How bad is avoidance personality disorder? compared to the other anxiety disorders.

That's a difficult question to answer...Avoidant Personality Disorder, by the way, is not technically an anxiety disorder (although, yes, it has much in common with Social Phobia, the Generalized type). It's in a separate category, personality disorders, "Axis II", as opposed to Axis I, where most mental health issues are placed in the DSM.

It was believed for a long time that personality disorders were not treatable...or that they could be treated but that treatment wouldn't do much. Thoughts about this are changing now, but there is still quite a lot of stigma associated with personality disorders. The majority of the research focuses on the so-called "Cluster B" personality disorders (includes Borderline and 3 others), and there's very little research on Avoidant, unfortunately.

I'm not sure how to answer your question of "how bad" it is. I'm coming from a few different perspectives. On the one hand, I have educated myself on personality disorders, I have worked a lot with individuals who have mental health issues, and I'm practicing as a therapist now. On the other hand, I myself have Avoidant Personality Disorder, and I have a hard time envisioning myself "recovering" from it. When I think about "other" people who have this diagnosis, I think that they are treatable, but that it will take a lot of work. I tend to be more pessimistic about myself.

Complicating things, there may be different subtypes of Avodant PD. A theorist named Theodore Millon has proposed a few different types; so, each type might have a different prognosis.

Ultimately, I think that everyone is different, and every person who has one particular diagnosis is going to be very different from one another. I think that long-term therapy is an important component of treatment. Medication might be useful. I have taken a bunch of different anti-depressants, as well as a few anxiety medications (although the anti-depressants should be targeting the anxiety as well). I don't find that they do much for me, but they are available as ways to help with the anxiety (which is very much present in Avoidant PD, making it a bit confusing that it's different from a so-called "Anxiety Disorder").

I didn't really answer your question. I'm just rambling. Another component of treatment might be group therapy, on top of individual therapy.

They all have something that sux.

Not 2 bad:)