Anxiety and Avoidance Explained | EP 350

Anxiety and avoidance go hand in hand, and most people struggling with an anxiety disorder have been told that avoidance makes things worse. But there's a lot of confusion in this community about what avoidance actually means. What are you avoiding? What aren't you avoiding? And why does it feel like letting go of the scary thought is the same as ignoring the problem?

In this episode I want to clear that up. The key is understanding the difference between the content of your anxiety and the process. The content is the scary thought, the intrusive image, the somatic symptom, the worry your GAD has decided is urgent today, the OCD theme that won't let go. None of that is what you're avoiding. What you're actually avoiding is the discomfort that content triggers inside of you.

Avoidance is everything you do to make that discomfort stop. The reassurance seeking. The compulsive looping and arguing with thoughts. The safety behaviors, the escape, the checking, the constant attempts to prove the thought wrong or calm the body down. That's the avoidance. And the action of letting a scary thought or sensation just be there without responding to it? That is not avoidance at all.

This distinction matters because it changes the whole picture of what you have to work on. I walk through how this plays out across panic disorder, OCD, health anxiety, GAD, and agoraphobia.

For full show notes on this episode:

https://theanxioustruth.com/350

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Want to talk about what you heard in this episode, or interact with me, Josh Fletcher, and others that share and understand your experience? I'm hanging out in the Disordered Community Space:

https://disordered.fm/community

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Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth  is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.