When most people find a suspicious-looking mole on their arm, have unusual stomach pain, or experience some other health concern, they will typically do one of the following:
Visit a doctor immediately
Visit a doctor once their health concern becomes serious or starts to have an impact on their daily life
However, there are also people who opt to avoid taking care of a health issue altogether, even when it starts to have a negative impact on their lives.
These people are engaging in what is referred to as recovery avoidance, a serious issue that expands beyond the scope of healthcare and might even be harming your teen.
What is recovery avoidance?
Recovery avoidance occurs when people behave in a way that actively hinders, or avoids, their recovery.
This can mean anything from refusing to go to the dentist for severe tooth pain, skipping their heart medication, or deciding not to go to therapy to help address trauma.
If your teen is facing mental health challenges, fighting addiction or other problem behaviors, or experiencing any other struggle that negatively impacts their daily life, but they are refusing to take the steps necessary to get help, chances are they have a problem with recovery avoidance.
What causes recovery avoidance?
As a parent, you might find it strange that your teen doesn’t want to get better.
Why wouldn’t they want to learn to manage their anxiety or cope with their depression or heal from their past trauma? How could they possibly want to suffer from OCD or substance abuse when coping skills and tools for recovery are readily available to them?
While you might start to think that your teen is being lazy or that they simply lack the motivation needed to head toward recovery, chances are your teen doesn’t even fully realize or understand that they are avoiding recovery.
There are many reasons why your teen may not want to get better that have nothing to do with their work ethic:
Fear of change
Sometimes teens want to get better, but their fear of change is stronger than their desire for change.
While their fears might not seem rational, they are incredibly real to your teen and can stem from a variety of real or perceived threats:
The recovery process might be full of uncontrollable variables that cause them to experience anxiety.
They might receive judgment if they attend therapy or share their feelings and experiences
They could lose the sense of comfort they may get from feeling like they are in total control of their situation
They might worry that they will somehow fail during the recovery process or that they will feel crushing disappointment if they do not see their desired results
Lack of incentives
Your teen may not have the incentives necessary to push them toward recovery. Incentives can be a major catalyst for change, and without them, your teen might not feel like they need to start or continue with the recovery process.
This does not mean that your teen is seeking a reward in exchange for working toward getting better, but rather that they don’t have a clear motivator that drives them to act:
They might not realize the impact that their situation has on their daily life
The negative symptoms or effects of their situation might no be unbearable to the point that they feel like they need recovery
The steps they need to take in order to recover might seem too overwhelming, too challenging, or too complicated to be feasible
While your teen may want to get better, if they lack the motivation to do so, they might start avoiding recovery instead.
Sabotage
Although this might sound extreme, there are many teens who have friends and family members who unintentionally encourage recovery avoidance.
This happens in a few ways:
Adding additional pressure. When your teen is already struggling to cope with their situation, parental pressure for them to change immediately will likely be met with resistance and defensiveness instead of movement toward recovery
Minimizing the situation. When their family members undermine the severity of their situations by saying things like “just stop being sad,” or “just think about something positive instead of your intrusive thoughts,” teens might feel like there is something wrong with them or that they are not capable of recovery
Enabling. Sometimes parents enable teens when they want to avoid part of the recovery process. For instance, allowing their teen to skip therapy, putting up with unreasonable demands, or taking responsibility for their teen’s mistakes.
You can prevent yourself from engaging in these behaviors and help your teen avoid avoidance behaviors by encouraging and offering support for their recovery, refusing to take full responsibility for the negative consequences that come from their actions, having conversations that allow them to understand how their situation is affecting their life and their relationships with others, and learning as much as possible about their situation so that you can offer effective support and validation.
When you take these steps and show your teen that you are in their corner, it will be a lot easier for them to stop avoiding recovery.