I have an anxiety disorder so it's not necessarily something I can avoid; I'll just get anxiety out of nowhere for no good reason at random.

You cannot.

As your comfort zone grows smaller, anxiety grows for the things outside it.

Part of CBT is approaching things that make you anxious, starting small and mild to change the physiological response to them. To disarm them.

I've had issues that have made me anxious in the past, but I couldn't function that way so I pushed to disarm it and now I am glad I did.

Obviously, it's always good to work with a professional on these sorts of things.

It depends on my energy levels.

If my mental health and sleep is otherwise OK, I usually just make myself do it.

If not, then yeah I tend to avoid stuff that makes me anxious. Sadly, a lot of the time, that includes leaving the house.

I kinda wish that making myself do stuff thst makes me anxious would work as exposure therapy but it hasn't made a difference in the last 20 years

I dont. I throw myself into it, and save the anxiety for the end of the day. Then I just get stoned and build houses in my head til I fall asleep.

I have avoidant autism so I go to great lengths. For example, after I got bullied at school I stopped going and ditched every day. I will inconvenience myself immensely to avoid triggers.

50/50 depending on if I’m in a “nope can’t deal with this” state or if I’m in a “alright I know just fucking doing this will help prevent it in the future so fuuuuug it” state