Another new member

[ZebraStripes]

I joined just now and thought I'd follow the sites advice and post an introduction message.

I am female, 26, a twin, and have suffered with 'low moods' for as long as I can remember.

I have anxiety, depression and have a very strong feeling that I suffer from avoidant personality disorder. I have nearly all of the symptoms, I'm just scared to get it looked into in case it changes my future (I'm looking to start a family with my fiancé soon and i have this terrible fear that if I was diagnosed with a personality disorder social services would take away my children...)

I suffer with paranoia, almost non existent self esteem, panic attacks, social phobia, and all the basic symptoms of anxiety (hot flushes, sweats, shaking etc).

I generally find it very hard to talk to people and find meeting new people very stressful, I find it difficult to read people sometimes and am always paranoid that I am hated by everyone and all I do is annoy people.

I was on citalopram (at a very low dose) but it didn't do much for me...


Last year I was diagnosed with cancer and was lucky to be in early stages which were very treatable, I'm now in remission and determined to try and break out of my anxiety and depression and live the rest of my life as happily as I can. As a consequence of the surgery I have had and because of the type of cancer I will now most likely struggle to start a family and to carry to term, this causes me immense stress and because of this (and my fear that as I age I will be less likely to carry a healthy child post cancer) I stopped taking my medication in preparation for attempting to get pregnant. I'm finding my anxiety harder to handle post meds, maybe because of the illness and being more stressed, I don't know.

I think I've reached a point in life where I need to reach out to other people who will be able to understand how crippling anxiety can be.

Sorry if I've rambled...

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi ZebraStripes,

Welcome to NMP. I'm sure you will loads of help and good advice of people on here.

I've got OCPD, and yours is in my cluster so maybe we share some similarities? My therapist told me towards the end of my CBT that I could fall into this category and showed me the list of criteria for it, which is on NHS Choices and she said I needed a minimum of 4 of them, which I just about had.

I'm not sure how many are needed for yours, perhaps there are better lists of criteria than on their website.

They are treatable and people do recover from them. My therapist said they take more work because they are more ingrained in our beliefs.

Its interesting because you don't know anything is wrong with personality disorders until someone points them out to you.

I'm glad you got past cancer, that must have been a massive amount of stress on top of your anxiety.

I hope you do get what you want and give birth.

[ZebraStripes]

Thank you for your reply, i was starting to worry I'd scared people off responding by mentioning being unwell but it was a big contributor to my anxieties so I felt like I should mention it.

I know exactly what you mean about personality disorders, I stumbled across information on avpd when researching borderline personality disorder which my cousin was diagnosed with. I then pointed out the articles I had read to my fiancé who informed me that 'thats me to a tee'. I'd always just thought I was shy and anxious up until that point (admittedly very shy and anxious). I'm not sure whether I should be talking to a gp about it to try and get a refferal or not... post illness I don't have the money to go straight to a private mental health proffessional :(

Thank you, I think its made me stronger in a way, though I do feel more easily stressed and theres constant worry about recurrence which is draining.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Perhaps if you are concerned about what could happen, you could put your mind at rest by talking to one of the mental health charities? Some of then act as advocates so have a lot of experience in navigating laws, rules, regulations, etc.

Your doctor could refer you for therapy but out does depend on the services in your region which might mean you have to wait out pass through some of the lower level interventions such add CBT first which would help with the anxiety but may not be long enough for a personality disorder.

Private is an option but maybe if one of the charities can reassure you about you're situation you could your go via your GP?

[ZebraStripes]

Thats a really good idea that hadn't even crossed my mind! I'll have to look into that, thank you so much :)