Anxiety loves short-term relief. It thrives and accelerates on long-term avoidance. Behaviors that make you feel better in the moment quietly strengthen anxiety when you avoid situations.
In early grief, avoiding a gathering can be about emotional capacity, not anxiety. When your loss is raw and sitting just beneath the surface, it makes sense to protect your energy and your privacy. That’s different from using avoidance to escape discomfort. One is self-awareness. The other quietly teaches your brain that you can’t handle the moment.
Anxiety crutch example
Let’s say you’re about to join a small group conversation at a work event. You don’t know many people, and there’s that familiar surge of discomfort—Where do I stand? What do I say? Do I look awkward?
Instead of stepping in, you hang back. You check your phone. Maybe you pretend to answer a message that isn’t urgent. You tell yourself you’ll join in a minute—once you feel more ready.
But that moment never quite comes.
The phone takes the edge off. It gives you something to do, somewhere to look. Immediate relief. At a cost.
The problem with all that is that by using the crutch known as your phone, you have avoided discomfort, the very moment that teaches you the world won’t come apart if you feel awkward for a few seconds. So now your go-to for managing anxiety is to avoid the moment and use crutches, and that means you don’t learn to manage it.
And that makes it worse.
The phone is a crutch.
Gambling and other behavioral addictions are crutches.
Using alcohol to “make yourself looser and more fun” is also a common crutch.
Every time we avoid discomfort, we reinforce the belief that discomfort is dangerous.
Anxiety is just uncomfortable, not unsafe
That distinction matters.
Anxiety feels like a warning, like something is wrong, like you need to escape right now. But in many everyday situations—like walking into a party, speaking up in a meeting, or sitting in silence with your own thoughts—what you’re feeling isn’t danger. It’s discomfort.
And discomfort might make you squirm, but it won’t hurt you. Think of it as potential for growth.
It’s your body’s early warning system doing its job a little too well. The amygdala, the part of your brain wired for survival back when threats were immediate and life-or-death, doesn’t always know the difference between a sabertooth tiger behind a bush and a room full of strangers.
So the amygdala sounds the alarm anyway.
The problem isn’t the alarm itself. The problem is how quickly we rush to shut it off.
We reach for something—anything—that gives us fast relief:
- the phone
- the drink
- the distraction
And it works… temporarily.
But every time you escape the discomfort, you unintentionally send your brain a powerful message: “That feeling was dangerous. Good thing we got out.”
So the next time? The alarm comes faster. Louder. Stronger.
That’s how anxiety grows and how the crutches feed it
What actually trains your brain is the opposite response.
What do you do? You stay.
You let the moment be awkward.
You resist the urge to disappear into your phone and head for the bar right away.
You feel the discomfort rise… and then fall.
Because it will always fall since feelings are never permanent but always changing.
That’s the lesson anxiety doesn’t want you to learn—and exactly the one you need to teach it. Because you are the boss, you are the boss of your brain.
You can say, “Hey, brain, thanks for the warning. I got this. I’m the boss.”
You don’t need a crutch. You need proof. Proof that you can feel uncomfortable and still be okay.
Download the simple, one-page PDF of “How Avoidance Can Make Anxiety Worse.”
AnneMoss Rogers is a leading wellness and suicide education expert and one of the top mental health speakers and suicide prevention speakers. Known for her powerful, motivational keynotes, AnneMoss combines her personal story of loss with proven strategies to help organizations build a wellness culture that drives results and saves lives. She speaks at conferences, workplaces, K-12 schools, and universities, delivering impactful presentations that inspire change and promote mental health awareness.
AnneMoss does this work in memory of her son, Charles, who struggled with anxiety, depression, and addiction, and died by suicide at age 20 in 2015.
Hi Miss Anne,
How do we avoid this?? I am feeling stuck since Jason’s anniversary in January. I can’t move forward and I can’t buy any more purses!! Most definitely in a vicious cycle.
Thank you!!
Cathy
Retail therapy! I often have people tell me that is a positive coping strategy. And then I just ask questions until they get to the part that they have spent too much and how bad that feels and then the buyer’s remorse. That’s a big one for women. First is awareness and you have nailed that one. Next, pause before buying.
You can also make it harder. Remove credit cards online. Or when you go out, don’t take credit cards with you on your phone. That way you have to come home and think about it and can go through “do I need it?” and other questions.
The way to break any habit is to make it harder to do. So for me, I was eating too many dark chocolate chips. (I add them to my overnight oatmeal so getting rid of them entirely was too brutal an option). To stop pouring a handful out of a bag into my hand whenever I felt like it, I moved them to a top shelf in my pantry, one that required me to get out a step stool. I’m right under 6′ tall so it was the tippy top shelf. That gave me time to think about it and use some self talk “you can’t keep doing this. Think about the dresses you want to wear on stage this summer….”
1. So how can you make buying handbags less impulsive and more difficult and challenging so you have time to stop yourself.
2. And what coping strategy or joyful action are you going to take to replace the bad habit with the better one.
This really hit home, Anne Moss. I have used almost all of these “escapes” to temporarily avoid discomfort. Grief and the ensuing anxiety can be so overwhelming.
It is so tempting right? We want so desperately to feel good and it’s hard to find that break.