Avoidance: Helpful in a Moment, Harmful to Mental Health

Here's what's happening on the HealthyPlace site this week:

• Avoidance: Helpful in a Moment, Harmful to Mental Health
• From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs
• Video: Ways to Improve Your Life with Bipolar Disorder
• Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans
• Mental Health Quote

Avoidance: Helpful in a Moment, Harmful to Mental Health

Avoidance is a normal human behavior, a coping skill to deal with difficult situations. Avoiding unpleasant people, places, memories, circumstances, confrontations, thoughts, and emotions makes sense because it’s a self-preservation tactic. The problem with using avoidance behaviors, though, is that it quickly changes from a solution to an entirely new problem.

If you are the type to circumvent problems, you’re not a terrible person for doing so. You’re doing what feels right to preserve your mental health. Unfortunately, avoidance could be harming your mental health and wellbeing.

Trying to escape obstacles around us can lead to:

• Withdrawal
• Isolation and loneliness
• Increased anxiety (avoidance is often driven by anxiety, and then it makes anxiety stronger)
• Depression
• A spinning cycle of negative thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that traps you (Living with the Cycle of Anxious-Avoidance, Trying to Get Out)

The instinct to avoid things that make us anxious is strong and hard to overcome—hard, but not impossible. The first step to breaking out of the avoidance trap is to shift your thinking. Instead of focusing on avoiding what you don’t want, think of moving toward what you do want. Be clear about what you want and why you want it, then make plans to get there despite anxiety.

Avoidance is an automatic response. You are strong enough to override that harmful response and take back your mental health.

Related Articles Dealing with Avoidance

• PTSD-Related Avoidance Avoided with This Coping Skill
• Stop Using Avoidance to Deal with Self-Esteem Issues
• Avoidance and Agoraphobia Come from Fear, Not Failure
• What is Avoidant Personality Disorder?

Your Thoughts

Today's Question: What role does your mental health play in avoidance behaviors? We invite you to participate by sharing your thoughts, experiences, and knowledge on the HealthyPlace Facebook page and on the HealthyPlace Google+ page.

From the HealthyPlace Mental Health Blogs

On all our blogs, your comments and observations are welcomed.

• Coping with a New Bipolar II Diagnosis and What to Do Next
• Challenging Anxious Thoughts: Learning to Distrust Your Gut
• Borderline Personality Disorder and Suicidal Thoughts
• How to Monitor What You Watch When You're Depressed
• I'm Having Suicidal Thoughts Less Often Now
• About Alter Switching in Dissociative Identity Disorder
• Five Ways to Calm Your Anxious Mind in Less Than 5 Minutes
• Winning the Depression Battle
• How to Stop Being Over-Sensitive to Criticism
• So What If I'm Over-Emotional? Sensitivity Helps Define Me
• How to Spread Self-Harm Awareness
• Boundaries and PTSD: Why You Need Them, How to Set Them
• Applying The 5 Stages of Grief to The Loss Of A Relationship
• Anxiety Causes Obsessive Thoughts I Can't Let Go Of
• ADHD Myths and Misconceptions Vary by Culture
• Are You in Love with Your Abuser? If So, There's a Reason

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments at the bottom of any blog post. And visit the mental health blogs homepage for the latest posts.

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From HealthyPlace YouTube Channel

I'm Hannah. I Have Bipolar 2

Ways to Improve Your Life with Bipolar Disorder

It is unfortunate that many people living with bipolar disorder think a good or even decent life is unattainable. We hear about the ways our lives will be negatively affected by bipolar disorder but little about the ways to improve our lives. In this video, I share my own personal experience living with bipolar 2 disorder and some of the ways to improve your life. (Watch Hannah)

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Most Popular HealthyPlace Articles Shared by Facebook Fans

Here are the top 3 mental health articles HealthyPlace Facebook fans are recommending you read:

1. Get Help for Schizoaffective Disorder: Running vs Walking
2. Do You Need Therapy for Anxiety? Decide Using this Checklist
3. How to Cope with Stress and Depression

If you're not already, I hope you'll join us/like us on Facebook too. There are a lot of wonderful, supportive people there.

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Mental Health Quote

"Those who suffer from mental illness are stronger than you think. We must fight to go to work, care for our families, be there for our friends, and act "normal" while battling unimaginable pain."

Read more mental illness stigma quote.

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