An Ordinary Mom's Musings

Trauma and avoidance. . . Do you ever intellectually know something, but it takes it being worded just right for you to finally understand it fully and have that ”Aha” moment? This was me this past semester in my Psychology and Law class.

It was a grueling semester. One I probably worked the hardest on. We had been learning about trauma in class. One of the signs of trauma is avoidance. I know this. This isn’t my first psychology class. It’s one of my last. Often we think of trauma as someone who was mugged, and due to the trauma, avoiding the area where it happened. But trauma is so much more than that. As I sat reading through my textbook, I suddenly understood.

My avoidance of anything to do with bills was due to trauma.

At that point, sitting in my room was a letter from the IRS stating that we owed money from a previous year. It was regarding something we had not known of, due to a mix up in our address. All the information had been sent to a former address and had never found its way to us. All I had to do to resolve the issue was to mark a box, sign it, and put it in the mail with a check. If there is one entity I hate owing money to, it’s the IRS. So you would think I would want to get it taken care of quickly.

But could I do something so simple as writing out a check, checking a box, and putting it in the mail?

No.

It sat there for two weeks.

Always in the back of my mind, niggling at me, day after day. It had a deadline. I had other, more pressing things I would lie to myself.

I would do it in a few minutes after I had finished these things that had to be done right now. Every morning I would wake up and tell myself, ”Today you are going to send that payment off to the IRS.” And yet it never got done.

Finally, one day I did it.

All this avoidance? It comes from years of disagreements with my husband about finances. One of us thinking that we should pay ALL the bills off as quickly as possible. And the other feeling that there were more important things in life than bills. At the same time, we were dealing with very finite sums of money. We have mostly worked through these issues now and see eye to eye for the most part after 18 years of marriage.

But those disagreements? The years of struggling paycheck to paycheck? They wreaked their havoc on me.

I won’t get the mail from the mailbox. My husband wonders why. It’s all junk mail and bills. Why would anyone want to get the mail when there is rarely something fun? Opening those bills makes my anxiety skyrocket. Often I let the bills pile up on my desk until I feel like my anxiety is in a place where I can handle the surprise of unplanned for bills.

Sometimes, that can take a while.

Is this the healthiest response?

No. But it’s how I’ve been coping for years.

But it has to stop.

The problem with avoidance is that, that thing, that place, that person? They are still there taking up space in your psyche. This creates more anxiety and it becomes a vicious circle, creating a monster out of a molehill.

Do you have things in your life you respond to with avoidance?

The first step is recognizing your avoidance and why you are avoiding it.

Then, take steps to change.