Imagine your arm gets cut off and you’re bleeding everywhere. Instead of going straight to the hospital to take care of the arm you throw a Band-Aid on it. Eventually, that Band-Aid falls off and again, instead of going to the hospital you throw another Band-Aid on it. The same thing happens with the second Band-Aid as it did with the first one. So you then wrap your arm in gauze and you look the other way while you slowly bleed out. You start to feel dizzy and realize that you’re going to die if you don’t go to the hospital. Finally, you do get to the hospital and the doctors there do what they need to solve the problem. Even though you did eventually make it to the hospital the missing arm was much worse than it was in the beginning because of your refusal to go to the hospital.
Now imagine that your missing arm are your problems and those Band-Aids are you avoiding the problem as a way to fix it. It is a repeating thing that happens until eventually, you can’t avoid the problem anymore. You try to run from your problems by telling yourself that it’s not that important, you do not really need to bring up a problem you’re having yourself with someone else. You don’t need to talk to a person you’re having problems with. You really don’t need to. The reality of it though is that you do and you’ll have to face everything eventually. You can’t always look the other way because in the end, it’ll just make things worse. Sure, maybe some of your problems get solved but they don’t get solved in the way that you were wishing for. You find yourself fighting with your partner or friends instead of sitting down and talking things out because you avoided fixing your problems for a long as you can.
Trying to deal with a problem when you have anxiety is one of the hardest things someone with anxiety will have to do. And I don’t mean the “my heart is beating a little fast because I have to say something to this person and they may not like what I’m saying or I may not like their answer” anxiety, I mean the “my heart is pounding, I can't breathe and feel like I’m going to pass out, my hands are shaking and I may end up crying at some point’ anxiety. It’s the anxiety that can leave you helpless for hours because of an anxiety or panic attack (and there is a difference between the two attacks). You can’t get what you’re trying to say out because every time you think you’ve calmed down enough to talk your anxiety comes back and the cycle restarts. Dealing with your problems when you have anxiety can be one of the worst things you will ever have to do but in the end it's worth dealing with them.