Catastrophic Thinking - Funny Example :)

Through therapy I have learned that I have a habit of catastrophic thinking. It's part of my anxiety issues and trying to protect myself from harm. If I can imagine the worst case scenario then somehow I might be able to thwart it off or minimize the impact.

Last week my 2 yr old daughter looked me straight in the eyes at snack time and said very calmly, "You're going to miss me when I'm gone Mommy."

WHAT??? Oh my word, why is my tiny little girl saying this to me? Is this some sort of omen? Is she saying goodbye to me? Panic ensued, I eventually calmed myself down, but I had an uneasiness about this that made me very uncomfortable. This is not something we say to her, so where has she gotten this? She's 2 so she doesn't exactly have a whole lot of original thoughts at this point.

Fast forward, several hours later and she's playing with her baby sister and says, "Uh-oh, single lady." Palm to forehead! She's quoting song lyrics!

 

This is off the chain, I love this song
Thanks Pandagirl

 

AAAH...
I was just talking to my sister and we both realised that we have the catastrophic thinking thing too. It's like if you can imagine all the things that could possibly go wrong, then hopefully they won't. We also realised we had got it from our mother - who still does it - constantly. So we both agreed to banish it! Worry is a waste of energy...

 

What a brill video!!

 

A great video.

I've always been a catastrophiser, too. I can worry a cut finger into losing an arm.

I think I always had the problem but it was intensified when I was a teenager and saw a movie of
Ernest Hemingway's "Snows of Kilimanjaro" in which Gregory Peck cut an ankle which became
gangrened and he not only lost it but his life. I don't recommend seeing the movie. haha.

Now when I think of the worst that could happen in any situation I tell myself I'm over-boarding on it
and nothing even close to it will really happen and it never does. It helps when I "laugh it off."

 

Saw this on Pinterest and it seems to fit....

 

I love it. We can do it, too.

 

I have the same problem in spades!!

 

Whenever I catastrophize about negative outcomes they're always, if you analyze them, dark variations on the theme of abandonment. Sounds consistent with an extremely insecure childhood.

Great song, extremely clever video

 

You hit the nail on the head BruceMC...

 

Don't laugh, but even my dog felt abandonment.
My black Lab Annie was abandoned as a puppy and I got her at a shelter.
When I took her home she was like glued to me for more than a month,
not only not letting me out of her sight, but climbing onto my lap even when I
was working on the computer.

After at least month of this, one day she came into my home office and
looked at me with eyes that seemed to say, "Oh, I get it now. You're keeping me
This is my home, for good."

After that, she no longer needed to see me to be sure I was there.
She had finally abandoned the feeling of having been abandoned.

She twelve now, and taking a nap beside me on the floor as I write this,
but I know she no longer feels abandoned. Just likes being near me.

 

It saw a mobile dog care truck parked in front of the super market the other day that had a sign painted on its side advertising treatment for "separation anxiety," presumably in canines. All of you must have heard a dog howling when its owner locked it in the car and went off somewhere out of sight. Universal emotion in mammals I would say due to the long period of dependency during childhood. A mother abandons an infant in a hostile environment and the baby dies. Good reason for those primal fears.

 

Love the video. I can do catastrophic thinking at any time but it always seems particularly bad in the very early hours of the morning. Why is that?

 

Solange, I think that it's bad in the wee hours of the morning because that's when your unconscious, primitive child mind is in the ascendant. When you wake up, the prefrontal cortex begins to censor and repress your darker, fearful side. That's when what Freud called the Ego and the Superego start to censor and repress your primitive instinctual side. Check it out each morning when you wake up. You can learn a lot about how your brain works during the transition from sleep to waking.

 

Yep, that's why we worry more if we are awake in the wee hours, I found I had to be super strict with my brain (like a basket of mice!) and make it calm down by doing mindfulness and then word games, I absolutely will not let it off the leash to go bounding about causing worry and mayhem!
I am so glad Walt that you rescued your dog. I have rescued quite a few over the years and they are more hard work because of the bad experiences they have been thru, but they more than make up for it by their devotion and love. I have done this with cats too (4 at the moment!! why?) but their love is dependent on the level of service you give them...

 

Some dog owners are terribly irresponsible.

They shouldn't take their dog with them and leave them in a car for more than a few minutes
because dogs want to be with their master. Lots of people also chain their dog to a fence or tree
and leave them alone outside for hours and the dog howls and cries.

I never leave my dog alone. When I let it out in the back yard to do her things, I always go with her
or watch from the doorway, then when she's finished, I let her back in. She races like a race horse to
get back HOME. Dogs love being inside the house. It's HOME.

Annie was abandoned as a puppy, she knows what separation anxiety is all about.

My mother divorced my birth father when I was about six and I hated that but never realized
how much separation anxiety that gave me. Then she married a man she didn't love but who had a house
so she, my brother and sister and I had a roof over our heads. She divorced him a year later
and remarried my birth father, but he died ten years later and she married his brother who was an alcoholic,
very jealous, and had his problems from two divorces. Oh well, it all caught up with me and gave me TMS
but I learned about that have forgiven everyone including myself.

People should not give others separation anxiety. They ought to respect commitment. Love should not
be for a while, but forever.

 

I think we are probably all subject to separation anxiety, to some extent. First, we are happy in the womb and suddenly OUT - COLD - BRIGHT LIGHTS! It's enough to make anyone neurotic. Then mom doesn't come right when she should; the best of them do that. Then they take away your milk, then your soother. The horror. And they want you to "go potty". Then you have to go to school. Then the hampster dies. Then grandma. Then .... Face it, life's all about loss and new beginnings.

Of course, it's often much worse for sensitive souls and for abuse victims. Still, I used to be a counsellor and one day I was having ANOTHER frustrating session with a woman who was miserably unhappy but couldn't seem to say why that was so. Of course, I gently explored her childhood but she insisted it had been truly happy. She truly seem to have had nice parents and lots of sibs to play with who also took good care of her.

Suddenly it dawned on me. I said, "Life as an adult must be a big disappointment for you." She burst into tears and sobbed her heart out. The difficulties of being a mom, a wife, coping with bills and everyday life were just such a letdown after her carefree childhood! All she wanted was "to be a little kid, again". Which, of course, is completely impossible. Poor thing.

 

Catastrophic thinking? Yesterday my younger daughter received a credit card in the post. I found it on the kitchen counter. Daughter is none too great with money, saving and debt issues so I immediately went into catastrophe mode. Within sixty seconds I had a vision of the bailiffs banging on our door!

I spent my whole childhood dreaming of escaping my family. Although I wouldn't want to relive my childhood for a second, I understand that being an adult is often no picnic either.

 

So right njoy, it is sort of 'built in' that we will suffer these traumatic events. Also occasionally I meet folk who have not seemed to have met much to cope with in life - and they are terribly un-empathic and un-compassionate! So perhaps it is a human rite of passage - to suffer, to (hopefully!) understand and become better humans because of it? Then those of us who are hyper-sensitive - repress to try and cope, then end up reading Sarno & TMS stuff and getting better and, and - will we end up super-empathic and super-understanding...??!!

 

Hecate,
I think you already are super-empathic and super-understanding. I love reading your posts.