Often their dreams express avoidant fantasies symbolically, as when they dream of running stuck in place, not being able to move forward, or of waiting for the bus that never comes, then when it does come, it turns out to be the wrong bus or, if the right bus, it goes to the wrong place, or to a dangerous place where one gets mugged or killed. This symbolic expression often takes on a surrealistic cast. For example, a man dreamed of a street at the end of which was a welcoming bar with welcoming neon lights, friendly music, and warm grog. One side of the street was brightly lit, and the other was completely dark. Unable to traverse the lit side, he could only traverse the side that was dark. This side, however, held too many terrors and dangers for him to seriously contemplate making the attempt. So he cowered and held back, effectively freezing in place.
6. DSM-IV: Social awkwardness. Avoidants can seem off-putting to others who misinterpret their fearful, tense demeanor as rejecting so that others withdraw, often after ridiculing and deriding the avoidant, confirming the avoidant’s self-doubts.
A Case Example
A potential lover took a long bus trip to be with a patient of mine. As the bus pulled in, the lover-to-be, from inside the bus, saw my patient waiting for him at the bus station and waved him a gusty hello, only to have my patient respond by going into a panic, thinking, “That big wave turned me off, I am suspicious of people who are just too eager to see me.” My patient then adopted a body posture that, virtually oozing remoteness, retreat, and rejection, broadcast his clear regret that an actual meeting was imminent.
SOME NON-DSM-IV CRITERIA
Fear of Flooding
According to Millon and Davis, avoidants must “avoid everything which might arouse their emotions [and] seek as far as possible to avoid and deaden all stimulation from the outside.”14 Many come to fear that if they attempt to get close, their positive/romantic impulses will erupt, flooding them and threatening their emotional security and structural integrity and, if men, making them feel and look feminine, and, if women, making them feel and look weak.
A Case Example
One patient gave up playing the piano, though, in fact, he played well and others enjoyed listening. He did this because he couldn’t tolerate all the adulation he received when he performed in public. For him, playing in public was shamefully exhibitionistic, a showing off, with “crescendos, moderatos, and other expressions of feeling one step removed from having sex out in the open.” He also convinced himself that when he played, others snickered, so that by playing, he made a complete fool of himself. For him, then, avoidance was a way to detach from others to proclaim, “I am in full control of myself and emotionally and physically intact, just like the artist Joseph Cornell, who sensibly died a virgin because he feared that if he had sex, it would destroy his artistic ability.”
Masochism
Avoidants withdraw not only because they fear losing when they want to win, but also because they fear winning because they need to lose. Freud, in his 1924 paper “The Economic Problem in Masochism,” spoke of individuals who needed to be punished and to suffer due to an unconscious sense of guilt that plays an extensive part in their social lives. These individuals are unable to tolerate the possibility of gratification, so they provoke their own criticisms and abandonments by “do[ing] something inexpedient, act[ing] against [their] own interests, ruin[ing] the prospects which the real world offers [them and risking the] possibility] of destroying [their] own existence in the world of reality.”15 In his 1915 paper “Some Character-Types Met with in Psychoanalytic Work,” Freud described individuals “wrecked by success,” who fell “ill precisely because a deeply-rooted and long-cherished wish has come to fulfillment [and they can] not endure . . . bliss.” “Illness follows close upon wish fulfillment, and [leads to] annihilation of ] all enjoyment of it.”16
Thus these avoidants, anxious not only about the possibility of rejection, but also about the possibility of acceptance, arrange to be rejected by selecting distant, unavailable people to relate to, or people with a fatal flaw, such as those who dislike them or those who are already taken because they are married. They have rescue fantasies in which they long to bring around situations they know to be inherently nonviable, then focus all their efforts on doing so, even when, or really because, they are convinced that these efforts are virtually certain to come to naught. This way, they see to it that they waste their valuable time, and that way, they provide themselves with yet another reason to be avoidant.
A Case Example
A gay man uninterested in dating people who were available to him wrote to me, “There is not much action in my town and since most of the gays are in the closet meeting people is very difficult. I have taken your advice—I do not frequent bars and of course, I never drank. I am still single. I have had a few flings, but they were just that, flings. I am still very serious about meeting someone and establishing a monogamous relationship. But I can’t seem to meet the right person. Maybe I am simply not receptive enough. Or it’s because I seem to have a propensity for being attracted to divorced or soon-to-be divorced men with children, who may or may not be homosexual. I suspect that they are, but nothing seems to happen. I really think that I am wasting my time.”
I have treated a number of women who form hopeless romantic relationships with married men, consciously expecting them to divorce their wives and spend the rest of their lives with them, all the while unconsciously knowing that a good deal of their attraction is less to the man than to the man’s unavailability.
Readiness to Anger
Benjamin notes that anger plays a significant role in the psychogenesis of AvPD, saying, “Usually [avoidants] restrain this aspect [of their avoidance],” but there are times when it breaks through and they tend “to become indignant about alleged humiliations.” Benjamin adds, “I believe that the DSM should add angry outbursts to the description of AVD [because] occasionally AVDs will identify with their humiliating and rejecting family members, and become quite commanding and judgmental themselves.”17
Here is an excerpt from a negative “review” on Amazon.com of Distancing, my earlier book on AvPD, with the review a missile that I believe hints at the irrational anger (she got the facts wrong, perhaps having read only enough to make her mad) just alluded to:
The most redundant book I have ever read . . . very superficial . . . some sections . . . are so superficial he should have left them out altogether . . . provides examples (way too many) . . . does not delve into their psychology [for only] 17 pages are devoted to cause (at least 5 of which are examples) . . . you expect some analysis from a psychologist [sic], but he doesn’t offer any.18
Here is the heading of another Amazon.com review written by the same person:
This flashlight sucks.19
Sullivan notes that avoidance is called out by prolonged severe hostility, the disjunctive nature of “malevolence,” the feeling that “once upon a time everything was lovely, but that was before I had to deal with people.”20 Fenichel suggests that avoidance is an anger equivalent—appearing “on occasions where others would feel rage.”21 Millon describes an avoidant-passive-aggressive mixed personality and notes that a threat equal to personal humiliation or social rejection is the avoidant’s own aggressive impulses, for avoidants “bind anger” by withdrawing to protect themselves “against humiliation and loss.”22 Frances and Widiger note that in some dynamic models, avoidants and passive-aggressives are placed side by side as both “likely to be higher on hostility [than dependents].”23 Beck notes that “the avoidant personality stays poised to attack.”24