Avoidance Coping

Coping mechanisms are behaviors people use to deal with difficult, stressful, and uncomfortable situations. Generally, coping mechanisms fall into four categories:

• Problem-focused
• Emotional-focused
• Meaning-focused
• Social coping

Some of these behaviors include turning to religion, positive reframing, planning ahead, and seeking support from friends or family. They’re helpful in certain situations and can make difficult times manageable. By utilizing these mechanisms, people can healthily manage their reactions and give them space to work through the stress.

Most coping mechanisms are healthy and helpful. However, some are unhealthy and can do a lot of damage.

What is Avoidance Coping?

Avoidance coping is a negative coping strategy that involves mental and behavioral actions to minimize, deny and ignore stressful situations to avoid dealing with the situation. 

This kind of coping offers quick relief from discomfort, but it doesn’t help people deal with the problem causing that discomfort. Instead of working to resolve an issue, they simply don’t address it.

The healthy alternative would be working through stress by:

• Processing grief
• Having that hard conversation
• Making that stressful appointment

Dealing with stressful demands is more healthy than avoiding them altogether.

Is Avoidance Coping Healthy?

Avoidance coping is not a healthy strategy for stressful situations. Avoiding discomfort will offer short-term relief, but over time, the stress will only get worse.

Emotional hardiness is a personality trait that defines someone’s ability to cope and withstand stressful events. It can be a helpful tool for when things get rough.

Avoidance coping decreases hardiness and makes it more difficult to practice healthy coping strategies. Losing hardiness means things that would not have been a big deal can become major stressors.

Why Do People Avoidance Cope?

Avoidance coping is most often seen in people who have a general anxiety disorder or who have an avoidant personality disorder. 

People experiencing anxiety may not know healthy coping mechanisms, and avoidance is often the path of least resistance. That makes them more susceptible to using this unhealthy coping strategy.

Can Avoidance Coping Be Healthy?

Avoiding stress isn’t always an unhealthy behavior. Some behaviors like taking a walk or physically removing yourself from a situation can be healthy and helpful. Moving away from a situation so you can think, make plans, or take a break isn’t directly facing the situation, but it’s not always maladaptive.

These behaviors are not typical of avoidance coping. Instead, behaviors like denying, ignoring, wishful thinking, and burying feelings are associated with avoidance coping.

How to Stop Avoidance Coping

Avoidant coping will hurt more than help, especially long-term. Ending these behaviors is a hard-fought battle, but it is possible.

To stop avoiding coping you’ll need to get more comfortable with uncomfortable feelings. Here is a road map you can follow to help you stop this maladaptive coping practice.

1. Acceptance

Recognizing your struggle with avoidance coping is the first step in ending your maladaptive behavior. When you recognize your propensity to back away from difficult situations, emotions, or thoughts, you’ll be better able to make small changes when discomfort comes at a later time. 

If you find yourself ignoring problems until they become overwhelming, you may be practicing avoidant strategies. To stop avoidance coping, you need to accept that you use it and that it’s a problem.

2. Take Baby Steps

Everyone forms habits differently. Repetition and setting a strict discipline will get you far when forming a new healthy habit. However, it could take more than 10 weeks until the behavior becomes a habit.

Breaking a bad habit could take much more time than starting a new one. Take small steps toward your goal of healthy coping skills.

You could start by facing the small challenges that you’ve been avoiding. Tasks like:

• Cleaning out your car
• Scheduling that doctor’s appointment
• Texting that old friend

Depending on your situation, these tasks could be harder or easier for you. Whichever tasks seem doable to you, start there, and get the healthy coping skill snowball rolling. 

3. Consider Long Term Goals

Eliminating unhealthy coping skills is a long process. Getting frustrated with the process is to be expected. Don’t expect any quick fixes, but do think about how avoidance coping will make you feel later.

Relief from discomfort will come if you choose avoidance behaviors, but later on, it will make you feel so much worse. Keep this at the top of your mind when discomforts come.

Have a future goal in mind and look forward to reaching it.

4. Get Creative

Problem-solving is a healthy coping mechanism. You can start practicing it by finding creative solutions to the problems you’re avoiding. You can do this by:

• Making a list of tasks and choose one a day
• Making a way to gamify completing tasks
• Find a friend who can keep you accountable

Thinking of problems as a way to get creative might help you see them without the lens of anxiety.

5. Find Healthy Coping Skills

Ending a bad habit is much easier if you replace it with a good one. To stop avoidance coping you should look for new coping skills to replace the old ones.

Positive coping mechanisms include:

• Journaling
• Exercise
• Problem-solving 
• Mindfulness practices like meditation

On your journey to build better coping skills try to find something that you can do even if the discomfort isn’t that bad. Practicing these skills when things don’t seem awful will make it easier when things get hard.

6. Find Professional Guidance

Finding solutions to mental health issues can be much easier with the help of a professional. Therapy can offer you a structured way to work through your mental health.

People who practice avoidance coping often have other mental health problems like anxiety and depression. This makes professional guidance all the more useful. You’ll be dealing with your negative coping skills while also dealing with other comorbidities.

Helping a Family Member With Avoidance Coping

Recognizing that a friend or family member uses avoidance to ignore problems can be frustrating. Watching them ignore their problem only to stress themselves out more can be confusing.

Sometimes, there isn’t much you can do but you can be a great support. Be honest with them and talk to them about their experiences. If you talk with them in a demeaning or offensive way, they’ll likely do what they can to ignore and avoid what you bring up.

While helping a loved one with avoidance coping, help them feel safe by using compassionate language and letting them know you’re there to help. You can’t expect them to open up to you if you don’t offer them security from judgment.

Ending Unhealthy Coping Skills At Sequoia Behavioral Health

Our clients come to us for mental health treatment and addiction treatment. They don’t seek out help because they’re practicing negative coping skills. However, we can help clients fix their maladaptive behaviors during their time with us.

At Sequoia Behavioral Health, we take a holistic approach to treatment by finding the root of your mental health problems while also caring for your whole body.

If you’re looking for a residential facility to receive live-in treatment, contact us today to see if you’re a good fit for our programming.