In the face of situations that worry us, we tend to flee. Let's find out why, what are the escape routes and what to do to avoid them.
Last update: July 06, 2020
The human mind reacts in different ways to high impact negative experiences: it freezes, starts feeding negative thoughts or, in some cases, create escape routes to escape that unpleasant reality. The problem is that, more often than not, these escapes, far from dissipating anxiety, reinforce and authorize it, especially if they are based on certain expectations and assumptions.
Sometimes the human being perceives situations that are not dangerous as dangerous. Usually this happens because he associates them with shocking experiences he had in the past, although these have nothing to do with the present one. Like when we are afraid of all the people around us, because in the past some have been cruel or offensive towards us.
"Escaping has never gotten anyone anywhere."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry-
The truth is that the mind creates escape routes as mechanisms to protect and control anxiety. In this article we present three escape routes that, far from calming anxiety, on the contrary end up feeding it.
3 escape routes that fuel anxiety
1. Project yourself into a threatening future
The best thing to do when you are in a difficult situation is to analyze it, face it and try to overcome it as best you can. However, when negative experiences from the past loom over our lives, we may not be able to act reasonably.
It often happens that instead of identifying and addressing the threat, we are looking for escape routes. One of these is to project ourselves into a threatening future. Let's take an example: we have lost our jobs and have outstanding debts. It would be reasonable to work hard to find a new job and try to renegotiate debts with the bank.
However, if someone has had a traumatic experience related to exclusion or unemployment in the past, they may act differently. Perhaps we may feel overwhelmed with anxiety and the thought of a terrible future, in which we imagine ourselves begging on the street or in prison. However, if we do not address the present situation, even the escape routes do not lead to solving the problem.
2. Confront yourself with ideal models among the escape routes
Sometimes we're just good at blaming ourselves. Anguish often leads us to walk the path towards the escape routes linked to martyrdom. Instead of analyzing the situation and figuring out how to correct a mistake and learn from it, we start tormenting ourselves with thinking about everything we could have done. Or even everything we could have been.
One of the ways often adopted to escape anguish is to compare oneself with models of ideals. From this confrontation we will end up losing.
This is the result of past experiences that have affected us emotionally, in particular the rejection or punishment for not doing “the right thing” And which are thus reflected in the present, generating excessive anguish in the face of any failure.
3. Thinking about the past to relive situations that no longer exist
The last of the escape routes from anguish takes us to the past. This occurs when we are faced with frustrating or painful situations that we cannot accept, such as an emotional loss due to the death of a loved one or a relationship that has ended. Consequentially, we try to dispel the anxiety by retrieving the memories of what once was over and over again, but today it is no longer.
This way of acting does not help us to reduce the anguish of the situation, quite the contrary. Sometimes we will not even feel comforted in mentally reliving the events of the past. And then, in any case, sooner or later we have to go back to the present and try again the anxiety that grips us.
This path involves a great loss of emotional energy. We do not realize that we will spend less energy trying to accept what has happened, rather than obsessing over the past.
As we see, it is very important to process the traumatic experiences of the past. These will never be forgotten, although they may be demoted or repressed. But they don't stop being there, chasing our present.
Hence the importance of deal with these negative situations, work on them and get rid of them. When we don't, they end up turning into distress. Following this, they easily lead us to resort to one of the escape routes seen, which in turn feeds new anxieties.
