Avoidant Personality Disorder: First Steps — Recognizing the Pain That Triggers Escape

When we constantly avoid — difficulties, people, unpleasant tasks — it feels like we're saving ourselves. But Dr. Saulitis points to a paradox: the more a person avoids, the worse the result. There may be intermediate "successes," but overall it's "bang-bang-bang, lower, lower, lower." To take a first step, you first need to understand what actually triggers this fleeing.

Let's start with the concept of pain

The doctor suggests starting not with avoidance itself, but with pain — and not just a toothache. There is homeostasis, the body's balance. When it's disrupted beyond a certain limit, the body "lights up a red lamp": the stimulus turns into pain, and we need to avoid it and restore balance.

A simple example: something warm heats your hand — at first it's pleasant, then in one moment it's no longer pleasant but painful. The stimulus became stronger than "the instructions allow."

Pain is not only physical

Next the doctor climbs the pyramid of needs. We perceive thirst, hunger, and cold as pain. But going further — the absence of safety, fear, and even loneliness become pain too.

A human is social by nature. When someone is pushed out of society, made an outcast — this triggers pain. No wonder the harshest punishment in prison is solitary confinement.

How pain launches the avoidance program

Any pain — physical, fear, loneliness — switches on the "monkey program," the limbic system. And then a person does one thing: runs away from the pain. It seems logical: escaped the heat, the cold, the danger — and all is well.

But in this program the brain works like a locator searching only for danger. The doctor offers an image of two women in the forest: one came back trembling with empty hands, because she was looking for snakes — she had the avoidance program. The other rested, looked at nature, and filled a full basket of mushrooms.

The more one runs, the smaller the result.

Move toward the goal, not away from danger

Here lies the main mistake. People think: "no money — I must run." But they don't understand they need to move toward money, toward health, toward strength, toward happiness. Instead the question sounds like "how to avoid": how to avoid bankruptcy, how to avoid debts.

When the "monkey brain" switches on, there's no gray matter there — none of what builds a path to a goal. So the first step is to notice which mode you're in: looking for snakes or gathering mushrooms.

Practice: recognizing your own program

1. Name the pain. Ask yourself: what exactly do I now perceive as pain — physical, fear, lack of safety, or loneliness?
2. Check the wording. Catch your own phrase: does it sound like "how to avoid…" or "how to reach…"?
3. Flip the question. If the thought was "how to avoid something," reframe it as movement toward a goal — toward money, health, strength.
4. The forest image. Ask yourself honestly: am I looking for snakes or gathering mushrooms right now?
5. Notice the mode. If you realize the limbic system — the "danger locator" — is switched on, that is already the first conscious step out of it.

This is not a diagnosis or self-treatment, but a way to begin seeing the program you live in.