I’m a ‘Catastrophist’ searching for a Cure.

Tomorrow, I have a meeting with my counselor to try and find a solution to my long-term problem of catastrophising. If I’m lucky, I might not have a serious accident on the way. But in my catastrophic mind, I’m afraid that’s already happened.

The best way to explain my disorder is through a real-life example. So here is one I’ve written down for my counselor to dissect with me. I really hope she can cure me …

Just recently, my wife and I were required to have our annual house inspection by the landlord. Despite our begging for permission to keep a cat at the property, the landlord stubbornly refused. So we decided to throw caution to the wind and get one anyway! His name is Bob.

Our eldest son was visiting us from uni on the day of inspection, so he agreed to keep an eye on Bob at a friends house who was at work. This allowed my wife and I to remain home and act as a tag team to distract the landlord from the clawed carpet!

Everything went as planned (in other words, we didn’t get caught) then we went to collect Bob and our son from our friend’s house.

“Where’s Bob?” I said to my son.

“He was here a minute ago dad. Just lying on the stairs.”

Now before I left Bob and my son at the house, I checked the upstairs doors were closed so he couldn’t get into mischief. But unknown to me, one of them had a faulty latch. The bedroom door was slightly ajar. And when I went in, so was the window!

My catastrophic disorder kicked in immediately …

“Oh God no! Bob’s jumped out the window and he’s dead!”

We began searching the house frantically, but no sign. So I went outside and looked up at the window he could have jumped from and started painting worst-case scenarios …

“Oh Christ! He’s landed on the pavement, been badly injured then gone somewhere to die. It’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have left him. I should have double checked the window. I hate myself!”

Any cat lover will understand my desperation. I was physically shaking and holding back tears not to upset anyone.

But in actual fact, my disorder had taken over a situation that well reasoned logic would have altered completely.

The window was in fact, just open just a few centimetres. When I noticed it at first, I thought it unlikely my cat had got out. But after thoroughly searching the house and calling him with no response, it seemed the only explanation. So in my catastrophic mind, I made the window gap wider than it really was, then imagined the worst. That’s what a catastrophist does.

Going back home, I felt like the world had ended, The thought of not having Bob around anymore was just too much to take. I kept saying “I’m so sorry Bob” under my breath while trying not to cry. Then the phone rang. It was our friend …

“I’ve found Bob! He just came up to me in the bedroom. He was sleeping behind a drawer in our divan bed and must have missed all the fuss everyone was making.”

Of course, I’ve never been so happy in my life to get Bob back. But had my mental health disorder not caused me to ignore the logical facts, I wouldn’t have put myself through such devastation.

Being a catastrophist can be totally exhausting and this is just one of many examples. It happens to me regularly and I just can’t seem to shake it off. I believe one reason it happens is due to my experiences of past events that are similar in nature. Like past echo’s. This one for example, may stem from my first cat Charlie jumping out our first floor window years before. He was absolutely fine but I was terrified when it happened.

I just hope my counselor can help me.

Thanks for reading