Building up a tolerance for pain

Hello, my name is Matthew Martin and I am a label.

In particular, I'm an avoidant-personalty. Since I don't play a psychologist on TV, lets run down the list and then do a check to see if I might be "diagnosing" myself wrong. Diagnosis is a bit strong of a word--since a personality is only a disease or disorder if it bother someone.

>avoids occupational activities that involve significant interpersonal contact, because of fears of criticism, disapproval, or rejection

I'm a code money. My employer keeps me in the dark and feeds me a steady diet of binary. If I talk to co-workers, it's all business and I pretty rarely let the conversation get to far away from work.

>is unwilling to get involved with people unless certain of being liked

Yup. That's me. I should know, after all, I am me. When I do have to get involved with people, it is just really intense anxiety. Having a limited capacity for anxiety, I'm eager to see some evidence that there is some reward for enduring the anxiety.

> shows restraint within intimate relationships because of the fear of being shamed or ridiculed

Even around people I've know for a long time, excluding immediate family. I have this internal dialog that goes on where I sometimes will say only every other thing that I want to say, exactly for this sort of reason.

> is preoccupied with being criticized or rejected in social situations

That's me. Thin skinned and boy does it hurt getting criticized. One cognative theory for explaining the avoidant personality is that an avoidant "has a low tolerance for dysphoria." It kind of makes sense. Using an analogy, someone trying to swim the English Channel almost certainly experience some pain, but being talented swimmers, they ignore the cold, the ache, etc. Normal people, I suspose must be impervious or highly restant to the stings of failed interactions with others.

> is inhibited in new interpersonal situations because of feelings of inadequacy

That's me. I accumulate new acquaintence at a glacial pace. (Is it just me or are these DSM-IV criteria kind of repetitive?)

> views self as socially inept, personally unappealing, or inferior to others

Not always. I probably think I'm smarter than you. Ironically, I really believe that if I am smarter, then that only contributes to my social ineptitude and lack of personal appeal. This personality stuff obviously isn't an exact science. I may be mis-diagnosing myself. In fact, I might not be a sympathetic character with what is essentially some defective programming in my brain. It might be that I'm suffering from a the mere moral failures and existential failures (failures of resolve and choice) that one finds in perfectly normal people.

> is unusually reluctant to take personal risks or to engage in any new activities because they may prove embarrassing

Look, once I found out how to lj cut my entries, I started lj cutting most of my posts. I'm tempted to not post this because I sound like I'm trolling for reassurance. Actually, I'm building up a tolerance for pain--the longer I think about it the stronger I get.