The catastrophic personality

People often tend to process external information incorrectly., as if we had put on glasses through which we perceive the world around us. If these glasses have clean lenses, we will be able to see our surroundings realistically, as it is. But if the glasses have dirty lenses, we will interpret reality in a distorted, unreal way. This is what happens to a catastrophic personality.

A catastrophic personality has the motto “think wrong and you will be right.”. I don’t know who would say that, but it seems to me to be one of the most absurd and useless sayings I have ever heard. People who suffer from anxiety disorders often use a thinking pattern that in psychology is called “catastrophism” and that only provokes, increases and maintains anxiety symptoms.

A catastrophic personality always thinks the worst

Catastrophic people always believe or imagine that in a certain situation the worst possible scenario will occur.something terrible, a catastrophe, although they really have no rational reasons to think that way.

As we know, Thoughts directly influence feelings.. That is, it depends on how you think, that’s how you will feel. Obviously, if you are a person who tends to think catastrophically, who is always ruminating about the worst that can happen or you exaggeratedly evaluate the things that happen to you as horrible, your feelings will be very anxious, afraid, worried, tense…

Let’s take an example. Suppose you are fired from your job. The reality is that it is a painful and unpleasant fact, no one likes to be fired from their job, this is logical. But… is it a catastrophe? Can’t you stand it? Are you no longer going to be able to be happy?

A person with a catastrophic personality about situations would respond that of course it is a catastrophe, that his life has been ruined, that he will not find another job and that he is condemned to be unhappy all his life. There is nothing to do now, he is lost.

This way of thinking is not functional at all and the only thing it will do is drag you down further. If you think you will never find another job, you won’t go out and look for it.. If you think that you can no longer be happy because you have been fired, you will become depressed and will not look for alternative solutions. In the end you will reach the destination you feared.

I’m not saying that you don’t go through a normal period of sadness, despair and grief since you have lost something that you considered valuable and emotions have to surface and perform their function. The problem is maintaining this state for a long time so that you harm yourself..

How to change our catastrophic thinking?

See what has happened

To start, take a deep breath and analyze the situation. The reality is what it is: you have been fired, your partner has left you, your daughter drinks alcohol on the weekends, your mother has died… Next, ask yourself if what is happening is truly as paralyzing or dramatic as you think or is it you who are? oversizing the situation, defining reality in your own way.

Think that there are things that are uncontrollablewhich happen even if they are very unpleasant, because suffering and frustration are part of life and we do not have to give it any more thought or feed our discomfort more thinking that “this should not have been like this.”

If you insist that things should not have turned out the way they have, you will get two irritations for the price of one. Don’t waste energy, invest it in finding solutions and if there is no possible solution, you only have to accept and continue on your path in the most adaptive way possible.

Gather evidence

The psychologist Aaron Beck invites us to gather evidence to make us see if what has really happened or what we think is so dramatic.. According to Beck, “Questioning anxious thoughts and beliefs through evidence gathering is a key clinical skill of cognitive therapy in order to correct exaggerated thoughts of personal threat and helplessness.”.

But what does Beck mean by gathering evidence? The author invites us to look for evidence that confirms the danger or threat of catastrophic thinking. For example, if we believe that thinking about death redundantly will increase our likelihood of dying, Beck would tell us to gather evidence for and against this belief. In this way, we ourselves would be the ones to dismantle catastrophic thinking.

See the world as it is

If you decide to practice every day, in each new difficult situation, to relativize and rationalize your way of interpreting things, to see the world as it is and not as your head tells you it is, you will feel much better to act in a right way. more productive and better way for you.

Remember that thought, emotion and behavior are three gears that influence each other. It is your obligation and your duty to take care of your mind and free it from ghosts that only harm you., which don’t help you solve anything because if you don’t start changing yourself, no one will change for you. Have you identified with the catastrophic personality?

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