Catastrophic thinking is often expressed in two ways in our lives. The first is when we amplify or maximize a difficulty or negative situation. The second happens when we look at the horizon and we can only see the worst scenario for the problems we have or the situations we face.
It is colloquially said that those who have catastrophic thoughts become a “negative look”. It’s as if the mind created an entire movie, that is, a sequence of events. The different thing about these events is that they are very bad or have a halo with great destructive capacity. The person acts as if he needs to martyr himself with his own imagination.
- People with high levels of anxiety and depression often work with catastrophic thoughts.
- Which is one of the reasons to maintain depression or anxiety.
- The fact that these ideas come to mind is a consequence of a damaged mood.
- It is a mood that leads us to fantasize about the worst.
- The macabre or the terrible.
- Let’s see what it’s all about.
“The optimist always has a project. -Anonymous author-
The main characteristic of catastrophic thinking is that it is not based on the recognition of real risks, it is a thought supported almost exclusively in terms of the imaginary or fantastic, that is, the dangers, threats or damage encountered are essentially unlikely or impossible.
A person dominated by catastrophic thinking may feel their heart beating very fast, you may not associate this with the fact that you have had a coffee for some time or have walked very fast in the last five minutes. see the start of a heart attack or a definitive proof that it’s aging quickly.
Someone with catastrophic thinking won’t get on a plane either because they feel they can die in a terrible accident. Or fall into the middle of the sea and be eaten by sharks. In any case, as we can see, catastrophic thoughts are often not impossible, but they are unlikely.
A catastrophicist? You will choose the worst of all options to imagine the future. This, of course, will have a very negative impact on your emotional state and behavior.
Behind catastrophic thinking is a kind of scenario, that is, a pattern of repetitive thinking, something like a model applied to everything that goes through the mind, we program ourselves to think of the world in terrible terms.
Why did this happened? We have talked about it before. It is a way of expressing the anxiety and / or depression that we carry. These mental states feed and feed. They are like a snowball that grows and becomes invasive, catastrophism is one of its manifestations.
For some, it also becomes a kind of defense mechanism, it’s as if thinking about the worst helps us feel relieved because, in the end, that unlikely scenario didn’t happen, one way or another they feel that being at their worst protects them from disappointment and pain. A kind of “leakage of the future”, which, however, envelops them in a tangle of unnecessary anguish.
Catastrophic thinking, like all our thoughts, is always accompanied by a set of feelings and emotions, by releasing it we can only increase fear, anger, resentment, guilt, sadness, pessimism, etc. , that is, it is it becomes a way of cultivating the worst part of ourselves.
On the other hand, imperceptibly also makes us very demanding subjects. Either everything has to be perfect or chaos is coming. People are either impeccable or have a detrimental influence on our lives, so we end up being eternally dissatisfied, that we reject the imperfection of reality and become disillusioned first and foremost, so we do not live well.
Right now is the time to assess whether something like this is happening to us, maybe we’re losing a way to deal with some discomfort or previous conflict that we haven’t resolved, catastrophic thinking doesn’t protect us or help us escape, on the contrary. , deprives us of the initiative, while making us more nonconformist. In this way, we plant the bitter seed.