Cluster C: Avoidant Personality Disorder Characteristics (Nursing)

00:01 So, when we think about Avoidant Personality Disorder, and we think about what kind of characteristics that person might show, we're going to see low self-esteem, shyness, as the person actually gets older, the shyness gets greater.

00:20 We're going to see that they have a sense that they're not as good as anybody else.

00:25 So there is this feeling of inferiority.

00:28 And they don't want to engage in social actions.

00:31 They don't want to be with a lot of people, they don't want to meet a new person, they'd rather avoid anything like that.

00:40 Also, we usually see co-occurring depressive moments, either episodes or actual depression with anxiety, and intermittent anger.

00:52 The person does not want to be forced to do what they don't want to do and what they don't want to do is engage.

01:00 And how hard is it to live a life with no engagement? It makes it almost impossible.

01:07 You need to be able to have a job, to go out, to connect with others.

01:13 If you have faith or religion, you want to be able to go to your church or mosque or temple.

01:20 If you want to be able to go if you have a family, you want to be able to go to a PTA meeting.

01:26 But a person with an avoidant personality disorder has found ways in life to avoid doing what makes them anxious.

01:35 And then they become preoccupied, with what? With the idea that they're going to get rejected and humiliated, which makes it even worse to ever engage with anyone.

01:48 So think about how difficult life is for a person who has an avoidant personality disorder, whose main source of coping with the world around them is to avoid the world around them.