Hello Again!
Today, I wanted to quickly share my thoughts on one topic that comes up in my sessions regularly, avoidance. Webster’s dictionary defines avoidance as “the act or practice of keeping away from or withdrawing from something undesirable.” Now most of us learn, or are taught, to run away from something if it is scary or makes us uncomfortable. While that idea “makes sense” it ends up causing a lot of problems down the road… let me explain! But first, there some terms we need to go over to better understand everything.
The first are defense mechanisms, which is an unconscious psychological mechanism that reduces anxiety arising from unacceptable or potentially harmful stimuli. The next term is maladaptive coping skills, which are negative ways to deal with stress, such as drinking, using drugs and or eating issues.
So let’s get back into things! In life, when we do things over and over, it gets reinforced and becomes a normal routine. As humans we do this really well actually. The problem most of us see however is these normal routines are not helpful most of the time. What these routines can end up becoming are maladaptive skills that could actually make our lives harder as we grow into adults.
For most of us, we start to realize we have anxiety or depression around the ages of 12-15. By 18-19, we have already had tons of difficult experiences that may help encourage us to create maladaptive skills to cope. A reason we end up creating these maladaptive skills instead of healthy ones is DING DING DING relying too much on defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are naturally occurring, and we have no control when we first use them as it is a subconscious response, however we do have control if we are using them consciously for long term help.
Using a defense mechanisms can result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency with which the mechanism is used. While yes, some people may never run into unhealthy consequences from using them, what I tend to find is people notice the “positive” effects from it, which then makes people want to rely on them more often because they do in fact work and help reduce their anxiety. This reliance ends up turning the defense mechanism from a subconscious response to a conscious ones because over time the person realizes what is making them “better” and actively tries to recreate it.
The problem is that these are not intended for long term use, and actually train us to avoid the painful event. If we rely on them every now and then, that is fine, but when we only use them to help feel better, and we do not use any other positive coping skills, we get this negative feedback. What we end up telling ourselves is that “this is scary I need to get away from this now! Do this defense mechanism to help ASAP.” We end up reinforcing over and over that the more this stimuli is active in our lives the scarier it is each and every time, so I rather do the skill I figured out helps right away, rather than use something else that takes too long to kick in but may be better for me in the long run.
What this is ends up manifesting into for most of us is anxiety like a phobia, OCD, and any other mental health concern related to anxiety. We end up become frozen in our bodies, or run in fear from it. Avoidance in my opinion, is one of the most harmful things we can do, and the lasting consequences can be seen in the forms of low motivation, confidence and self-esteem issues, goal making problems and so much more.
So starting today, I want to challenge those who feel they avoid a lot. I want to challenge you by doing the complete opposite of what you normally do. The next time you become scared of something, instead of running and avoiding it, embrace it, run towards it, don’t let it have any power over you, but instead remember you have the power and you take back control of it! This won’t happen overnight, but if you start this goal of slow and with low expectations, the chance of success is high, and your quality of life will become better.
Thanks for reading, and if would like any help with this concern please let me know, I would be happy to help you.