What Are Stages?
I’m sure you have heard someone say, “He has Stage 1 Cancer,” or “She has Stage 4 Alzheimer’s.”. Just like those physical ailments, Avoidant Personality has stages as well.
Stages are just progressions of a disease. It gives doctors an idea of how aggressive they need to be with the treatments that they prescribe. For example, when a doctor tackles a disease that is in Stage 1, the treatment for it might be fairly mild and non-invasive. The treatment for a condition that is in Stage 2 would be a little more aggressive. The higher the stage (or progression) of the disease, the more aggressive the treatment becomes.
Stage 1 is when the disease is just starting out and beginning to take hold. It is also known as early stage, or pre-stage. This is where we want to catch and treat cancer, diabetes, or another disease.
In Stage 1, we have the best chance of being able to cure it. Think of Stage 1 like that old saying, “heading someone off at the pass.” This saying came out of the 1800’s and early 1900’s in the Old West where bad guys would rob banks, then ride out of town and through a mountain pass. Once the bad guys got through this pass, there was little chance of catching them.
The good guys (the lawmen and their posse) would ride off and try to catch these bad guys before they got to the mountain pass and could escape. Hence the saying;
“We are going to head them off at the pass.”
Stage 1 is like trying to head the disease off at the pass.
Once the disease gets through the mountain pass, the chances of catching it and curing it go down dramatically.
Each phase, or stage, is a progression of the disease. The higher the number of the stage, the more unlikely it is that the disease can be caught and cured.
It can take ten years or more for a disease or illness to progress from Stage 1 to Stage 4. (NOTE: This is only an example. Every illness is different. Some take longer to progress and some take less.)
If you detect that physical illness at the beginning of this ten year period, there is a much higher chance that it can be caught and cured before it gets to the later part of the ten year stretch.
Often, by the time the illness reaches the end of this ten year stretch, it is too late, and virtually nothing can be done. The bad guys have gotten through the mountain pass and are gone!!
(There is always hope, and anything is possible with God. Even if the illness has reached Stage 4—the end of the ten year stretch—it is possible to catch and cure the condition.)