21. Catastrophic thinking - When the worst case scenario happens

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Well well, well, a very sincere welcome back, I guess, and apologies for my absence. Maybe you haven't even noticed that I have been gone. I haven't posted anything since like the start of the new year, but it's just been a very very busy time for me. Just some life updates. Firstly, I moved to Sydney. I moved to a new year city. Yeah, it was kind of a big decision. I've been thinking about it for a little while and graduated Union thought why the hell not. But obviously, just like some big adjustments, I've decided that I will not be moving house for a very long time because it's very stressful and takes a lot of effort, which I feel like is you know, well known knowledge, but I hadn't really thought that through. Yeah, it's just like weird, I guess, living in a new city, trying to make new friends, new connections, figuring everything out. So I've been pretty invested in that. I also graduated, big thing in your twenties if you go to UNI when you're in that all that second decade of your life. Yeah, I graduated UNIS so yeah, also a lot of insecurity around where my life's going, lots of future planning. I also got COVID. Yes, I got COVID. Yeah, it was pretty uneventful. I'm sure there's a majority of people who are listening to this has probably gotten COVID at some stage, especially if you're in Australia. Every man and their dog seems to have it. But yeah, it was just like I kind of needed some time to recover and adjust to my new life. But yeah, I guess that's why I've kind of been absent and very appropriate for this episode. I've just been feeling a lot of self doubt around the podcast, like not stopping anytime soon. But in all, honestly, honestly, I just let some comments from people who really don't even know me. I let them kind of get to me. How embarrassing, I know, but it just stung a bit and made me doubt whether I was putting out the wrong content, whether people really wanted to hear from me. Blah blah blah blah blah blah, or that kind of shit. So it was just like kind of a toxic cycle in my mind. So I was like, I'm gonna step away. I'm going to apply on some good episodes and get back into it. So we're not talking about self doubt today though, other than overthinking the opinions of others, which is a whole other episode in itself, we're going to talk about another area of expertise for me, catastrophizing, expecting the world worst prophesizing. Oh yeah, such a good area of psychology, especially in our twenties when everything is sort of up in the air and we may be adopting this kind of negative thinking style. Especially recently, I've found this with so many big life changes. It's so easy to expect the worst. Like I've moved to a new city. All the thoughts that kind of go through my head of like what if I don't meet anyone, I'm so far away from my family, what if I don't have any friends, what if I don't like it here? And I think thought traps like that at any age can be scary, and it's not only for those who may be anxious, and it's not only anxious people who are susceptible. I'm not going to spoil anything, but this is what we're going to talk about in this episode. What is catastrophizing, why does it occur? We're going to talk about cognitive distortions, how we can kind of combat spiraling and jumping to the worst conclusion, and how do we retrain our brain out of these habitual thinking styles. This episode I think is particularly relevant after the last few years we've all had. Obviously, like the pandemic has created an external environment at least of uncertainty and a sense that we should kind of always expect the worst years of unexpected lockdowns, plans, ruined disease striking major changes to our daily lives, our politics, and you know, we see news stories like every day about case and death numbers, and I think COVID has made the stakes so much higher. Of course, we are thinking about the worst outcome around this disease because the consequences could be so severe, and there's so much uncertainty, especially in the first couple of years. So this is a lot for our brains to process, and it can create negative fortune telling patterns that can really derail us and incapacitate us in many ways. So I thought, just given at least what I've been going through, but also what the world's been going through. It would be really interesting to talk about this and to discuss why we catastrophize and why we have this habit of expecting the worst. So let's get into it. So, like always, we always start with a few definitions to get a grasp on what we're really talking about today before the psychology really begins. So catastrophizing is a cognitive distortion that kind of prompts people to jump to the worst possible conclusion, usually with very limited information or kind of an objective reason to despair or to worry. When a situation, either one that's happening now or one that you perceive is happening in the future, is upsetting but not necessarily catastrophic, you can feel like you're in the midst of a crisis, and catastrophizing kind of goes hand in hand with that, and it can generally take two different forms, making a catastrophe out of a current situation or imagining or making a catastrophe out of a future situation that hasn't even occurred yet. One has negative thoughts, but for many people, negative thinking can spin out of control and out of proportion to the reality of the situation, to what the situation really kind of requires, and a relatively like modest error, disappointment or a source of embarrassment can sometimes become in your mind a cause for major fear or despair and in short, catastrophe. So this pattern of thinking can itself be destructive because it's unnecessary and persistent. Worry does lead to heightened anxiety and depression. It's also really hard to break out of once you've kind of adopted this thinking style of expecting the worst and thinking that expecting that it's kind of a form of protection if that outcome would occur. Yeah, it can really lead to some negative things. So catastrophizing has been linked in heaps of studies to a number of adverse experiences and behaviors, like we say anxiety, depression, but also anger related problems because it leaves you feeling very frustrated, very worried, and if you're someone who tends to project those negative feelings onto others, you can become angry out of the fear that you have of the worst case scenario. It can also be a tendency of individuals who already have a generalized anxiety disorder, maybe a social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and of course some of the more severe ones of agoraphobia or OCD. These are obviously diagnosed based on a broader list of symptoms, but a big one is this kind of catastrophic negative thinking style that psychologists and psychiatrists alike kind of look out for when they're diagnosing these disorders. Obviously, you can also just engage in catastrophic thinking without having a diagnosable disorder. It doesn't I don't think you need to be worried. If you know you're sitting there being like, oh, what if my whole family dies, blah blah blah, what if everything goes wrong? What if I lose everything? It doesn't mean that you might have something else going on. But sometimes it's a big scientist psychologist of a disordered thinking style that might require medication or therapy or some other form of treatment to kind of help you out with. Interestingly, and I know this wasn't unexpected, but I thought it was really interesting, this type of thought pattern, This is always expecting the worst. It often emerges when we're children. There may be a few reasons for this. It can be the result of hyper vigilance as a child, maybe due to a chaotic home environment, a traumatic event, something unexpected happening, or due to a generally anxious personality. If you're a child who may have seen your parents overreact or panic about perceived situations, or if your parents were perfectionists who criticized mistakes, it makes sense why a child who was raised this way might always be trying to predict the worst. If you can imagine the worst happening, you have an opportunity to try and create a plan in advance before that outcome happens, and in that way, you kind of reduce the uncertainty of the situations you've been placed in, all of the situations you've learned to expect, and it's comforting. It's really comforting to think about the worst case scenario and then know that you could probably deal with it even if it never happens, and it kind of reduces the fear and anxiety in anticipation of a situation or an outcome. But of course, once this pattern of thinking is formed, it can be really difficult to eliminate the accompanying behaviors into adulthood, into your twenties, and this is because of a concept called long term potentiation and long term potentiation it shows up everywhere in psychology. Everywhere, any area of study that you're looking at, you'll probably find some research or some paper that will highlight this as being the reason that's something occurs. So, long term potentiation is a process involving the persistent strengthening of synapses that leads to long lasting increases in signal transmission between your neurons. Okay, let's break that down. It's a very neurological kind of term, very biologically based. Essentially, it's like the inverse of if you don't use it, you lose it. So the more you use it, the harder it is to lose it. So the more your brain follows certain paths in your brain, the stronger they get, the more reinforced they become. So how does this apply to catastrophizing. So our thinking style is a pattern, and any type of habitual behavior or thought process can create neural connections and strong ones. Because our brain is basically a learning device, it's a survival advice and it wants us to learn what's happened in our environment, learned from previous things, and build on them to be able to survive future situations. So once our brain begins to travel down one path repeatedly or has a habitual mental reaction to a situation that could potentially be dangerous, it's hard to reverse that because our brain and our mind says, we're using this pathway a lot. Let's strengthen it because it's obviously important in how this person is perceiving the world and how they're surviving. And if it's emerged as a survival tactic when we were younger to comfort us or protect us, it can be even more entrenched because it's emerged at a time when major synaptic roots in our brains are forming in really formative years of our lives. So once you've kind of adopted that thinking style, especially if you're young, it's so hard to break. And I've kind of already said this. I also say this a lot in other episodes. But if something exists, it probably has a purpose, So catastrophizing it does indeed have a purpose and maybe even some benefits at times, but not in the way that it's going to be helpful in the long term. Especially when we begin to take irrational thoughts as truth. It can create a real disconnect with reality. And one of the main mental reactions we may have in reaction to constantly catastrophizing is dissociation. So dissociation is a mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, from one's feelings, from one's memories or sense of identity. It's pretty scary. So you really basically you feel like you're not connected to any part of your body or your mind that makes you an individual. And it happens because our mind creates a distance from our thoughts and distance itself from reality because it kind of needs a break. If you're constantly worrying about things, if you're really stressed, your brain actually can't handle that. It becomes overwhelmed. So it kind of makes decisions on our behalf and decides to basically split or distance us from what we're experiencing by pulling us back into our mind and putting up a bit of a barrier or a bit of a fog shield between us and what's really going on. So catastrophizing isn't just a thought pattern that only happens when we're in a situation where we might feel threatened. When good things happen to people who overthink in this way, they still tend to have an impending sense of doom. You know, good things don't happen to people like me, you might say, Or in some circumstances, they actually create their own negative reality on purpose, because that is easy to manage, because it's normal and has become so ingrained and habitual. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you expect the worst, you might create the worst, because how could there possibly be any other situation you haven't thought about what might happen if the best thing happened. And I think people who have this thinking style would rather be in charge of a bad situation happening than have it catch them off guard. For example, you might start a fight with your partner because you're secretly afraid they're going to leave you, And by taking charge of the situation you've created in your mind, you don't have to deal with the uncertainty. And I was talking to a friend about this the other day, shout out to make a friend of the show. But what becomes really twisted and makes this thinking style more permanent is what happens when you are right. What happens to those synaptic connections when you're catastrophic thinking is correct. When your worst case scenario is correct, what happens then. What happens is that it confirms everything that you've already kind of believed to be true. It confirms that this thinking style is the best one to have. You know, oh, if I didn't catastrophize, if I didn't expect the worst, what would be happening to me right now? And you think that that would make you happy? Right? You know, you made applian for this, you knew this could happen. Surely you'd be prepared and can handle. It's like, no one's going to say or you were wrong, because you were right. And obviously that's so rarely the case, which is a massive thing, the negative situations we think of, the worst case scenarios that prophesizing. It's so rarely that it comes true. But also it's really unlikely that the negative thinking you've done beforehand can even help, which is why this spiral can only ever provide short term comfort. So what my friend and I were discussing was that by the time the worst case scenario kind of rolls around, you're so emotionally drained that whatever the outcome is, you aren't even prepared to deal with it. You're frustrated, you're anxious, you have brain you're overwhelmed because you have already exhausted your mental energy across all faculties, all departments, trying to solve the problem in advance, so it doesn't really help you. Also, catastrophizing may feel comforting in the moment, but it doesn't give you any answers in an area where this feels particularly relevant to me is I have this weird fear of death, and this is a massive trigger for me. I've had it since I was a child. I always worry about it when I'm really stressed or really tired. And I got to the point where I realized that no amount of thinking was going to uncover an answer. It wasn't something I could predict, and even if I did accidentally, it would never really be confirmed until I'd died. And it led to intrusive thought. Intrusive thought because the catastrophizing was making me so depressed and anxious. It was fucking terrible. I was just thinking about it all the time. I was thinking about what could the worst case scenario be? And I can't change that even if I was right there's nothing I could do. So how do we get out of this? What strategies do we need to learn in our twenties, in our very important decade of life, probably even more important than when you were younger, because you get a chance to unlearn all those negative behaviors. But what do we need to do to make sure we don't always expect the worst in every situation? You know, you could go to therapy. We can talk about therapy, but that's so intangible, I think, and I feel like it's not really something to get into in this episode. Everyone knows the benefits of therapy, but I'm obviously not a psychologist, so I can't sit here and give you all the strategies that you need. But let's look at some more practical steps for when you're in the spiral. So six tips to kind of accomplish this breaking away from this thinking style might be some of the following. So acknowledging that unpleasant things happen is number one. This is a massive kind of philosophy that's taught throughout any mental health area or profession. Life is full of challenges and good days, and you have bad days, And just because one day is bad, does not mean that all days will be bad, and acknowledging that sometimes you're going to be unprepared and accepting that is perhaps a lot better than needing to plan, to know what every single outcome could be and thinking about what you would do. Secondly, it's important to recognize when thoughts are irrational. Catastrophizing often follows a distinct pass of distinct pattern, So a person will start with a thought, then they will expand on that thought with worry and anxiety. When a person learns to recognize not just the first thought, but the second thought, the one where we expand on it, the better equipped to handle this catastrophizing kind of spiral that we go into. If you think, oh my god, but what if we drove When I was driving, I crashed and I died and I killed someone on the road, you know, it's okay to have that thought. You can think that, but you don't have to have the accompanying anxiety. You can kind of just acknowledge it. Third step will not really tip saying stop to cease the repetitive catastrophic thoughts. A person may have to say it out loud in their head or just to say stop, I don't want to think about this no more. I'm in control. I'm in control of what I choose goes through my brain, and these words can keep the stream of thoughts from continuing and help you change the course of your thinking. Another one that I really like is thinking about another outcome. So instead of thinking about a negative outcome, think about the best outcome, the most positive outcome, and what that would mean. It's just as likely that the best outcome could happen as the worst, so visualizing what you think the best outcome could be might actually help you problem solve to get to that point. Number five is offering positive affirmations. It seems really simple that I really like this. When it comes to catastrophic thinking. A person has to believe in themselves and that they could overcome whatever happens, and that kind of reduces your tendency to fear the worst. They may wish to repeat a positive affirmation to themselves on a daily basis, or something along those lines. Finally, the sixth kind of solution is one that I think makes its way into every fucking article ever about any kind of thought pattern or thinking style or situation that has to do with your psychology. And mental health, and that's practicing excellent self care. So this is the explanation that this article gave. I'm going to read it out first and then I'm going to discuss it because I have opinions, obviously, that's why I have a podcast. But practicing excellence self care, I think catastrophic thoughts are more likely to take over when you are stressed and when you're tired, So getting enough rest and engaging in like stress relieving techniques like exercise or meditation or journaling, it can make you feel better. And I have a slight problem with this. I think that healthcare is the serpent of the mental health community or culture, and I wrote an article about this once, but I think self care is actually an accessory, it's not the cure. And I do think we need to stop pushing kind of like a self care narrative for every fucking issue in our lives. You can't cure your anxiety by doing a face mask or your catastrophic thinking by eating superfoods. Also, there are just so many instances in which what we're going through prevents self care habits, and I think it's such a simple blanket solution that is so insidious. You see it everywhere on Instagram, from mental health professionals to healthcare professionals, from our friends, from our workplaces, like emails being like how are you practicing self care at the moment? Like how come you don't ask us how you're going to provide better mental healthcare for our workplace? Like self care makes it like all of all your kind of problem, And it's like, you know, you could just be better if you just spent more money on things that society is telling you need to feel good about yourself. You get to spend more money on skincare and healthy foods and gym memberships and meditation apps and yoga, Like it's ridiculous. And I think if catastrophic thinking reacted that easily and positively to self care, it really wouldn't be a problem with it. Anyhow, there's a random tangent about my hatred of the self care philosophy. I really don't like it. I think it's so insidious, and I hate the way it makes people feel that the reason they're not doing well is because they're not taking care of themselves when they might be trying. And even if they can't take care of themselves, isn't that a bigger problem that we should be helping them with rather than telling them to get enough sleep, Like what if you have insomnia? Come on, wake up people. But back to what we're actually talking here about. I think next time you have a kind of a what if thought, remember to tell yourself that you can handle anything that comes your way. Try to think about the worst case scenario and whether you'll handle it. Yeah, you can be realistic, dick, and you probably can. You probably can handle it. But then also think about the best case scenario that's just as likely to happen, and ask yourself whether you truly believe this what if thought will actually come true? How many times have you thought something would happen and it never did. How many moments and minutes have you spent worrying about an outcome that just never emerged? Because it's so unlikely that we're going to get it right when not mine, readers, we can't predict the future. And ask yourself what's truly bothering you? Was it really that comment your boss said? Or are you simply unhappy at your job and afraid to leave? Is your partner really going to leave you? Are you really going to die in a car accident, or are you just a little bit tired and get to the root of the problem. I think, what if thinking is a distraction to remove us from the present moment. It's a tool our brain uses to provide comfort when we're stressed and we're anxious about things that we can't predict. This can kind of help you slow your thoughts down and get back into reality if you kind of rationalize it and remember that very few, if any, if any of our negative thoughts come to pass. This is so important in our twenties when our thinking patterns, this is when they become ingrained for life, and so much is up in the air. We haven't had enough experiences to know that things will turn out okay. Our brains are still developing people, They're still developing into our twenties, you know. I think it's like, not until you're twenty five twenty six is your frontal lowefully developed. And even then, synaptic plasticity means that there's so many things that we can take into our own hands and change about how our brains work. And yeah, I think it's just easier though, at this time, to create healthier thinking patterns than waiting till you're kind of an old dog trying to learn new tricks and rather than always expecting the worst for the rest of your life. A very quick, informative episode today. Yeah, I was really inspired by this conversation my friend and I were having. She came and visited me in Sydney and we were just kind of talking about that she was interviewing for a job, and obviously I had just moved, so in those kind of moments where everything is quite uncertain and you're on very shaky foundations, obviously we were both finding ourselves overthinking quite a bit about everything that could go wrong, and so far it's turned out pretty well. Everything's turned out all right. And it's something that I get into all the time. I really can't stop it, and it really gets to me when I don't want to be thinking the worst, when I know that the worst isn't going to happen, but my brain just keeps on doing it. So if you're one of those people, hopefully this episode gave you some skills to develop, gave you some things to think about, gave you some understanding about why you do it. It's really not your fault. It comes from so many places, but no one wakes up one day and decides, Oh, I'm gonna like fucking analyze the shit out of my life and everything that could possibly go wrong. Because doesn't that sound like a dream? Like a walk in the park. But anyhow, I'm posting another episode next week about fighting an interpersonal conflict. Hopefully you get a kick out of it. Very exciting times. I'm keen for kind of like season two of the podcast and to jump into some more content. As always, if you have any suggestions for episodes that you kind of want me to research and put out there, just shoot me a message on my Instagram. It's called Twenties Psychology Podcast. You can also watch my reels because yeah, I do make Instagram reels because I want to get more followers, because I want to have a bigger community so we can share our thoughts and we can share all the fucked up happening in our twenties and all the good stuff as well, like graduating, moving, like falling in love, all of those beautiful, wonderful things. So thanks with your support, thanks for listening. I always ask this, but if you feel called to leave a review, Spotify and Apple both take reviews of the podcast and they really help. You know, this kind of audio in this community, the episodes I share reach more people. And if you think that might be useful for someone, maybe you don't, in which case that's fine. A review for another podcast you really love because I promise it will make someone stay and have a beautiful week beautiful weekend wherever you are in the world. And thank you for listening. I'll see you next week.