The Secondary Gains Of Anxiety

The benefits that this state generates are called secondary gains from anxiety. How does anxiety have benefits? As strange as it sounds, it’s true. If we make room within ourselves for an unpleasant situation and keep it, it is because it brings us something. Insanely, but it brings us. If that weren’t true, it would be easier to try to find a way to get rid of this torment.

The fact that there are secondary gains in anxiety does not mean that these gains are positive if we take stock of all the consequences. It simply means that sometimes people choose unhealthy ways to adapt to reality. Generally speaking, we are not always aware of this. Still, we managed to accommodate ourselves and, in one way or another, take advantage of this situation.

Perhaps this can be better understood with an example. Suppose a person is homeless. So, she decides to make a makeshift tent in a lonely open field. If she stays there, it is possible that she will look for a way to incorporate some comforts into her place of residence.

Maybe you can get some cardboards to protect you better from the cold, and you can even start furnishing the place. Plus, in this new place she occupies, she doesn’t have to pay taxes or rent. The basic problem of having real housing has not been resolved, but still, the person takes advantage of the situation as best he can. It’s the same thing with secondary anxiety gains.

The main secondary gains of anxiety

It is clear that anxiety is a state that generates suffering. The reasonable thing, then, would be to seek and find a way to overcome it. However, the human being is not just reason. There are a number of unconscious and irrational factors that make us insist even when we feel emotional pain.

The person does not seek to experience a state of constant anxiety, but once it is set in, things that were not foreseen begin to happen.

For example, it is quite common for the anxious person to receive special attention from those around him. They might think you’re nervous or overly sensitive, or something like that. So, unwittingly, the person gains the benefit of gaining more attention, and perhaps consideration, from others. This, without realizing it, reinforces the negative state in which she finds herself. Thus operate the secondary gains of anxiety.

Greater attention from others is not the only gain. Anxiety can also become an excuse not to face the world and form a protective bubble. Also to explain a multitude of behaviors of neglect, abandonment or laziness. In addition, it can also justify rudeness, lack of responsibility and childishness. “It’s just that I’m very anxious and that’s why I can’t…”.

Avoid fear and achieve what you want

It is possible that anxiety becomes a way of getting exactly what you want. This state serves as a shield to decide not to face real fears that all human beings have to deal with at one time or another. Fears like being alone, facing rejection, saying no, looking for and finding work to support ourselves, etc. We all feel anxiety when facing these types of situations. Even so, it is necessary to find a way to beat it.

These examples are not the only ways in which the secondary gains of anxiety are present. As we said before, the attention of others, the possibility of staying in a comfort zone that no one questions, the option to justify all our failures, etc., constitute a great justification for not taking on certain responsibilities.

It is important to insist that this is not done on purpose. Anxiety sufferers do suffer and make no conscious plans to take advantage of the situation. All of this happens unconsciously and is also sustained unconsciously, because it has some benefits.

The problem is that a person can organize an entire life project around anxiety, refusing to grow and depriving himself of many positive experiences. Like the man who has nowhere to live and ends up living forever in a precarious place.

Therefore, the way out is in not accepting that anxiety is an inseparable part of ourselves. On the contrary, this state can be overcome. If you’re not doing it alone, then it’s important to get help from a professional.