Here is something that sounds like a mistake until it explains your whole life.
People were told they faced a fifty percent chance of an electric shock. A second group was told they faced a hundred percent chance. Certain shock. And the people who knew for sure the pain was coming were less stressed than the ones who only might get hurt.
Guaranteed pain was easier to carry than possible pain.
Read that again, because you have been living it. You are not actually avoiding pain. If you were, you would never choose the certain shock. You are avoiding the open question. The not-knowing is the thing your body reads as the threat, and it will hand you a real, lasting wound just to make the maybe stop.
This is why you force the answer. Why you pick the worse, settled thing over the better, uncertain thing. The settled thing hurts, but at least it has stopped asking. And you decided, somewhere below thought, that any ending beats an open middle.
The wound is not the problem. The wound is the bribe you paid to end the not-knowing.
one thing: notice the next time you reach for a fast answer. Ask whether you want the answer, or just want the question to stop. The difference is the whole thing.
Josh