Hello, I am 17 years old.
Currently, I believe I have Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD), although I haven’t been diagnosed with it. For the past five years, I’ve been wondering why I act and feel the way I do. Today, I think I’ve come to a conclusion.
We live in a small village. I have loving parents, and everything is good except for my father’s anger issues. While he never expressed anger towards us, he constantly fought with our neighbors when I was a child. Our family used to have fights with neighbors over trivial things like them throwing garbage in front of our door or parking their vehicles in front of our main gate, leaving barely any space for us to exit.
Being the only family of our caste in the village surrounded by many neighbors was difficult. Whenever we had a fight, they would gather around 20 to 25 people, while we only had my father as a grown male. At that time, I was probably 7 or 8 years old, and I used to think they wanted us dead.
School wasn’t good either. Around the same age, I was bullied for being obese. This instilled a strong feeling in me that nobody liked us. It wasn’t that nobody liked me; it was that nobody liked our family, and everyone seemed to want us gone.
Ever since then, I’ve been getting extreme panic attacks whenever I sense the possibility of a fight. Even to this day, whenever I see their vehicle or hear its sound, I become extremely anxious and have panic attacks.
I don’t know what to do. I believe that’s what caused my AVPD and extreme inferiority complex. My AVPD hasn’t gotten better, and neither have the conflicts. I’m writing this now because I’m having panic attacks. Yes, we had another fight today. My father asked them to move their vehicle away from our gate, and they gathered around as if they were waiting for this moment. It was just me and my father, and I felt a series of strange emotions. Even after the fight died down, I’m still having panic attacks.
Please don’t tell me to tell my parents or seek medical help because that’s not possible right now. I don’t know what to do. I’m extremely afraid. It’s a mix of fear and anxiety. Please help me.