Avoidance And Activation
When it comes to our mental health struggles, many of us have perfected the art of the dodge. We're not just talking about occasionally procrastinating on doing the dishes—we're talking about a deep-rooted pattern that keeps us haunted by the same painful themes or issues, never quite breaking free. Avoidance is the mind's automatic self-protection system. It's what happens when our brain decides, "This feeling is too scary, this memory too painful, this reality too harsh—let's go literally anywhere else, immediately!" And in the short term, it works brilliantly. That’s the problem.
What Exactly IS Avoidance?
Psychologically speaking, avoidance is a defense mechanism where we attempt to escape or prevent experiences that cause us distress. This can be so automatic that we don’t notice we’re doing it and it can be more deliberate. Often it is learned through experience and repetition as well as learned through social learning, when watching our caregivers cope with stress or experiences that include:
Uncomfortable emotions (anxiety, grief, shame)
Triggering situations or people
Intrusive thoughts or memories
Responsibility for difficult decisions
Even therapy homework (anyone else "forget" to do those mindfulness exercises?)
The irony? What starts as self-protection from the activating agent in the moment becomes a cycle of self-sabotage. Each time we avoid, we teach our nervous system that the avoided thing is indeed dangerous and must be escaped at all costs. We reinforce this idea and the brain’s muscle memory each time.
The Trauma Activation Cycle
Here's where things get particularly sticky. When trauma lives in our bodies and minds, avoidance becomes our default setting. The trauma is experienced and then automatically stored with high intensity. Afterwards, the cycle typically looks something like this:
A trigger occurs (could be external or internal)
We experience activation (anxiety, panic, flashbacks)
To escape the unbearable feeling, we avoid through:
Substance use
Distraction (hello, eight straight hours of Netflix)
Denial ("I'm fine!")
Intellectualization (learning about trauma and coping skills rather than feeling and processing through it)
The immediate distress decreases (reinforcing the avoidance)
The activating agent remains paired with the unprocessed trauma, and remains stored in our system
Rinse and repeat when the next trigger comes along
Performative Healing vs Integration
Sometimes people want to do the hard work of healing their trauma but struggle to show up for themselves in the process. When we're struggling with avoidance patterns, we might:
Read every self-help book but never implement the practices
Talk about our issues using perfect psychological terminology while changing nothing
Collect diagnoses like Pokémon without doing the healing work
Preach about healing to others while secretly being disconnected from our own emotions, patterns, or internal motivations
We intellectually absorb concepts without emotionally integrating them. Integration means bringing awareness, understanding, and compassion to our whole experience—especially the parts we want to avoid—and allowing that awareness to actually change us. Without integration, we're just accumulating mental health trivia. It's healing theater, not healing.
The Self-Awareness Spectrum
Self awareness isn’t as simple a concept as it seems at first. There's actually a whole spectrum of awareness when it comes to our avoidance patterns:
At one end, we have people who are completely disconnected from their emotional lives. They're blindsided when someone points out they seem angry or anxious. "Me? Reactive? I'm perfectly calm!" they insist, while their voice rises two octaves and their knuckles turn white.
Moving up the awareness scale, we find those who recognize emotions only after they've acted on them. "Huh, I guess I was pretty upset when I slammed that door."
Then there are those who can identify they're feeling something in real time but still can't name it specifically. "I'm just... feeling a lot right now."
Further along are those who can accurately name their emotions in the moment, but still immediately dive into avoidance strategies. This is actually significant progress! Even knowing you're side-stepping an emotion in the moment—"I can feel my anxiety rising and I'm about to reach for my phone to distract myself"—shows more self-awareness than someone who can't even identify what emotion they're experiencing, let alone someone who is shocked when others perceive them as reactive.
The most integrated awareness is when we can notice, name, and actually stay with our emotions without immediate avoidance. This doesn't mean we never use coping strategies—it means we're making conscious choices rather than being driven by unconscious patterns.
Each step up this awareness ladder represents real growth. So if you're at the point where you can say, "I know I'm avoiding this feeling right now," give yourself credit—you've already developed more self-awareness than many people ever achieve.
Breaking The Cycle
The path forward isn't particularly mysterious, but it is difficult. It involves:
Recognizing our specific avoidance patterns
Building tolerance for discomfort (gradually!)
Creating safety for ourselves to feel what we've been avoiding
Finding support (therapy, community, trusted relationships)
Practicing self-compassion—avoidance developed for a reason, and that reason was survival
Conclusion
The goal isn't to never avoid anything (sometimes temporary avoidance is necessary and helpful), but to build a relationship with ourselves where we don't need to constantly run from our own experience. Because you want to live a life where you can be in control of your emotions rather then them being in control of you.
So the next time you find yourself reaching for the distraction of choice, or noticing you've memorized the DSM-5 definition of your issue without actually feeling any different, take a breath. Maybe turn toward the thing you've been running from, just a little. Not to torture yourself, but because sometimes what's on the other side of avoidance is exactly the freedom we've been looking for all along.
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About the Author
Sara Walter Shihdanian (she/they) is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor specializing in trauma and gender + transition, providing virtual psychotherapy in Washington state. Her extensive training and unique expertise allows her to support clients who are ready for accelerated and lasting change.