When Protecting Ourselves Becomes What Limits Us

When we think about mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression, it becomes clear that they can affect us in very unique ways. For example, someone experiencing recurring feelings of anxiety may find themselves constantly worrying about certain events in their lives and feeling physically restless, while someone experiencing a depressive state may describe feelings that seem almost opposite, such as losing interest in everyday activities and struggling to find the energy to engage with them. While our mental health struggles tend to show up in these unique ways, there also seem to be some common threads in how they develop and are maintained. For example, behaviors like avoidance and cognitive processes like rumination tend to appear across many different challenges. In this sketch, we’ll explore one of those common threads called “avoidance” and take a closer look at how it might be quietly shaping our own lives.

Some common ways our struggles develop and are maintained

Research suggests that certain unhelpful thinking patterns or behaviors, such as acting from a place of fear, may play a role in the development and maintenance of more than one mental health challenge. These thinking patterns and behaviors are not abnormalities themselves and are expected parts of our lives that we can all experience from time to time. But sometimes they become more frequent, more intense, or more persistent in the way they affect us. When that happens, it can be helpful to understand the specific ways our thoughts, behaviors, or emotions have become rigid or automatic, so that we can begin to loosen their grip and move toward a greater sense of balance.

Avoidance as something that maintains our mental health struggles

One of the important common mechanisms that can perpetuate our mental health challenges in this way is avoidance. Avoidance happens when we try to stay away from people, situations, places, or even thoughts and feelings that make us feel uncomfortable or distressed.

Avoidance is not always unhelpful, and sometimes it can even be the most appropriate response. In fact, avoidance can sometimes be an effective emotion regulation strategy, allowing us to step away from situations or events that we know are harmful or dangerous to our well-being. When we use avoidance flexibly and with discernment in this way, it can be supportive rather than limiting. But when avoidance becomes repetitive and rigid, it is more likely to create greater distress and unintended consequences than provide relief.

For example, let’s say Sun avoids attending a social gathering because they fear they will look weird or be judged by others. If Sun decides to stay home, they will likely feel less anxious, and their overthinking about what others might think of them may quiet down. However, by staying home, Sun also misses the opportunity to discover that they are actually able to cope and even have fun at the gathering, that others may not have judged them as harshly as they expected, or that the feared outcome may not have happened at all.

What can happen is that if Sun habitually starts staying home as a way to make their anxious thoughts disappear, and the uncomfortable sensations in their body subside, they may gradually begin to feel more isolated, which could leave them feeling even worse about themselves. Paradoxically, all of this avoidance can end up making Sun feel even more out of control in both themselves and their life, which may, in turn, increase the anxiety they are experiencing.

As this example illustrates, avoidance can sometimes become a habitual way of trying to control our lives so that we don’t have to come into contact with the discomfort we feel inside, regardless of the consequences. One reason we tend to resort to avoidance in this way is that it can create the illusion of solving the problem. When we avoid a difficult situation, we often experience temporary relief and a reduction in the distressing feelings that would otherwise arise, which can make us believe that avoiding is helping us. Sometimes, it actually might be. But at other times, as we saw in Sun’s example, avoidance can prevent us from ever finding out whether the very thing we fear would actually happen or whether we would be able to cope if it did. As a result, our anxious feelings may become even stronger. Similarly, because avoidance can prevent us from having pleasurable or meaningful experiences, it can also reinforce the depressive feelings we might be experiencing.

Working with our avoidance

When working with our avoidant tendencies, our goal does not have to be eliminating all avoidance altogether, but rather developing a more flexible and gentler relationship with it, for example, one where we feel that more choice is available to us. Therapy can help us identify and examine the ways we habitually and rigidly avoid certain experiences in our lives, while also exploring why these patterns developed in the first place. It can also help us gently begin cultivating alternative ways of showing up in our lives, ways that feel more empowered and guided by choice.

Takeaways

• Avoidance is a common way we try to protect ourselves from discomfort. While it can be beneficial at times, when it becomes rigid and repetitive, it can unintentionally maintain or intensify the struggles we are trying to move away from.
• Avoidance can prevent us from learning that our fears may not come true, discovering our ability to cope or repair when they do, and engaging in meaningful or pleasurable experiences that support our well-being. In this way, it can unintentionally reinforce anxious and depressive feelings.
• Working with avoidance can look like developing a more flexible relationship with it instead of eliminating it altogether. 
• Therapy can help us understand our avoidant patterns and gently cultivate new ways of showing up in our lives that feel more empowered and guided by choice.

References & Further Reading

• Abramowitz, J. S., & Blakey, S. M. (Eds.). (2020). Clinical handbook of fear and anxiety: Maintenance processes and treatment mechanisms. American Psychological Association.
• Wang, Y., Tian, J., & Yang, Q. (2024). Experiential Avoidance Process Model: A review of the mechanism for the generation and maintenance of avoidance behavior. Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 34(2), 179–190. https://doi.org/10.5152/pcp.2024.23777

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At Roamers Therapy, our psychotherapists are here to support you through anxiety, depression, trauma and relationship issues, race-ethnicity issues, LGBTQIA+ issues, ADHD, Autism, or any challenges you encounter. Our psychotherapists are trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Acceptance, and Commitment Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, and Gottman Therapy. 

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This page is also part of the Roamers Therapy Glossary; a collection of mental-health related definitions that are written by our therapists.

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