Catastrophic Thinking: When You Look At Everything Negatively

We often express catastrophic thinking in two ways. The first involves making a difficult or negative situation worse than it is. The second way means that you look to the future and only visualize the worst outcome for the problems you have and the situations you encounter.

It can be said that the people who have a catastrophic thinking turn their thoughts into a “negative video”. It is as if their senses are producing an entire movie or sequence of events. These events always represent the worst that can happen. These people behave as if they need to be martyrs in their own fantasies.

People with a lot of anxiety and depression often have a catastrophic thinking. This mindset means that they can not improve their situation.

These catastrophic ideas arise in a mind that fantasizes about the worst outcome. Let’s take a closer look at this.

The main characteristic of catastrophic thinking is that it is not based on real risks. These thoughts are almost exclusively in the imagination. In other words, they represent dangers and threats that the person visualizes outcomes that are possible in themselves but unlikely.

Imagine, for example, a person who is dominated by catastrophic thinking who thinks that his heart is beating very fast. The person may not associate this with the fact that he or she has just been drinking coffee or walking very fast during the last five minutes. The person will instead think that this is the start of a heart attack or a sign that he is aging fast.

People with such thinking may refuse to go on a plane because he or she “feels” that it will end in an accident. The person may also believe that the plane will crash in the middle of the ocean and that all the passengers will be eaten by sharks.

As we can see, these types of outputs are not impossible, but at the same time they are not very bad. The person visualizes the worst possible outcome. This will of course have negative consequences on the person’s emotional state and behavioral patterns.

This thought pattern tends to be repeated. It is like a template that is applied to everything that the person thinks about. He or she programs himself or herself to think about the worst that can happen.

Why is this happening? As we have mentioned before, it is a way in which the person manifests his anxiety and / or depression. These states of mind are avalanche-like when they invade our thought processes. Catastrophic thinking is just a manifestation of these states.

For some people, it also becomes a form of defense mechanism. It is as if, by thinking of the worst outcome, they feel relief when these unthinkable scenarios do not arise. They somehow feel like it protects them from being disappointed, but in reality, they just get even more anxiety.

Catastrophic thoughts lead to emotions such as fear, anger, bitterness, guilt, sadness and pessimism, etc.

The catastrophic thinking, on the other hand, makes us very demanding. It makes us begin to believe that everything and everyone must be perfect. This leads to us always being disappointed in everything and everyone. This is not a good way to live.

You should therefore evaluate whether this is something you do. It can be caused by an unresolved conflict that you have not handled. The catastrophic thinking does not protect you and does not help you talk about your problems. It simply leads to bitterness in the end.