The Kryptonite of Mental Health

Are there certain things you consistently avoid because you don’t like doing them?  Seems normal to me.  But what if avoiding them causes problems in your life?  Why do we continue in those cases?

After attending a lecture presented by Sue Johnson, developer of Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy, I couldn’t stop thinking about one phrase she used:

“Avoidance is the kryptonite of mental health.” 

Although I was never a big superhero fan, even I know that kryptonite is a powerful substance from Superman’s home planet which can weaken him and disable his superpowers. Similarly, using avoidance as a coping strategy to deal with threatening feelings such as anxiety and fear can weaken us mere humans and disconnect us from the power we get when we learn to tolerate and move through the feelings that scare us.

I know from my own experience and from observing clients, friends and family members how true this can be.  Anxiety is a powerful force that overwhelms many of us and causes profound distress.  It is natural to avoid the frightening effects that anxiety causes when it highjacks our nervous systems.  Who wants to experience fear, panic, shortness of breath, tightness, trembling, nausea, insomnia, etc.?  It makes perfect sense to avoid those feelings and to distract ourselves with something that is relaxing, pleasurable, or numbing.  Most of us have avoided a difficult conversation or avoided working on a project that we aren’t sure how to complete.  Many of us avoid experiences that might remind us of past events or relationships that were painful.  There may have been a time when you avoided checking your emails or returning a phone call out of fear that you might receive bad news, criticism or rejection.  The couples I work with have often avoided discussing certain topics with each other for years; topics that are vitally important to their relationship like sex, money, and, most poignantly, their closely held hopes and dreams. I don’t see this as mental weakness — the nervous system is powerful and designed to protect us from danger.  Sometimes it is overprotective, however, because it has trouble distinguishing between physical danger and emotional pain.

I remember a period when I was a young adult– a time very long ago when monthly bills were printed on paper and arrived via the postal service rather than as emails and text alerts. I was going through financial stress and every bill that arrived in my mailbox spiked my adrenaline and sent my thoughts racing – I would instantly see movies in my head of my impending eviction and destitution.  My response was to add the unopened envelopes to the growing pile on the corner of the kitchen counter and ignore them.  If I didn’t open them, I didn’t know how much I owed, and I didn’t have to worry about it.  Or so my thinking went.  To a certain extent this approach worked for me and allowed me to go on with my day and address other things I needed to do, but there were a few problems with this strategy:

1. 1. When panic woke me suddenly at 3 AM my avoidance did not soothe me. Not knowing the amount I owed often led me to fear that the amount was much bigger than it actually was and that the consequences of my late payment would be much more dire.
   2. The emotional energy I had to expend to stay in avoidance affected my self-esteem and my energy. I pretended I wasn’t worried about the stack on the counter, but it was always in the back of my mind.
   3. Avoiding the problem meant that I was also avoiding coming up with a solution. As long as the envelopes were unopened there was no way the problem was going to get better.  In fact, the problem could only get bigger and scarier, which meant it would require more energy to avoid it.

While my avoidance strategy helped me hold things together in the short term, I definitely learned that ignorance was not bliss.  In order to really feel better, I had to take absolutely terrifying and counterintuitive measures.  For me this meant I had to open the envelopes and get the facts and then I had to share the facts with another human being who could be help me develop a plan. (In another post I will talk about why it is so important to share things we feel ashamed of with other humans.)

In a blog post for Psychology Today, Alice Boyes Ph.D. (author of The Anxiety Toolkit) suggests three steps for overcoming “Avoidance Coping:”

1. 1. Recognize that it doesn’t work.
   2. Recognize the costs of avoidance coping.
   3. Learn to tolerate the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

She goes on to share various strategies for accomplishing number 3, the most complex of the steps.  For my clients, and in my own life, simple mindful awareness and grounding practices coupled with mindfulness meditation have been extremely helpful in learning to tolerate anxiety and even begin to see it as a tool and a gift.  These techniques help us to accept the present moment, calm our nervous systems, recognize that our strong emotions are temporary, and view our challenges more objectively.  Facing your anxiety is scary and there is no one size fits all remedy, so it can be helpful to work with a caring professional who has a big toolbox.  Treatment models such as The Trauma Resiliency Model and Attachment-Focused EMDR provide many helpful tools.  If you have tried sitting meditation and hate it, there are many other approaches.  Something as simple as taking three deep, slow breaths and focusing on feeling your feet on the floor can help many people to start to calm their bodies and slow their thoughts.  Others respond better to more physically active approaches or to visualization techniques.  These skills take practice and it takes time to develop the habit of using them consistently, but many people start to feel better quite quickly. It is a relief to learn that you are able to ride the wave of anxiety and you don’t have to avoid important parts of your life out of fear.  And you don’t have to give up the skills you already have.  There may be times when you consciously choose to use avoidance as a short-term coping skill, but it will no longer sap you of your superpowers.  As for me, there is often still a pile of mail on my kitchen counter, but the envelopes have been opened and none of them contain kryptonite.