Social Withdrawal Is Hard to Identify
In Today's Coccooning World.

One of the most obvious conditions, of course, is high stress levels. Our bodies are hardwired with a fight or flight mechanism for dealing with stressors and if the flight aspect of this protective feature is used too often, a medical professional would probably say that you have moved into a somewhat unhealthy arena.

While needing occasional downtime is considered a healthy coping solution, extreme social anxiety leading to full withdrawal from society would be considered bad. The most extreme version of this problem is called agoraphobia, in which, the anxiety sufferer is terrified to leave home for even a few minutes.

However, in modern times, it may be very difficult, indeed, to identify a person who may have progressed to an unhealthy state because it is so easy to function very well without ever leaving your house. It makes me wonder if our high-stress world has not created more agoraphobics that we realize.

Marketing guru, Faith Popcorn, named this phenomena "coccooning", nearly 30 years ago. More and more companies are designing products and services that allow people to never have to leave their homes. You can have an online business, work online, shop online, and even go to school online. You would never know if someone was just being normal or if they were actually needing medical help.

It is becoming very hard to know whether a person is doing a good job of self-care by making sure they have enough alone time or "me" time or if they are afraid of the world and hiding out from all the stress.

If you think you or someone you know may be suffering from the early or advanced stages of social withdrawal, resulting from severe stress in your life, make sure you get some help because even though the world can be a big scary place, there are many tools out there to help improve coping abilities.

For example, you can use EFT or Emotional Freedom Techniques to help manage stress so that you don't feel the need to hide and then you can enjoy a full and abundant life.

The EFT Technique could really go a long way to helping you deal with irrational stress levels so that social withdrawal does not become necessary.

A specific set up phrase to use to begin tearing down that stress mountain is as follows:

"Even though, my stress level is out of control and I feel so frustrated all the time, I truly love and accept myself and all my feelings."

OR

"Even though, I have way too much going on in my life right now and I feel out of control, I deeply and completely accept myself."

Then for the reminder phrase, you could just say, "stress is out of control" or "way too busy to think straight".

So with that tool available, let's hope we can all get stress under control and stop feeling that extreme social anxiety and social stress. It's always a sad thing when a person begins to feel so helpless that he or she moves into full social withdrawal.

Return to Top of Social Withdrawal