anxiety.co.zaUsing Anxiety As An Excuse For Everything
Anxiety is real. It can be brutal. It can hijack your body, distort your thinking, wreck your sleep, and make everyday tasks feel like threats. Anyone who has watched a panic attack up close knows it is not “just in your head.” So let’s get that out the way, because this article is not here to mock anxiety or tell people to toughen up.
This article is about something else, what happens when anxiety becomes an excuse for everything. Not a reason. Not a factor. An excuse. The kind that shuts down accountability, blocks growth, and turns every uncomfortable moment into proof that you cannot be expected to show up. The kind that turns relationships into endless accommodation and turns normal life stress into a permanent exemption from responsibility. It is a touchy topic because anxiety has become both more recognised and more weaponised, sometimes by the person struggling, sometimes by the people around them who also benefit from keeping the bar low.
If you want a topic that will spark comments, this is one. Because almost everyone has met someone who says “my anxiety” and then uses it to justify behaviour that harms other people.
The difference between a reason and an excuse
A reason explains what is happening. An excuse ends the conversation. A reason sounds like, I’m struggling, I need support, and I’m working on it. An excuse sounds like, this is who I am, so you must accept anything I do, and you cannot challenge me.
A reason leaves room for growth. An excuse builds a wall and calls it self care. Anxiety can be a reason why someone avoids a party, struggles at work, or snaps in a moment of overwhelm. But anxiety cannot become a blanket permission slip to lie, disappear, be cruel, manipulate people, avoid responsibility forever, or demand that the world reshapes itself around your nervous system. When anxiety becomes an excuse, it stops being something you manage and starts being something you hide behind.
How we got here
Part of the reason this is happening is because mental health awareness has improved. People talk about anxiety more openly now, which is a good thing. But awareness can create a new kind of social currency, where diagnosing yourself becomes a personality and vulnerability becomes a way to avoid consequences.
Social media plays a role. Anxiety content is everywhere. Some of it is helpful. Some of it is performative. A lot of it encourages the idea that discomfort is danger, and that anyone who pushes you is “toxic.” That messaging can quietly train people to treat any stress response as a reason to retreat, cut off, cancel, or demand constant reassurance.
Then it gets worse, because life includes stress. Work includes pressure. Relationships include conflict. Parenting includes overwhelm. Adult life includes tasks you do not feel like doing. If anxiety becomes the reason you avoid all discomfort, your world shrinks. And when your world shrinks, anxiety grows. That is how avoidance becomes a lifestyle.
Anxiety as a relationship weapon
This is where the topic gets spicy, because it is common and people hate admitting it. Some people use anxiety to control relationships.
They use it to shut down conversations, you can’t talk about this, you’re triggering me. They use it to avoid accountability, I can’t handle feedback, my anxiety. They use it to keep someone close, if you leave I’ll have a panic attack. They use it to avoid conflict resolution, I’m overwhelmed, I can’t, and then they never return to the topic. They use it to make other people walk on eggshells, because any challenge becomes framed as harm.
That does not mean the person is faking anxiety. It means they are using real anxiety in a manipulative way, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The result is the same, other people become trapped. The relationship becomes one sided. Everyone else becomes a caretaker, and the person with anxiety becomes exempt from normal relationship responsibility.
Partners start managing moods. Friends start censoring themselves. Families stop expressing needs. The person with anxiety gets more fragile because they never build tolerance, and everyone around them becomes resentful. That is not mental health. That is a power dynamic.
The addiction crossover
In the addiction world, anxiety is one of the most common excuses for using. People say they drink because they’re anxious. They use cannabis because they’re anxious. They take pills because they’re anxious. They gamble because they’re anxious. They binge because they’re anxious. The anxiety becomes the justification for the behaviour, and the behaviour then worsens the anxiety, and then the person uses again to cope.
This is where anxiety becomes dangerous, because it turns into a permanent reason to stay stuck. The person never learns coping. They learn numbing. Then when someone challenges them, they use anxiety as a shield, you don’t understand, you’re judging me, you’re making it worse. That keeps the cycle alive.
If anxiety is being used to justify substance use, the real question is not “how bad is your anxiety.” The real question is “what skills and support do you have to face anxiety without medicating it into silence.”
What accountability actually looks like when anxiety is real
Accountability does not mean harshness. It means responsibility with support. If your anxiety is real, you still have responsibility for how you treat people. You still have responsibility for your commitments, even if you need accommodations. You still have responsibility to communicate rather than disappear. You still have responsibility to get help and work on skills rather than demanding the world tiptoe around you forever.
That can look like saying, I’m anxious and I need a break, but I will come back to this conversation tomorrow at 10. It can look like saying, I’m struggling, can we plan this in a way that is manageable, rather than cancelling last minute. It can look like therapy, not for talking endlessly about feelings, but for building tolerance, learning tools, and reducing avoidance. If someone refuses all responsibility and demands only accommodation, anxiety becomes an excuse, not a reason.
Growth requires discomfort
A lot of people want anxiety to disappear before they live their life. That is backwards. Anxiety reduces when you build capacity, and capacity is built by doing things while anxious, not waiting to feel perfect.
This is why exposure based therapy works for many anxiety disorders. It is not about forcing people into danger. It is about teaching the nervous system that discomfort is survivable. Every time you face a fear with support and structure, your brain learns, I can handle this. That learning is the opposite of avoidance.
The excuse version of anxiety refuses exposure. It refuses growth. It demands comfort as a condition of participation. Over time, that makes life smaller and anxiety stronger.
Anxiety explains behaviour but it does not excuse it
Here is the core message that will get people arguing, and it should. Anxiety explains behaviour, but it does not excuse harmful behaviour. If you are using anxiety to avoid every uncomfortable responsibility, you are not protecting your mental health. You are training your brain to fear life. If you are using anxiety to control others, you are building fragile relationships that will eventually break. If you are using anxiety to justify substance use, you are feeding the very system that keeps you anxious.
Real anxiety deserves real support. That support includes therapy, tools, structure, lifestyle changes, sometimes medication, and a plan. But it also includes accountability, because without accountability anxiety becomes a story you live inside, and the rest of your life becomes something you watch other people do.
The way out is not pretending anxiety isn’t real. The way out is refusing to let anxiety become the boss of your life and the excuse for how you treat others.
