How do I avoid stress and anxiety?

Hi there. Thank you for taking the time to ask this question; it sounds like you have tried a lot in the past to avoid stress and anxiety.

Usually when we lack trust or have a fear about being betrayed it can be because we have had things happen to us that we want to avoid happening again in the future. Making sense of this fear can be helpful for people. Our minds love to link current situations onto the past (we're quite good at doing that!) which can mean that we never learn that it is okay to trust, as we avoid what may cause it. I sometimes like to think 'is what my mind telling me a fact, and is going to happen, or is it forming an opinion on what might happen?'

With what you say about avoiding stress and anxiety, I think this is difficult, and probably - actually impossible. Stress and anxiety are hardwired into us, they're natural human emotions that can be helpful sometimes (if we think about having an exam and wanting to prepare for it, or needing to work etc); these things require an amount of stress and worry for us to be motivated enough to do it. Also if we think about evolution, we needed anxiety and stress to tell us when to be careful about something (we call this the fight and/or flight response) that we still have now as well, but it can be 'triggered' with things that aren't as scary as a tiger jumping out in front of us - but feels similar! 

Your question makes me wonder if it's about how we relate to the difficult things that life brings up sometimes and I think this is harder to make sense of via a question, but can be thought about with therapy. I sometimes say to clients that it can be about accepting the difficulties that life throws at us from time to time, and committing to changing what we are doing to enable us to live a meaningful and valued life in the long term. Therapy can help us build up some tools to feel more able to manage these situations too. 

What we know is that when we do find it hard to trust people, avoiding and taking ourselves away from situations is really helpful in the short term as it enables us to feel an instant relief and removes the worry, but it can be unhelpful in the long term (as we think the only way to keep ourselves safe in this situation, is to avoid and never do it). And if we want to trust and have a meaningful relationship with someone else, it doesn't quite fit into that avoiding. The first steps can be the hardest! 

I hope that helps or makes a bit of sense to you. It sounds like you're already thinking this through and wondering what you can do to support yourself when these feelings do come up, and that's a great step.