Avoiding emails...

Does anyone else avoid emails because they’re scared of what they might say? I just realised how extreme my avoidance around uncertainty can get. I had an email that I was too scared to read since January because I was convinced it might contain bad news or an unexpected cost. Today I finally opened it. Before I did, my stomach was doing flips and I was so anxious that I said a quick prayer first. The email was actually reassuring. What shocked me was how intense my physical reaction was to simply opening an email. Even after reading it and knowing everything was fine, my stomach still felt sore for a while, almost like my body was decompressing from the stress. I’m wondering whether any of you deal with this too: avoiding information because the uncertainty feels unbearable, getting temporary relief from not looking, and then allowing the unopened email/message/document to become scarier and scarier over time. I know not every scary email is going to contain good news, so I don’t want the lesson to become “everything will always be fine.” I think the lesson I’m trying to learn is that avoiding the information doesn’t protect me from the outcome it just makes me live with the feared outcome in my head for much longer. Does this show up in anyone else’s mental health journey? I have 5 more scary emails to check… ugh. I don’t think my colon can take it 😭 I'm avoiding an email from NOCD admin for a month now cause I crashed out during a high anxiety spiral & forgot my manners. I need to get it together & read the response & apologise.

anca

Date posted: 23h

I avoid information that has the potential to bring up difficult emotions too. When I was writing my thesis I wouldn't look at my adviser's notes until I was getting very close to the deadlines and I had to because I was scared it might say that I did everything wrong even if that had never happenned before. Or if I send someone a message asking a question, I sometimes set my phone on don't disturb immediately because I'm scared their reply is gonna be negative. And yes, I do this with emails too cause the thought of opening it and finding something negative and knowing that I will have to feel negative emotions as a result is too scary, so I put it off for as long as I can. I don't know how much of this is related to ocd in my case, though

Over the thi...

Date posted: 20h

Yep, I experience profound anxiety and avoidance surrounding my inbox. There’s potentially a lot of fears driving the avoidance for me. I didn’t check my email for more than a month earlier this Summer. I assumed there was a message asking me to do something I wouldn’t want to do. And I felt guilt throughout that period of time as if I was ignoring important things, good people, etc. I eventually checked my email. Felt visceral pain while doing so like each time I scrolled the bad message would float to the top. And wouldn’t you know it, there was nothing important in there. More than a month of worry. And there was nothing in my inbox that needed attention. It’s such an exhausting cycle

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