Have you ever believed the worst about a situation that may or may not have happened? For instance, you call home from work, and your partner doesn’t answer. Immediately, you believe that there has been a horrible accident, and you just don’t know about it yet.
That is called catastrophic thinking.
This article will focus on this phenomenon and how to overcome this rumination of doom.
What is Catastrophic Thinking?
Catastrophic thinking is an anxious behavior that may be part of the symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder or other anxiety disorders. With catastrophic thinking, one thinks and ruminates on the worst possible scenario of what is or could happen. Most of the time, it is a subconscious thought pattern, and we are not aware we are dwelling on them.
The cause of catastrophic thinking depends upon the person involved. However, the main answer is that we often associate it with another mental health condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and dissociative identity disorder (DID).
There are two primary reasons people with an anxiety disorder, CPTSD, or OCD, have developed catastrophic thinking:
One, people with high-functioning anxiety disorders are trying to use logic to reason their way out of the apprehension they are experiencing. They feel they are protecting themselves by using catastrophic thinking by being ready for the next shoe to drop. However, planning for the worst increases their anxiety, and their catastrophic thinking is soon a runaway train of emotions and fear.
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