What is avoidance and how is it related to anxiety?
Avoidance is where you are active in anything except what you need to do.
When we have a project due and are highly anxious, moving towards the project will create very, very uncomfortable anxiety symptoms. We will do anything to avoid these symptoms because we are human beings and human beings don’t like pain. So we will do things that usually are difficult such as unloading the dishwasher instead of actually sitting down and finishing a book that’s due for example.
Avoidance doesn’t mean you’re sitting in a corner doing nothing. In fact, some people are extremely active during the avoidance process.
I find it interesting that our brains can do multiple things… except the task we’re assigned to do.
What’s happening in our heads?
Why is it so difficult? What is anxiety changing to the point that we can clean our whole house instead of doing two hours of work to finish a project that needs to be sent in the next day?.
I’ve spent my life trying to figure this out. It’s not a flippant question. The reality is that avoidance in anxiety is one of our main problems. Agoraphobia is not only fear of the marketplace, – it’s avoidance of the marketplace completely.
I’m doing all I can to avoid avoidance.
I think avoidance is that face in the middle of this picture. It’s mocking me.
Julie
