Some familiar types of avoidance

<p>If you are one of those who commonly avoid tasks or specific situations, it could be for many reasons. But before you can work on solving or completing a job you’ve been putting off, it’s essential to narrow down what type of avoidance you are using to evade something in your life, so you can know how best to combat it.</p> <p> If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “<b>What you resist persists</b>,” you have been introduced to the fundamental reason why your avoidance and how you cope can increase anxiety.</p> <p><b>Emotional Or Cognitive Avoidance</b></p> <p>This type of avoidance usually happens internally and can’t be seen by anyone other than the person experiencing the avoidance. When you, emotionally or cognitively, avoid something, it means that you avoid ruminating about it.</p> <p>Cognitive avoidance is about avoiding internal events such as unpleasant or distressing thoughts or memories. With this type of avoidance, people usually suppress or reject the experience of certain kinds of thoughts that feel unpleasant or overwhelming.</p> <p>This can mean either blocking out the thoughts when they come to mind or repressed memories that can be incredibly stressful.</p> <p>Emotional avoidance is especially prominent after someone has experienced a trauma, and is very common in people living with <a href="https://mentalhealthtraining.info/historic-background-of-ptsd" target="_blank">PTSD</a>. Sometimes this type of avoidance requires medical intervention to resolve.</p> <p><b>Situational Avoidance</b></p> <p>Situational avoidance is when you specifically avoid a particular person, place, or thing which may remind you of something which makes you unhappy. This frequently happens in friend groups when certain group members have had an altercation and don’t want to go to events where they may see the person they have disagreed with to avoid causing problems. </p> <p>You may also notice this type of avoidance in a friend who constantly changes the subject when a particular topic comes up in conversatio