How We Avoid Anxiety By Making It Eternal

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Whatever the cause of anxiety, it is always a call for change. This is a signal: "look at me, this is where the key to improving your life is located!"

But being anxious is sooo unpleasant. It is accompanied by physical manifestations (palpitations, sweating, rapid breathing, vomiting) and unpleasant emotional affects such as helplessness and impatience. Therefore, our psyche does everything to avoid meeting this important, but painful feeling.

Karen Horney identifies four ways to avoid anxiety:

1. Rationalization - transformation of anxiety into rational fear. And in fact, the unwillingness to take responsibility for their uncontrollable emotional state.

For example, an overly caring mother who does not acknowledge that her concern is based on anxiety rather than love and duty. And he will explain his anxiety as a justified fear, because there are so many dangers around.

Or anxiety about a business that a person cannot start in any way and rationalizes with all sorts of arguments: from a bad boss, a spouse to bad weather. Without appropriating to myself: I cannot cope with my emotions. And you need to work with this.

This includes the fear of illness, excess weight, poverty, misfortune, loneliness.

What is the avoidance here? The fact that such a position makes it possible not to change anything within oneself, but to shift the responsibility to the outside world.

2. Repression of anxiety - it is simply removed from consciousness

There is a conscious and unconscious overcoming of anxiety. As I mentioned above, an anxious person experiences physical and emotional symptoms. And there are times in life when he is faced with a particular symptom in certain circumstances and does not realize that there is anxiety behind it. This is an unconscious denial of anxiety. For example, a person goes to the balcony and starts to feel sick, or on the subway, when the train stops, the person starts to sweat, etc.

The second option is when a person deliberately tries to overcome it. A normal person does this to overcome fear, for example, on stage, an exam, a new project, etc. The problem is when the neurotic does it with anxiety. He deliberately tries to ignore his anxiety. And this is useful in certain situations, for example, entering a dark room. But if you do not explore the roots of anxiety, then it will manifest itself in other situations. For example, general shyness, isolation, feeling superfluous, inability to do any useful work.

The negative thing here is that not only radical important changes in the neurotic do not occur, but the symptoms go away and the person loses motivation for further work with his neurosis.

3. Drug addiction is the use of drugs and alcohol

But also immersion in social activities under the influence of fear of loneliness. Anxiety can be drowned in work and you can notice this by how much anxiety a person experiences when the weekend comes. A dream that no longer brings rest. Sexual activity from anxiety. This manifests itself in anxiety and irritation if a person has no sexual gratification for a short time.

4. Avoiding all situations, feelings and thoughts that can arouse anxiety

This is the most radical way. There are two options here:

• The person is aware of his anxiety and deliberately avoids it. For example, he stops climbing mountains, swimming in the sea, visiting guests, and going out onto the balcony.
• The person is vaguely aware of the existence of anxiety in himself and that he is avoiding it. For example, a person may postpone his business day after day, an important conversation, a visit to the doctor, or making decisions without realizing that he is driven by anxiety.

Our psyche is pretty skillful. It is possible to experience anxiety without realizing it at all. Anxiety can be hidden behind physical manifestations (heartbeat, respiratory failure), behind numerous fears that outwardly seem rational and justified. Anxiety can lead us to drink, drugs, and workaholism. You can run into anxiety as an inability to do any work and get pleasure from it.

What is the problem with avoiding anxiety? That by doing so we make it eternal.

All this suggests that mental phenomena are difficult and confusing, so a lot of patience and diligence is required in unraveling the inner knots that prevent a person from fully living, loving, working and enjoying it.