Dealing with Anxiety and Avoidance: Am I Being Cowardly?

no you’re not i promise you. i’m the same way( i have asd and have anxiety )my friend told me i just need more exposure(he is autistic). you just need to expose yourself slowly , and find people who can help you feel safe and calm in bad situations

theres definitely a line between holding yourself back in ways that decrease your quality of life, and knowing what things will make your life worse and whether its worth it do avoid them. Its definetly a case per case basis, but asking myself if i have more to gain from doing or not doing something has been really helpful to me. For example when im faced with an opportunity to 'go out' my automatic response is to just stay in bc why bother, but recently ive started just having myself go to lower stress level things and ive always been really greatful i did. But there are some times where i decide its not worth it, like a day trip to the beach in January with newer friends ill pass on bc it sounds like a lot for me and id probably get irritable, but a local night out with them I'll have myself go to bc i can remove myself pretty easily if it ends up being too much. Through that ive gradually increased the boundaries of what im comfortable with, even though it can reduce temporarily when im already stressed or overwhelmed. Theres no shame in knowing what's good for you and whats not, but if theres something in life you want taking small steps to get it is really worth it. For me i wanted to increase my social life bc i was lonely and wanted to make lasting connections, but if you're statisfied dont let society and extroverts pressure you into putting more energy than you want to into socializing. These things are called disabilities bc theyre debilitating, not because we're cowardly. If we could just "face our fears" and get over something right away it wouldnt be a disability, it takes a lot of mental energy and time to work through these things, which means incorporating self care as well as self challenges. We will have to face things that are difficult to make progress in certain fields, but heres nothing cowardly in picking and chosing your battles to make sustainable progress, or just make sure you dont go backwards by making yourself worse.

I don't think that you're cowardly! In life I think that while there are some things that are truly unavoidable, a lot of 'unavoidable' things are just unavoidable if you live a specific lifestyle. For instance when it comes to being in crowds there are ways to avoid crowds such as shopping at a time with less people who shop. There are times, unfortunately, when you do a bunch of planning but then things end up changing in a way that make it so you do have to face stuff that is overwhelming and/or makes you do things like be in crowds (especially with the uncertainty of covid). For those scenarios where things do change suddenly, I try to figure out ways to make the situation easier. For example one thing that I struggle with with large crowds is how loud it is so I pack my airpods with a preplanned playlist. Overall though I would say it's possible to live a life in which you avoid at least some of the scenarios which stress you out if you plan ahead and shape your life around your wants and needs.