Therapists and counselors can provide invaluable support and guidance in navigating the challenges of overcoming conflict avoidance. There are times when choosing not to engage in conflict is the wisest course of action. The key is learning to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy avoidance. Healthy avoidance might involve taking a temporary step back to cool down or choosing not to engage with truly toxic individuals. Unhealthy avoidance, on the other hand, involves consistently dodging important issues or sacrificing one’s own needs and values to avoid confrontation.

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• Instead of trying to sedate emotions like anger, sadness, or fear, try looking at them through the lens of self-compassion, and allowing yourself to see your negative thoughts with empathy.
• However, they are distinct conditions that have different causes.
• Leaving conflicts unresolved leads to pent-up frustration and a greater sense of loneliness that can build up over time.
• Take a minute to think of situations when you tend to use avoidance coping.
• They agree to rein in their spending to save for a down payment.

You might also try to change the topic or make peace without addressing the issue. Another manifestation of conflict avoidance is when you act passive-aggressive or resort to name-calling or insults. One enormous costs of conflict avoidance is lack of attunement with a significant other. The fear of discussing with our partner significant aspects of our lives because we fear rejection or conflict creates a divide.

Practice Communication Skills

The point is you focus on potential solutions and your own personal experience instead of attacking your partner or making assumptions about them before they have been allowed to express their side of the story. Or maybe you begin by expressing why you haven’t mentioned your sadness over spending less time together. Also, the ideal timing and the best language choice for addressing an issue varies from couple to couple and from issue to issue. Nevertheless, there are some best practices to keep in mind when communicating with your partner.

What Triggers Avoidant Personality Disorder?

Treating personality disorders is difficult because people with these conditions have deep-rooted patterns of thinking and behavior that have existed for many years. The first step is simply understanding what avoidance coping is and why it has become part of your life. Understanding why avoidance coping tends to be self-defeating will also help encourage you to take a more proactive and effective approach to stress management.

What Is Avoidance Coping?

The three primary symptoms of avoidant personality disorder are feelings of inadequacy, social inhibition, and excessive sensitivity to rejection or criticism. The desire to avoid conflict in a relationship is common, but for very different reasons. First, involvement with a partner who is unable to perspective-take makes it nearly impossible to work out difficulties constructively. Understandably, a person may wish to avoid these nightmare fights by side-stepping the power struggles. Second, a partner who is egocentric may wish to dodge a person’s disapproval; he or she hides selfish acts and avoids conversations focused on issues in the relationship. As you can see, conflict avoidance negatively affects multiple areas of your relationship, and it can also affect your health.

Signs You’re Chronically Conflict-Avoidant

• Whether in the workplace, within families, or among nations, conflicts can arise from differing perspectives, values, and goals.
• Once you become more used to it, facing your problems head-on won’t bring you as much anxiety.
• This can motivate you to speak up and work on developing healthier conflict behaviors.
• If you’re conflict avoidant, instead of telling your boss they’ve got your pay wrong and need to fix it, or a boyfriend that their birthday card for your mom was offensive, you’ll suffer in silence.

For example, you might ask a friend to check in with you about a project you need to start or ask if you have had that difficult conversation with your coworker yet. If you think someone you know or love may be living with avoidant personality disorder symptoms, it is important to encourage that person to seek help. Without professional treatment such as talk therapy, it is unlikely that the symptoms and their related impacts on relationships will improve. One of the first steps in improving quality of life with avoidant personality disorder is to recognize the signs.

But regardless of the motivation, the consequences can be far-reaching and profound. The thing about conflict avoidance is how to deal with someone who avoids conflict that, in small doses, it’s actually a perfectly reasonable reaction. Fights aren’t fun; they stress the body out severely, for one thing. If you’re going around seeking people to punch, you aren’t operating healthily (obviously). But in many contexts, from the workplace to relationships, being able to air legitimate grievances in a way that is heard and respected is a valued skill, and a necessary part of a good, healthy environment.

One of the most fundamental mechanisms at work is the fight, flight, or freeze response. This primal reaction to perceived threats is hardwired into our brains. When faced with conflict, many people experience it as a threat, triggering the “flight” or “freeze” part of this response.

• If you take a bigger step each time, you’ll soon find yourself on a path toward active coping.
• From cognitive-behavioral techniques to assertiveness training and mindfulness practices, there are numerous paths to developing more constructive conflict management skills.
• Remember that disagreeing provides deeper understanding and makes it easier to connect with our friends, partners, and co-workers.

Handling these small situations politely but firmly can help you build confidence. These situations are excellent opportunities to practice communication skills. PTSD symptoms like avoidance can make it hard to function at your best every day. However, treatment can help you learn how to better cope with your triggers and manage your symptoms in the long run. Over time, constantly trying to avoid distressing thoughts, emotions, and situations can make it difficult to do the things you need to do — or enjoy the things you enjoy doing. Avoidance can seem like a helpful behavior to people living with PTSD because it allows them to avoid uncomfortable or distressing emotions or sensations.

Ultimately, we don’t feel less stressed than we would have if we just tackled the task right away rather than putting it off. Instead, we stress about what needs to be done and become even more stressed as we inevitably rush to get it done. Avoiding stress might seem like a great way to become less stressed, but this isn’t necessarily the case.

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