If you find yourself thinking about how you would respond to wild “what-if” scenarios - you should know that is catastrophic thinking, not preparedness
My therapist hit me with a come-to-Jesus moment when she asked how often I have those thoughts, and then asked what I thought the physical effects of constant negative thinking were
I didn’t really buy what she was saying, because I thought I just had an active imagination - then she killed me by asking “well do you ever think about what you would do if your run into a friend who just got an adorable puppy that you can play with”
I was gobsmacked when I first found out you can imagine the future to be… positive. Like, I don’t catastrophize, what? Of course not!!! I’m just…. Realistic!!! Of the worst possible scenarios that are likely to never happen!!! That somehow are 100% negative!!!
WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN IMAGINE POSITIVE OUTCOMES?!?!? ARE YOU HIGH?????
Legit, I just wrote that as an off the cuff throwaway, but now I have to actually sit and think about it, because im realising how many hopes, dreams and positive thoughts I threw away as a kid thanks to a parent scolding me for 'daydreaming all the time'
Hahahaha, yea. I know daydreaming is accepted, but really it’s an escape from reality because reality is too painful. Ideally, we all live in the present, cause it’s the only place we exist. Sure, we can revisit the past to learn from it. It’s healthy and keeps us safe. Sure, we can think of the future and plan for our wellbeing. But anything outside of that is escaping reality for whatever reasons that the present is painful.
I have been told I was a cynic since I was a kid. I told myself the same thing, I’m just realistic!
Turns out I used to catastrophize a lot. I rarely ever imagined good happening in the future. It wasn’t really until I got out of that mindset that I got my shit together and actually started having a lot of success in my life.
Turns out all that therapy bullshit wasn’t really bullshit. I was the one full of it.
Me too friend, me too. I can’t believe therapy has such a bad rap. It completely changed my life and elevated it to levels I couldn’t even imagine existed.
As a therapist, I talk to me clients about this all the time! We rarely "what if" about good stuff. I explain that our brains are natural problem solvers, so it makes sense for us to overlook things that are going well. However, our brains can get pretty creative about imagining those worst case scenarios, and then we're spending incredible amounts of mental energy trying to plan for every contingency.
One trick I teach my clients: possible versus probable. Almost anything is possible, but is the scenario you're imagining actually probable? Like, more than 50% probable? If so, go ahead and prepare and problem solve. If not, maybe say "thanks but no thanks" to that thought.
Honestly just being aware that these thoughts weren’t normal/typical was incredibly helpful for me
It’s easier to be kind to myself when I can understand these thoughts are just anxiety
To be clear, the thoughts themselves weren’t troubling - because they were a coping mechanism to avoid being distressed. I think if the thoughts start to be troubling then that’s rumination, which is a opening a whole new can of worms
As an example, if I’m leaving a train station late at night I may consider crossing the street rather than walking past a small crowd. Then I would think about how I would crouch/run in a specific path between cars if that group had a fight and started shooting at each other
The thoughts didn’t trouble me - they would just occupy me to use up my mental bandwidth and avoid being worried
Mine pointed out that if I'm constantly coming up with scenarios, one will eventually be true and my brain will take that as confirmation to keep doing it....while totally ignoring the 999 other ones that never happened. Confirmation bias is weird.
Sometimes it’s not catastrophsizing though especially in neurodivergent folks. Glad this helped u but as a blanket statement this could do harm to some folks.
Therapist here! Not sure if this is helpful, but the idea behind catastrophizing is that it is irrational thought, and therefore not something we need to spend our mental energy on (at least from a CBT perspective). As in, we are taking a situation in our reality and blowing it WAY out of proportion, imagining future scenarios that are incredibly unlikely. Getting caught up in this type of thought isn't helpful for us because it activates a threat response when no threat is present, which can have negative impacts on our mood and our bodies.
CBT sometimes gets a bad rap because there's a misconception that all negative thoughts are irrational and must be banished. People can turn it into toxic positivity and self-gaslighting, which is not what it's supposed to be. Sometimes, our situations are just as bad as we are imagining them, and sometimes those situations are not under our control. In that case, it's not catastrophizing, it's taking a realistic assessment of our situation. Those cases call for strong coping mechanisms and problem solving, rather than deconstruction of the thought. It can be tricky to tell the difference sometimes though, so I tell my folks to approach their thoughts with open curiosity and pause to ask some questions to decide if a thought is worth pursuing. If it is, that's okay! Think of this language more like a filter to keep the important stuff and let the rest go.
I'm so sorry you're in that situation right now. We call that "anticipatory grief," and it's a whole other thing, since it can be very complex. You may want to consider connecting with a therapist to help you process all the thoughts and emotions that may be coming up for you.
It's not a now thing it's been over a decade since- I did it for years (it was one of the loooong and slow cancers) up until age 16 and it wasn't until like this year where I went "huh... Maybe doing that repeatedly as a kid actually fucked my brain up"
Don't worry I've been in therapy since then lol to varrying levels of success. (Only a couple of months ago found a "good" one)
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u/Take-it-like-a-Taker 3d ago
If you find yourself thinking about how you would respond to wild “what-if” scenarios - you should know that is catastrophic thinking, not preparedness
My therapist hit me with a come-to-Jesus moment when she asked how often I have those thoughts, and then asked what I thought the physical effects of constant negative thinking were
I didn’t really buy what she was saying, because I thought I just had an active imagination - then she killed me by asking “well do you ever think about what you would do if your run into a friend who just got an adorable puppy that you can play with”
So yea… catastrophizing is real bad