By determining your specific avoidance behaviors, you can better address them.

1. Situational avoidance

This is the most common type of avoidance.

Situational avoidance refers to staying away from people, places, things, or activities that feel activating to you. This is a formal symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), like a veteran who avoids the outdoors during a holiday firework display, or a mass shooting survivor who avoids crowded public spaces.

It can also occur for people without PTSD like those who avoid crowded elevators, eye contact with new people, wildlife areas with snakes.

2. Cognitive avoidance

This type of avoidance is an inside job. Cognitive avoidance refers to actively turning your mind away from distressing thoughts or memories. This may include consciously telling yourself, “Don’t think about those things.”

It could also take the form of distracting yourself, dissociating, fantasizing, or even toxic positivity.

In some cases, this could also take the form of chronic worrying or obsessive thoughts. You may find yourself constantly preparing for the “what ifs” by going over (and over) certain details, plans, or scenarios in your head in hopes that it will shield you from future disasters or disappointments.

3. Protective avoidance

Protective avoidance refers to actions in your physical environment that help you feel safer in your inner world, including compulsive cleaning, rituals that enhance your sense of safety, keeping lucky charms or talismans.

These behaviors are commonly associated with obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, like counting objects, washing items, or checking locks multiple times. Similar protective rituals may also be observed with eating disorders, like preparing food ingredients in a certain order every time.

Perfectionism can also be a form of protective avoidance. Conversely, you might try to avoid risk by procrastinating and putting off a feared task or event.

4. Somatic avoidance

Somatic avoidance refers to steering clear from situations that elicit a physical response similar to anxiety or the stress response.

“Rapid, racing heart rate, and tingling sensations in extremities all exist as some form of somatic experience that many people associate with panic, fear, or medical conditions that are frightening.”

People tend to avoid activities or situations that trigger such responses, such as roller coasters, thrill rides, and uncertain situations. This could also include exciting events, falling in love, feeling fatigued (like working out), sexual arousal, temperature changes.

5. Substitution avoidance

Substitution avoidance can take shape internally or externally.

Internally, this could look like replacing certain feelings, like sadness or grief, with something that feels more acceptable to you, like anger.

Externally, this could look like relying on some sort of crutch to cope with emotional pain, like alcohol, food, drugs, sex, or anything else that provides temporary respite from uncomfortable emotions. This is a common feature of substance use disorders.

Some people turn to the excitement of risky behavior as a way of replacing or covering painful feelings they want to avoid.