Avoidant Personality Disorder & our inner child

Today I discuss how I think connecting with, supporting, and encouraging our past selves and inner adolescents can help heal us lost adults with AvPD. Thanks for watching.
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[@alienoverlordsnow1786]

Hi Maxine! I feel the same way about being brought up wrong, and how its really held me back in life. My parents were emotionally unavailable and Catholic Cult members. They were nice people, but they needed years of therapy, before they should have had children. I developed toxic shame as a result of emotional neglect, and I agree that I now have to successfully reparent my inner child, or I wont be able to overcome my avoidance and depression. Its one more thing I am avoiding doing, of course. How did your thanksgiving go? Did the affirmations help? I know a great way to connect with your inner child! Its a loving-kindness practice. Step 1. sit in a comfortable posture on the floor. 2. Lay out several pictures of yourself as a child of various ages. 3. Hold up and look lovingly upon one picture of yourself and then close your eyes and visualize that child sitting in front of you. 4. Breath in and out three times. On the inbreath, feel yourself absorbing love and kindness in the form of white light from the universe, filling your body. On the outbreath, breath all that white light made of loving-kindness, happiness, confidence and courage into the heart of the young girl in front of you, and visuallize her become more and more happy, content, confident and courageous. Do that 3 times. 5. Now you wish and aspire that your former self has now, everything she needs and never got. Next, you say, while visualizing her;"May you have happiness. May you be free from suffering. May you have the contentment that doesnt change with changing conditions. May you have courage, confidence and perseverance. May you have success in life and also spiritual fulfillment." Repeat this process with each photo of yourself taken when you were a child. The more often you do such a practice, the more powerful it becomes in healing your traumas. Another must is to allow yourself to feel the repressed emotions associated with traumatic events, and by feeling them, allowing them, accepting them and forgiving yourself for the repression, they can be resolved. If we deny them and avoid them, they persist and we stay blocked. I dont have resolutioin myself, because I never had the committment, discipline and determination to do the practice, though I wish I did. Sorry for the long post, but I have affirmations on this subject which I think you will find curious: It is safe for me to remember the mistakes and the dissappointments of the past. I review my past with patience, forgiveness and compassion. I have always done the best I could under difficult circumstances. I reparent my inner child, by respecting, nurturing and guiding myself. I reparent my inner child, by forgiving, comforting and loving myself. I am absolutely worthy of all of lifes blessings. I love my inner child, and I love myself, unconditionally.! Peace, Maxine!

[@superanxietychick7035]

The part of active life really hit home. Wow, I feel same way. I dont feel stunted either, its just that my physical age doesn't seem to compute, I have no feelings about it. Like it doesn't resonate bc Ive been living on autopilot since adolescence.

[@dumplingflatbread1919]

Yes thank you Maxine, this really speaks to me. So many of us have experienced neglect, bullying and rejection in our early years. The problems we face with personality disorder/ other mental issues do not come out of thin air. They are real and have true causes and consequences. I did not remember everything very well from my early childhood, but it was stressful indeed. I too cannot exactly pinpoint what made me this way. But bring stuff together (like memories and feelings from the past)to kind of make it make sense. I had loving parents, but even when they did their best, they were not ready to have children and had suffered mental problems as well because of their upbringing. Healing your inner child and getting in touch with that which you may have suppressed, all the hurt, anxiety, painful feelings, they need to be heard as well. It can be confrontational, but it is necessary. Nevertheless, you are still you, you are more than your mental health issues, and have true purpose in life. Don’t give up and keep going!

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Absolutely ❤️❤️❤️

[@r.m.4579]

I have Avpd too and having been too polite in situations where I should have set clear boundaries instead is also a thing, I did way too often in the past and I am working on now. So I can relate to that very well. Thank you very much for making these videos. 🌹

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

🥲❤️

[@superanxietychick7035]

❤❤❤ yes yes, still watching, but healing our innerchild and treating them with kindness, love and comfort is SO important. I started healing the mother and father wound a few months ago, it was brutal at first, but it made such a difference in how I started feeling. It took me a year to write my 5yo self a letter, I was terrified, but once I did I couldnt stop smiling. Thanks for this video

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Oh my goodness... I should write myself a letter. Although I know it's not my fault and I've largely forgiven my naive, hopeful, well-intentioned younger self, I know there's still some shame there from the choices I made. That sounds like a great way to resolve what's left of that. ❤️ Thank you.

[@allyson--]

:'~)

[@superanxietychick7035]

@@anxious_and_avoidant if you're ready for it, DO IT, it was very freeing. My therapist had me glue a pic of my 5yo self to top of page, I couldnt face her for a year. I felt so much shame. But when I finally finished the exercise it was a really great feeling.

[@AXharoth]

youre the most precious

[@abandonedplane]

Been aware of the inner child thing for awhile, and it's easily one of the areas in which I've got the most room to grow, as well as have the most difficulty in getting going. Pretty sure that'll need to be added to the seemingly ever-growing list to bring before professionals, whenever I can find one that's affordable. Definitely something worth speaking on, though. Also, don't feel pressured on the vlog-style vids if it doesn't feel natural or otherwise worthwhile. I can't speak for everyone, but I like to think we'd understand if it just didn't happen. And, finally, huge shoutout to the (by the sound of it, at least) one or more single engine Cesnas seeming to circle overhead during this video's recording. I know creators have no control over their environments, and don't fault you for it; better to get out videos as organically as you can (as you seem to have thus far, since your return), and not worry about the small stuff. I only point it out as it's definitely among the kind of things that involunatrily grab my attention, whether I want it to or not; and living by an airport for the majority of my life doesn't help. But keep doing what you're doing, sincerely, Cesnas be damned.

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

😂😂😂 those damn airplanes hahahahah I do in fact live not far from an airport so I don’t even notice them anymore but I apologize hahaha

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

But also, thank you for the understanding lol. 🙏🏻❤️

[@phil8742]

Solid message today.

[@basedbutgay]

With every video of yours I watch, I am stunned at how similar your story is to mine. I, too, was diagnosed with ADHD literally a month ago at the age of 30. I use binge eating as a coping mechanism. I have loving parents, but I was systematically bullied at school and rejected by my peers (by the boys in my case). I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to come up with concrete solutions here. Listening to your well-articulated thoughts alone helps us better understand ourselves and our past.

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Thank you ❤️🙏🏻 I definitely don’t have all the answers, only sharing “advice” in terms of what I’m working on/what I think could help. But I have several videos on my list to make that, yeah, I have no real solutions for. Just solidarity. But thank you for reassuring me it’s helpful to share anyway. ☺️

[@allyson--]

I appreciate the message of this video! I find myself regularly needing that reminder to check-in with myself this way. Similar to what you said, everyday messaging of being kind to yourself often feel lost on me so I like the idea of finding friends (in-person or internet) & art that can remind you of these perspectives that make life feel easier! If anyone wants a relevant song, Hold the Girl by Rina Sawayama is a great anthem for re-parenting 😌 Also, the artist Big Thief has quite a few songs like "Mythological Beauty" or "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You" (& same titled album) that touch on similar notes.

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Omg thank you for the recommendations! Music can be so healing. 😭❤️‍🩹

[@markaoslo5653]

I enjoyed _"Hold the Girl by Rina Sawayama"_ Thanks for sharing! Cheers- ☮

[@allyson--]

@@markaoslo5653 :~)

[@AXharoth]

one of the most gorgeous women i ever seen 😍😍

[@Oliver_Bryan]

I really struggle with the inner child thing, seen it in a few videos, but I wondered if it is because I have massive double standards. I allow and accept things to happen to me, that I would never dream of doing or saying to someone else.

[@anxious_and_avoidant]

Oh my gosh, very relatable. 🙁 I think our internalized shame really has us thinking we deserve whatever bad comes to us, but that’s what this concept helps me with. It’s like looking at myself as a separate entity, as “someone else”, and being able to be kinder to her because of it. ❤️

[@elinstallationer]

God, me too. Having a real hard time relating to this inner child idea, I feel like because that child is ME, I feel pretty much no compassion. The whole thing just feels uncomfortable and like, cringey? I don't know. Wish I could though, seems like it helps a lot of people.