In catastrophic thinking, events have terrible consequences, thinking always focuses on the worst of the worst, everything is dangerous, the catastrophe is anticipated and expected. It is related to all-or-nothing thinking, negative anticipation, and magnifying the negative “I don’t ride in an elevator because it can collapse” “I don’t leave the house because something bad can happen to me” “I don’t take the car because I can have an accident” “It hasn’t arrived, something serious has happened to it”… When a person catastrophizes, a small leak in a roof means that the roof will surely collapse on them. These thoughts are expressed directly or covertly when, when thinking, we turn negative or very negative situations into absolute disasters, instead of interpreting them as unfortunate or very unfortunate events that must be resolved, seeking other alternatives.
In this Psychology-Online article, we explain what is catastrophic thinking detail.
Examples of catastrophic thinking
Some expressions that denote this attitudinal exaggeration are:
- It’s terrible!
- Oh my God!
- I can not stand it!
- What an outrage!
- What a tragedy!
- I can not continue!
- This is tremendous!
- It’s horrifying!…
We catastrophize when the negative event is blown out of proportion and we react excessively by increasing our stress. They often begin with the words “What if…” There is a tendency to exaggerate the unbearable nature of a situation, seeing catastrophes where there are none. The person believes that they cannot experience any happiness, that everything is going to come crashing down on them, that He is not going to be able to handle the situation and even though reality later shows him otherwise, he does not take it into account…
These thoughts are used to exaggerate the negative nature of situations. Examples:
- “And if I make a mistake and because of me everything is lost”
- “What if I have an anxiety attack and have an accident?”
- “Anything I do will be a disaster.”
- “I can’t stand it, it’s terrible for me.”
- “What if I run as a candidate and it turns out to be such a tremendous disaster that I can’t stand it?”
- “And if I do this or that and it goes wrong”
- “And if I can’t face the economic or work situation”
- “And if I make a mistake at work and a disaster occurs because of me”
- “And if I have a nervous breakdown” “And if a girl leaves me again, I won’t be able to bear it”…
It is terrible that something does not turn out the way we want or would like, but we can always look for an alternative solution that most of the time we do not even take into account.
Negative anticipation of reality
The problem becomes even more serious when catastrophic thinking becomes a habitual norm and one danger is followed by another. Furthermore, these fears of the future They become a negative condition for the subject who avoids doing certain things in the present for fear that the object of fear will occur.
These catastrophic thoughts can also arise in the form of internal dialogue when the person suffers a situation that requires extra effort on an emotional level in their daily routine and instead of sending messages of support to themselves, they say messages such as: ” Why does this have to happen to me?”, “I don’t have the strength to overcome it”, “what has happened is horrible”.
A distorted view of the facts
This type of thinking arises as a consequence of the magnifying glass effect of filtering the attention to the negative and not broaden our gaze to also focus on everything positive in life. In fact, everything positive goes unnoticed in a moment of drama in which the person feels invaded by fear and stress.
Conclusions of catastrophic thinking
Catastrophic thinking shows that something is happening inside that person that, as a result of the stress or anxiety may be distorting reality itself. A person with catastrophic thinking experiences it as such. That is, you experience anguish, sadness, fear, apathy and anger at those ghosts of tomorrow that threaten your present.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
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