Has anyone got avoidant personality disorder? How have you learnt to cope?

I think I have it.

Obviously Eric you are not qualified to comment as you have never had the inner turmoil of a personality disorder or you wouldn't be so scathing and judgemental.

I feel like I have a schizoid personality disorder, which means like, I tend to not care for and avoid social relationships.
I'm not sure either, it's all self-diagnosis, which can cripple yourself if you're wrong, and make you feel down if you're actually right... be yourself, it's usually bad self-esteem which triggered your pattern of avoiding social interaction, find out where that low self-image is coming from, and tackle that first. You have to learn to love yourself before you get around to loving others and letting others love you.

Avoidant personality disorder (APD or AvPD) or Anxious personality disorder (APD), is a personality disorder characterized by a pervasive pattern of social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, extreme sensitivity to negative evaluation and avoidance of social interaction. People with avoidant personality disorder often consider themselves to be socially inept or personally unappealing, and avoid social interaction for fear of being ridiculed, humiliated, or disliked. They typically present themselves as loners and report feeling a sense of alienation from society.

Avoidant personality disorder usually is first noticed in early adulthood, and is associated with perceived or actual rejection by parent or peers during childhood. Whether the feeling of rejection is due to the extreme interpersonal monitoring attributed to people with the disorder is still disputed.

Treatment of avoidant personality disorder can employ various techniques, such as social skills training, cognitive therapy, exposure treatment to gradually increase social contacts, group therapy for practicing social skills, and sometimes drug therapy (drug therapy is discussed in Comer, R. J. (1996). Fundamentals of abnormal psychology. Avoidant personality disorder, pp.428-430. Third edition. New York: Worth). People with APD will often start to avoid treatment sessions if they distrust the therapist or fear rejection. The primary purpose of both individual therapy and social skills group training is for individuals with avoidant personality disorder to begin challenging their exaggeratedly negative beliefs about the self . Good luck to you.

CBT or cognitive behavior therapy (for those of us in the know) is an extremely effective tool that you work on by yourself, and/or with a therapist. What you think dictates how you feel, so if you can figure out what works for you, the symptoms will lift. I had it really bad, and now i am completely functional.

So basically you're just annoying to be around and are making excuses about it by having a doctor tell you that it is a "disorder".