Areas › Worry and anxiety › The cost of avoiding
Listen for the moment a young person starts explaining why home is better. A preference with reasons attached is much harder to shift than plain distress.
Distress you can soothe, and then move through together. A worked out case, less demanding work, nobody staring, no awkwardness at lunch, is something they will defend, and you can find yourself arguing rather than helping. Treat it as information when you hear it: the avoiding has settled in, and the return will need negotiating and not only comforting.
Qur’an and Sunnah
If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky, if you can (Quran 6:35). The wish for a way out that costs nothing is very old, and it is shown here to be no way out at all.
وَإِن كَانَ كَبُرَ عَلَيۡكَ إِعۡرَاضُهُمۡ فَإِنِ ٱسۡتَطَعۡتَ أَن تَبۡتَغِيَ نَفَقࣰ ا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ أَوۡ سُلَّمࣰ ا فِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ فَتَأۡتِيَهُم بِـَٔايَةࣲۚ وَلَوۡ شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ لَجَمَعَهُمۡ عَلَى ٱلۡهُدَىٰۚ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلۡجَٰهِلِينَ
If you find rejection by the disbelievers so hard to bear, then seek a tunnel into the ground or a ladder into the sky, if you can, and bring them a sign: God could bring them all to guidance if it were His will, so do not join the ignorant
Qur’an 6:35read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A questionnaire study found that cognitive fusion, being caught up in your thoughts as though they were plainly the facts, along with experiential avoidance, sat between worry and life stress on one side and anxiety and depression on the other. It is cross-sectional and entirely self-reported, so the ordering is a proposal rather than a finding. The useful piece is that believing the reasoning and avoiding the situation tend to travel together.
Cookson C, Luzon O, Newland J, Kingston J. (2020). Examining the role of cognitive fusion and experiential avoidance in predicting anxiety and depression.. Psychology and psychotherapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Once a person has reasons for staying away, the reasons start defending the staying away.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Offer school again at ten, and at eleven, and after lunch. One refusal at half past seven should not be allowed to decide the whole day.
You cannot outbid a bedroom with unlimited gaming and a free afternoon. Free access has to shrink before an earned version means anything at all.
Physically taking a refusing child should be rare, and only with a young child, two adults at home, two staff waiting at school, and a plan for keeping everybody safe.