Trailrunner....here where I am traumatic avoidance means....

Traumatic.... anything that a person feels is upsetting, uncomfortable, triggering, painful, stressful, could cause them mental or physical injury....

Avoidance.... purposely staying away from something, not talking about something, not doing something.....

Example heights are traumatic for me. i find heights to be scary, stressful, upsetting to me. I avoid as much as I can anything that has to do with high places. I even need to take an anxiety medication if I need to fly in an air plane other wise I avoid flying and take bus's, taxi's, trains to get where I need to go.

a person doesnt have to have any mental disorders (ex ptsd or dissociation or others) at all to have traumatic avoidance. they just have to have something in their life that is upsetting and stressful. I know someone who has traumatic avoidance of children and refuses to have children. not because they have a mental or physical health problem they just are uncomfortable around children, being around children is stressful for her. when you think about it normally children are stressful.. they are running all over the place, getting into gosh knows what, and making messes and hard to reason with. this friend of mine does not feel comfortable around children and made a point of making sure they could not even accidentally get pregnant, this person avoids children because she does not want to expose herself to needless stress and feeling uncomfortable needlessly.

that said there is a therapy approach around for those that do want to get rid of their avoiding anything that makes them feel uncomfortable be it children, animals, insects, heights, what ever....doesnt matter if you have a mental or physical health problem or not.....what ever it is that you are avoiding because doing it, saying it, or being near it causes you stress and uncomfortable ness.... its called exposure therapy. its where you do, say or go around what ever you are avoiding in small amounts of time. this will over time help you to feel more comfortable with what ever it is.

I personally do not subject myself to being around anything that makes me uncomfortable, it doesnt matter if its that animal that makes me uncomfortable, heights or even posts anywhere online.