{"id":13155,"date":"2020-04-28T22:53:56","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T05:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/?p=13155"},"modified":"2020-04-28T22:54:03","modified_gmt":"2020-04-29T05:54:03","slug":"why-are-we-so-avoidant-when-anxious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/why-are-we-so-avoidant-when-anxious\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are we so Avoidant when Anxious!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13156 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"fbPhotoSnowliftCaption\" class=\"fbPhotosPhotoCaption\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-live=\"polite\" data-ft=\"{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;K&quot;}\"><span class=\"hasCaption\">What is avoidance and how is it related to anxiety?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Avoidance is where you are active in anything except what you need to do.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t like pain. So we will do things that usually<span class=\"text_exposed_show\"> are difficult such as unloading the dishwasher instead of actually sitting down and finishing a book that\u2019s due for example.\ufffc<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Avoidance doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re sitting in a corner doing nothing. In fact, some people are extremely active during the avoidance process.<\/p>\n<p>I find it interesting that our brains can do multiple things&#8230; except the task we\u2019re assigned to do.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s happening in our heads?<\/p>\n<p>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?.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve spent my life trying to figure this out. It\u2019s 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, &#8211; it\u2019s avoidance of the marketplace completely.\ufffc<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m doing all I can to avoid avoidance.<\/p>\n<p>I think avoidance is that face in the middle of this picture. It\u2019s mocking me.\ufffc<\/p>\n<p>Julie\ufffc<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-13156 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-300x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance-400x400.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Julie-flower-avoidance.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What is avoidance and how is it related to anxiety?<\/p>\n<p>Avoidance is where you are active in anything except what you need to do.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t 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\u2019s due for example.\ufffc<\/p>\n<p>Avoidance doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re sitting in a corner doing nothing. In fact, some people are extremely active during the avoidance process.<\/p>\n<p>I find it interesting that our brains can do multiple things&#8230; except the task we\u2019re assigned to do.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/why-are-we-so-avoidant-when-anxious\/\">[ Read More ]<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[186],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13155"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13158,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13155\/revisions\/13158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bipolarhappens.com\/bhblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}