Anxiety, OCD and the Cost of Negotiated Avoidance | EP 352Anxiety, OCD and the Cost of Negotiated Avoidance | EP 352
The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast
Drew Linsalata talks about "negotiated avoidance" and how seemingly minor safety behaviours around anxiety and OCD can build into a highly restricted life. He offers a practical, gradual approach focused on awareness, small exposures and accepting that progress comes in tiny, consistent steps rather than overnight change.
23:59•9 Sept 2026
Anxiety, OCD and the Hidden Cost of “Just This Once”
Episode Overview
- Small avoidances and rituals may feel harmless, but their cumulative effect can heavily restrict life and functioning.
- Anxiety and OCD often act like relentless "terrorists" that keep demanding more once you start negotiating with them.
- Cultivating awareness through mindfulness helps you notice the urge to rationalise and bargain with anxiety in the moment.
- Describing trigger moments objectively, as in the ACT triflex, can create space to choose not to perform compulsions or safety behaviours.
- Recovery usually comes through small, repeated acts of tolerance and exposure rather than instant, dramatic change.
“When you give in and rationalise each individual escape or safety behaviour, it never goes away. It actually starts to grow.”
What drives someone to seek a life with less fear and more freedom from anxiety and OCD? This episode of The Anxious Truth digs into the sneaky way avoidance and rituals quietly take over everyday life. Host and therapist Drew Linsalata talks about what he calls "negotiated avoidance" – those moments where skipping a lunch, wiping the counter for a bit longer, or taking "just one me day" feels harmless and smart.
Each decision seems tiny, but as Drew points out, when you add them all up, you can end up needing anxiety’s permission to do almost anything. You’ll hear him break down the classic cycle: you feel awful, you escape or ritualise, you feel a bit better, then repeat forever while wondering why nothing changes.
He compares anxiety and OCD to "terrorists" that keep upping their demands: "When you give in and rationalise each individual escape or safety behaviour, it never goes away. It actually starts to grow." That analogy keeps things both blunt and oddly funny, making a heavy topic easier to take in.
Drew lays out why awareness is such a big deal, using mindfulness and the ACT triflex as tools to help you spot the moment you start bargaining with anxiety – "I’ll just do this one thing so I can feel better and move on." He suggests a different move: notice the urge, call it what it is, and experiment with staying in the discomfort instead of trying to fix it. Crucially, he stresses that change is gradual.
No one listens once and suddenly stops all compulsions or avoidances. Tiny shifts count: finishing the drive instead of pulling over, completing the walk instead of running home, putting down the cleaning cloth a bit sooner. Those "small" choices are framed as genuine wins. If you’ve ever told yourself "it’s no big deal, just this once" around anxiety or OCD, this episode might have you rethinking that deal. Where might negotiated avoidance already be shrinking your life?
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