Avoidance refers to specific behaviors that people use to ensure they’re not involved in a specific situation, or that they can leave a situation they’ve already entered. These behaviors also refer to individuals who actively avoid difficult feelings. Avoidance behaviors can be a sign of underlying mental health issues.
What Is Avoidance Behavior?
Avoidance behaviors are any behavior people use to escape or distract themselves from difficult thoughts, feelings, and situations. This can look like avoiding new job opportunities, career advancements, relationships, social situations, recreational activities, and family get-togethers. People use avoidance as a natural coping mechanism for pain, trauma, and other mental health issues.
It can be understandable to avoid dangerous situations or avoid peer pressure, but avoidance is more than just feeling uncomfortable. Avoiding something can make you feel in control; however, depending on what you are avoiding, it doesn’t always signifty true control. Long-term, these behaviors can exacerbate other issues going on in your life.
Avoidant behavior can be a symptom of the following mental health issues:
- Social anxiety disorder
- Panic disorder
- Avoidant personality disorder
- PTSD
- Avoidant attachment
- Abandonment issues
- Toxic shame
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Toxic relationships
- Disorganized attachment
13 Examples of Avoidance Behavior
Avoidance behaviors can present in several different ways, including escapism, drug and alcohol use, day-dreaming, and burying your emotions.
Here are thirteen examples of avoidance behaviors:
- Escapism
- Drug/alcohol use
- Wishful thinking/day dreaming
- Burying one’s emotions
- Self-isolation
- Avoiding eye contact
- Lowering voice when speaking
- Leaving gatherings early
- Making up excuses to avoid attending a party/social gathering
- Procrastination
- Cancelling plans last minute
- Not answering calls or texts
- Avoiding certain places and at certain times
Impacts of Avoidance Behavior
When you try to prevent stress instead of allowing yourself to feel the emotions that come up for you, you give yourself a false sense of control. In reality, you hand over control to the thing you are trying to avoid, which does more long-term harm than good, even if it feels better in that moment. This can become a cycle that’s hard to break, leaving you more anxious, triggered, and/or depressed.
Avoidance behaviors can also wreak havoc on your day-to-day life, forcing you to engage in other negative or maladaptive behaviors.
Here are examples of impacts from avoidance behavior:1
- If you’re avoiding a route in your car, it may make you late or cause you to spend more money
- Anxiety-related avoidance may make you lose professional opportunities
- If you’re avoiding certain feelings or conversations, it could hurt your personal relationships
4 Ways to Overcome Avoidance Behavior
Here are four strategies to overcome avoidance behavior:
1. Journaling
Try writing things down to get them out of your head, so to speak. Sometimes, when we write down our feelings and read them aloud, it helps us process differently. This can help us identify negative thought patterns and explore where they come from and why. Once we’re able to sort through some of that, we can start to do the work to heal.
2. Utilize Stress Management Techniques
Stress management techniques can help people manage and move on from avoidance behaviors. Given that stress can sometimes mask itself as anxiety or depression, identifying the root cause of an issue or feeling is the first step towards recovery. Stress management provides many ways to deal with stress, no matter its cause, instead of avoiding the issues.2
3. Develop Coping Skills
It’s important to develop healthy, positive coping strategies. Think about your day-to-day routine and imagine what a life without avoidance would look like. Ask yourself this: How do I feel? Can I get past this feeling? Could this have been prevented? Is there something I can do to fix this now? These questions will allow you to tap into your emotion-focused and problem-focused coping mechanisms.
4. Seek Professional Help
If you’re avoiding situations or people and not really able to cope well or consistently, seek professional help. Due to the complex nature of how avoidance behaviors impact and trigger other mental health issues, it’s safer to find help at the first sign of struggle and get the support right away.3
When & How Can Therapy Help With Avoidant Behavior
If your avoidance behaviors are getting in the way of you living a full life, it may be time to consider therapy. All licensed therapists are equipped to help people with avoidance behaviors and feelings, but having a strong therapeutic relationship is more important than the specific type of therapy they provide. Consider family therapy or couples therapy if the avoidance is impacting your relationships.
Once you have found a therapist, the two of you will create a treatment plan that could involve other types of therapy, such as group therapy. Depending on the underlying issues, marital or family therapy may also be recommended after a few sessions. It’s important to go in with an open mind and strive to address the underlying reason why you feel a need to engage in avoidance behaviors.
If you’re ready to find a therapist, start your search in an online directory.
Final Thoughts
Avoidance behavior is difficult to overcome, but there are healthy ways to move forward. It’s important to remember that you can live a full life without needing to avoid situations or people. It’s never too late to help yourself and take the first step by talking to a professional counselor or therapist.
