Distraction
July 12th, 2006 by Aaron
This is going to touch on another aspect of avoidance mechanisms. As I read explained in Painfully Shy, one common trait of the socially anxious is the need for and use of distraction.
Anxiety can feel like a constant buzzing discomfort. It’s a voice that refuses to stop telling you that you are not as you should be. Distraction is a way of making the mind so busy it does not have time to listen to this voice. Thirty minutes spent completely distracted is thirty minutes spent not in the grip of anxious thoughts.
Time spent distracted is also, frequently, time spent alone or in the company of the people who make you the most comfortable.
Distractions vary by person. Getting online and jumping from site to site has become a particularly powerful draw for me. It can be a great tool but it can also be a compulsive searching that eats up hours of my day.
I also use reading, watching DVD’s, playing guitar, eating, talking to friends, trying to solve other people’s problems and chores around the apartment as ways to distract myself.
I don’t necessarily think my chosen distractions are negative. I am a life long and avid reader and believe it a very positive thing. The problem is that I have wound up completely addicted to distraction. Even on a good day, when I am not feeling anxious, it is impossible to drop. Instead of being distracted from anxiety, I am distracted from work I need to get done, from a myriad of other things I could be doing to make my life richer.
I know that on one level I associate my preferred distractions with keeping anxiety at bay and so fear dropping them and letting anxiety rise up again. But on another level, they are simply habits that I cannot break.
And the level of distraction needed often corresponds to the level of anxiety I am feeling. When I am really anxious I have found that the more superficial the distraction the better it works.
It can be very frustrating to be in the middle of this addiction and find that I really don’t know how to turn it off.
What kinds of distractions do you use? What ways might there be to break an addiction to distraction?
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Ryan Oelke wrote on 08/23/06 at 12:06 pm :
Oh yes, I’m good at keeping myself distracted! Returning from my retreat I am putting effort into not distracting myself. This post is great in that you really fleshed out the complexity of all of this. All of this is true: the activities we do have meaning; we can use acitivities for subtle purposes, like avoidance; and we can sort of go on autopilot without being able to shut it off.
What I’m concerned with most is understanding and working through any needs I have to distract myself, which definitely increases the more anxiety I experience, which also creates more anxiety. One of my favorites is drumming with my fingers. Doesn’t help that I’m also a drummer:P
For me, I first have to get perspective, some way to step back and notice what’s happening, like you have in this post. Then I try to take actions that sort of help/force me to not be as distracted. I have had an insane blog roll that can keep me endlessly distracted. so, I went in and painfully axed several feeds from my daily reads. I also switched rss readers, which has helped indirectly in that it’s much more effecient and less time consuming. When it’s empty, I’m done.
That’s an example of how I try to take action from what I observe about myself. This particular action has helped me a great deal.