PreciousChild
MyPTSD Pro
I wanted to see how people coped with catastrophizing. That part of my brain seems so deeply embedded, almost primordial. I'm able to put more distance between me and the catastrophe these days, and I want to see if I can make headway into dealing with it. If a neighbor complains about my lawn, I slowly come to believe that I'll be kicked out of my house. I can easily find the series of steps that would lead to that. Or if I mess up at work, I become convinced that I'm going to be fired. Though I always get a good annual report. Most of the time, my catastrophic reaction is in response to something I said or did to someone, especially a significant other. Sometimes it takes a few minutes or hours, but I'll begin to ruminate about the consequences of what I just did or what just happened and I'll come to the epiphany that catastrophe is coming. I then get swamped with terror and helplessness, and I just want to curl up in a ball. Sometimes I'll even fall asleep. I think it's my brain trying to reset or trying to power down. When I was a kid, the tiniest infraction would set off my narcissistic, psychopathic, sadistic dad. My dad had no problem brutalizing me for the slightest annoyance that I caused him. Once he abandoned me for a whole night and morning when I was a toddler because he didn't like the way I chewed my food. So for me, my earliest experiences gave me the notion that any little thing could lead to my world ending. Am I doomed to always react catastrophically? What can I do to be more proactive about ending such catastrophizing?