Hickey: Coping with avoidance anxiety

Last week, I committed the cardinal sin of newspaper writing: I missed a deadline. To be… Last week, I committed the cardinal sin of newspaper writing: I missed a deadline. To be precise, I missed a deadline that had already been extended twice due to a small depressive episode. Some of my reasons for missing the deadline, like that depressive episode, were valid. Some, like a stubborn conviction that affirmative action was an issue that merited a better column than I could write in my uninspired state, were flimsy cop outs.

Absolutely nothing, however, could excuse what I did next, which was avoid my editor’s phone calls for 24 hours.

I didn’t do it to be a jerk, although it was absolutely a jerk thing to do. More to the point, I didn’t do it out of apathy, or because I didn’t care about the trouble I was causing by failing to be in contact. But having already squandered my editor’s good will past two extended deadlines — and having nothing particularly ameliorating to tell them — I couldn’t even think about the conversation without being overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt. My throat constricted, my stomach churned and a lengthy and strong-worded monologue about what a lazy, incompetent, inconsiderate, sorry excuse for a writer, employee and human being I was began to play on a loop in my head at top volume. And my voicemail box began to fill up.

There are two types of anxious people. One is the pathological overachiever. These people compulsively have their ducks in a row. They complete assignments early because the stress of unfinished projects hanging over their heads upsets them. If this is you, you probably don’t have any use for this column, or even understand it. You know instinctively how avoidance makes things worse. If you had missed my deadline, you would have called your editor right away, but more importantly, you never would have missed the deadline. It’s just not who you are.

And then there’s the rest of us. We are in the depression and anxiety support groups, squinting jealously at the girls with 4.0 GPAs. We are the people your professor is referring to when he jokes that the semester’s never over before somebody cries in his office. Our grades rarely reflect our abilities, because although we know that skipping three weeks of class to avoid explaining why you haven’t done the homework is a ridiculously stupid choice, our attendance records say otherwise.

If you’re in this camp, you’re not in bad company. Some of the smartest people I know are struggling to avoid academic probation. My own study habits are so bad that I almost failed Introduction to Performance twice, which sounds very much like a joke you would make about a stereotypical dumb jock and very little like the lived reality of someone who gets paid to share her insights with the student body on a weekly basis. And everyone knows  that the fastest and most effective way to make a bad situation worse when you’ve procrastinated on something or simply not done it, is to avoid the issue by, say, dodging your editor’s phone calls or skipping three weeks of class.

Knowing you’re not alone is comforting, but it doesn’t pull up your GPA, so let’s cut to the chase: How the hell do you stop letting avoidance make your life more difficult?

Write a script. It’s cliche, it’s stupid, but it’s necessary — at least for me. This is for banishing that feeling of “I don’t even know what to say to them.” It doesn’t have to be a great script. It doesn’t have to be a valid excuse or a heartwarming story. You can write down, “I don’t know why I didn’t do my homework, I was just really tired, I’ll get it together for next time” on a piece of paper and say it to yourself a few times before approaching your professor after class. You just need to give yourself something to say, because the alternative is not saying anything.

Force yourself to be accountable. This is the part where you recruit a friend. My boyfriend does this for me: I tell him what I’m avoiding and he helps me write the script for the confrontation, then tells me to call him back after I’ve called my editor or emailed my professor. If you’re really bad — like if you think you might be tempted to lie — find someone understanding enough to actually sit with you and watch you make the phone call or send the email, or walk you to the office for your TA’s drop-in hours.

Reward yourself. Your friend comes in handy here, too — they can tell you how proud they are after you’ve faced your fear and made contact. In lieu of a heaping of praise, buy yourself a candy bar or take a nice walk — whatever will make you feel like you’re being rewarded for doing the right thing. The reinforcement will make you more likely to act responsibly next time.

Contact Tracey at TBH15@pitt.edu.