I have a general question. I am not diagnosing anyone or self-diagnosing. Fortunately or unfortunately, the internet is here. There is a condition called Avoidant Personality Disorder, or AvPD. It is NOT the same thing as Antisocial Personality Disorder, or APD. Though both can probably run the range of mild to severe, it seems to APD is a lot more proactive through the antisocial dimension while AvPD points to a more withdrawn individual via the disorder. There is also mention of an avoidant personality style, which apparently doesn't reach the disorder level. Does anyone know if AvPD waxes and wanes, arrives and remains, and allows for high functioning or can be debilitating? Does anyone know if AvPD is largely a function of life experiences? What would cause a different diagnosis between AvPD and an avoidant personality style? I am aware that, with many psychiatric diagnoses, there is often co-morbidity, which means the presence of other diagnoses that run concurrently, for those seeing the term for the first time. It's also interesting that personality disorders are in clustered groups on the chart describing them. Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance.
Like most other personality disorders, there can certainly be different levels of affliction, mild to severe. However, I would suspect that a level of consistency would be necessary in order to make the diagnosis, as if it waxes and wanes, that does not appear to be a feature of the Cluster C diagnostic category of which AvPD is a part. Keep in mind that talking about these diagnoses whether or not it's a "theoretical" question is pretty useless without the expertise, testing, and background to be able to differentially diagnose between the many different disorders that have some very similar symptom patterns.
