing group with my dad for older people which was nice but I wanted to sing with people my own age too. 

Since I joined choir I had become more confident there and got to love singing at gigs then we went into lockdown and went online on zoom. To start with I had my camera off as was anxious in front of alot of people but have made friends with more people from other choirs and everyone is so supportive and encouraging of each other and I have recorded myself singing on video for online performance nights we have done in lockdown. But now I have got anxious about going back into the real world.  I guess with any anxiety the more you face your fears the easier it gets to manage them, lockdown has been ideal to avoid my fears of social situations and being around people and because I also have eating disorders and body image issues im even more anxious to be seen again as although I was fat before lockdown ( have been for about 6 years due to medication and water retention from heart failure and kidney disease) I have now got anxious about that too.

I want to get more confident and am more confident than I was in alot of ways but want to be confident to be able to sing live, I would love to dare do a solo one day well, I did a couple in the church choir when I was younger but nerves always got the better of me. I did sing a solo with the mental health services choir  ( members are a mix of staff and service users) the other Christmas but was only to a few staff who i didn't know ( I was told I sounded like a 12 year old choir girl.....it was meant as a compliment apparently lol and I want to have the confidence to feel good enough to be able to work again without the anxiety sending me into mental health crises as I want to have achieved more with my life before I die ( I think my anxiety also feeds my suicidal thoughts at times of crisis as dying feels less scary than living sometimes) I'm fed up living a life in fear though life is meant to be lived and enjoyed I don't think my anxiety has let me do alot of that so now is the time to deal with it.