How to Tell If You're Being Avoidant or Taking a Healthy Break
TLDR: When you are coping with anxiety or trying to heal from trauma, it can be hard to tell when you are using healthy distraction to cope and when it has crossed into avoidance. The truth is, any particular activity or distraction can be healthy or unhealthy depending on how you’re using it. Learn how to tell the difference and support yourself in a healthy way from a Los Angeles trauma therapist for women.
As I reviewed in my Comprehensive Guide to Understanding Trauma and Treatment for Women, avoidance is the thing that keeps anxiety going and growing in the long term. When you avoid whatever is making you anxious or upset, your nervous system and body never get the chance to learn that you can handle it and that it won’t be the worst scenario your mind tells you it will be. In other words, you never have the opportunity to prove to yourself that you can face and overcome your fears, and the anxiety continues to swirl around itself, slowly growing with time. Sometimes you have to start avoiding more and more to manage anxiety or shame, which just makes your world grow smaller and smaller.
At the same time, it’s human nature to avoid because it DOES work in the short term. Our brains are wired to do it. The moment you move away from whatever is upsetting you, you get immediate relief. It’s COMPELLING.
So, how do you manage intense feelings? Healthy coping skills! And one coping skill that is often recommended is healthy distraction.
But clients often ask me (because they understand that avoidance prolongs their suffering in the long term), what is the difference between that and avoidance? And it’s a great question.
From where I’m sitting, most behaviors can be either a helpful distraction OR avoidance, depending on how you use them (exceptions being substance use that carries an overdose risk). Reading, isolating, working, focusing on others, eating, watching media, exercising, and even drinking (surprising a therapist is saying this, I know) can all be healthy distractions or problematic avoidance depending on HOW they are used.
Distraction is Intentional, Avoidance is Reactive
An activity can be considered a healthy distraction when you are intentionally noticing your nervous system needs a break and mindfully deciding to do something else for a while. Avoidance is more of an automatic response, less “I need a short break” and more “I need to get away from this” without much thought or awareness of using the activity to help you cope.
Distraction is Contained, Avoidance is Unrestricted
When used in a boundaried way with supportive limits, most any activity can be a healthy distraction. It’s when it is done with no limits, so that it takes on a life of its own and creates negative consequences, that it turns into avoidance. For example, deciding you’re going to binge-watch some TV, but then go to bed early and face your problems the next day, is very different from mindlessly watching TV until the wee hours of the morning and then oversleeping. Or maybe after a breakup, you decide to give yourself a few days to mope and then start doing other helpful things to cope, versus continually checking out via screen time, alcohol/drugs, etc.
Distraction is Support, Avoidance is Escape
The purpose of distraction is to let you take a structured break from overwhelming emotions so that you can return to face your problems. It is ultimately an act of self-care so that you can return to the hard emotional work you need to address. The purpose of avoidance is to suppress or disconnect from your feelings so you don’t have to feel them.
Examples of Healthy Distraction vs Avoidance
A happy hour with girlfriends to decompress vs drinking to a point of negative consequences to numb your feelings
Escaping into a good book for a break vs reading until you can’t stay awake anymore and suffering the consequences the next day
Having sex to enjoy pleasure/connection vs using sex to avoid real connection or loneliness
Taking a nap to reset your nervous system vs sleeping your life away
Focusing on others for a bit to give yourself a break from your own problems vs pouring yourself into other people so you don’t have to sit with your own thoughts/feelings
Deciding to focus on work to take a break from intense feelings vs becoming a workaholic to avoid emotional problems in an ongoing way
So to summarize, if you are using an activity intentionally, in a boundaried way, with the intention to support yourself by getting a break, so that you can return to face your problems, that’s healthy distraction. If you are using an activity in a mindless or autopilot way, to the degree it’s causing negative consequences for you, and you’re not circling back to address the difficulties that need addressing, that is avoidance, and it will ultimately make whatever problems you are facing worse. It can be hard to break patterns of avoidance (we all have them - it’s human nature!), but with consistent effort and the support of a therapist and/or healthy loved ones, it is possible.
Start Therapy to Treat Anxiety and Trauma in Los Angeles:
If you are struggling to connect with and face difficult feelings or problems, you are not alone. Avoidance is human nature, and everyone does it, but if you feel it’s getting in the way of living your best life, then it’s worth getting support to learn how to overcome avoidance and start facing your fears and problems. Start by following these steps:
Reach out for a consultation at Well Woman Psychology.
Meet with a therapist specializing in trauma and anxiety.
Learn how to cope with feelings in a healthy way so that you feel in control of your life.
About the Author:
Dr. Linda Baggett is the owner and licensed psychologist at Well Woman Psychology, a size-inclusive, Health at Every Size, therapy practice focused on serving women in California,Colorado, Illinois, New York, and Washington. Dr. Baggett helps people identify and change patterns that they needed to survive trauma, but that are no longer serving them, like avoidance. She also helps clients with body image, relationship issues, pregnancy loss and miscarriage, infertility, perimenopause and menopause, perinatal and postpartum struggles.
Disclaimer: This blog is for educational and informational purposes only, is not a substitute for individual medical or mental health advice, and does not constitute a client-therapist relationship.