Learning about Cognitive Distortions: Distortion No.1: Catastrophizing
Hi everyone! I hope you are doing well. Last week I announced the cognitive distortion series. You can read about it here.
Today we will be looking at the first cognitive distortion of the series, ‘catastrophizing’. Catastrophizing is when a person focuses on the worst possible outcome and treats it as likely, even when it is not. Some common examples:
- I am not feeling better after this treatment. I will never get better.
- I will for sure fail this test because I forgot to study chapter X.
- I could not keep up with my exercise regime, I will never become physically fit.
- I have not been able to keep in touch with my friend. I bet he is no longer my friend
- I forgot to put the right spacing in my essay. That's it, there goes my A in this course.
Other names for the distortion are magnifying, and negative fortune telling.
We get what catastrophizing is now and it's likely we all do it, some more than others. But how do we tackle this, how do we stop assuming the worst possible outcome?
We can do this by engaging in the following:
(Taken from Glen’s post on How to Worry Less and Not Panic)
- What are the odds: On a scale of 1-100%, how likely is this to happen? “Okay, if I had $1000 in my pocket now, would I bet that $1000 that this would happen?” If the answer is no, then it is likely that I am worrying too much about it.
- Your Personal Hit Rate: Think about how often you are right when you think of the worst-case scenarios. Don’t be selective and remember the times you were right, try to think of all the times. Chances are it's less than 2%. Then does it make sense to consider something as true when your past predicting success rate is just 2%?
To truly practice reframing your thoughts when it comes to this cognitive distortion. Let's experiment for a week together!
- Start a doc/take out a notebook.
- Write down your personal hit rate on top of the doc/page so you can remember your level of accuracy as you look at your daunting problems.
- Every time you are thinking of the worst outcome, write down what is on your mind.
- Then write down another opposing (positive thought) that you believe to be true. This can be hard but if you think enough, you will find it! It helps to look into facts to support your case
Due to the nature of these exercises, it is advisable that any interested listeners use their member accounts so they can freely share their experiences.
What we are attempting to do is to nudge our minds away from jumping to the worst possible conclusions and present some realistic alternatives that cause us less anguish.
📢Points of Action:
- Find out your personal hit rate, don’t just assume, look into your past and get an accurate percentage.
- Counter your catastrophic thoughts with counter-positive thoughts based on logic/facts/experience.
- After practicing this with at least one thought. Tell us about your experience with this exercise.
📝To help us get started. Let's all share about a time when we truly believed the worst possible outcome or a very bad outcome was likely but it did not happen.
Recommended Resources:
- Forum Post: How to Worry Less and Not Panic
- Book: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Chapter 1) (the book is long, the most relevant chapter to this post is Chapter 1).
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Thank you for the article @Hope, I especially value the mental exercise with the probability in %, I'll definitely practice it.
@mish3l
Glad you found it helpful. Let us know how it goes with the practicing
@Hope I tried to apply the percentage approach a couple of times and it's definitely better than without :) Thanks again!
I thought I was gonna fail my final exam, but I passed them!
Now I feel like I'm never gonna find a new job, but I know I will find a job. It might not be perfect, but it will be temporary anyway. There are so many job offers, so they'll have to take me somewhere.
@smolLITTLEpotato
Congratulations on passing your exam. I love the realistic counter thought. Agreed, it is highly likely you will find a job!
Update: I just found a job and it's one of my dream jobs too! I am so happy! I will add this to my calculations :DD
@Hope Unfortunately, most of your post is just black in the app, and cannot be read. I'm not sure what kind of formatting causes this, I think it must be the coloring. Could you try not to use whatever you used, except for the green text, which is kind of readable, until at some far away point in the future someone can tackle the broken CSS in the app?
@cloudySummer Summer, please try now! It is readable now! <3 Thank you for letting us know.
@ASilentObserver Indeed, thanks!
This is a powerful exercise. Thank you
@Hope
I feared that I would fail class 10 but I thankfully didn’t and passed.
I recently finished my exams and I thought that I will fail in all of them (because I was not able to study properly) but I have gotten marks in 1 subject and I passed and now I think I was worrying for nothing and that I will pass in other 4 too.
I want to go abroad for college (something like Stanford or Oxford) so I hope that I am able to. Let’s see how it goes
@tidyHickory3283
It is great to hear that you passed your exams. Congratulations, thank you for sharing with us. We are rooting for you
@Hope
Thank you! ❤️ 🤗
@Hope Thank you so much for this post. I do find this exercise kinda helpful. It does work a lot of times.
Speaking of a time when I really thought a very bad outcome was likely but didn't happen, I once embarrassed myself in front of the entire class. I truly believed everyone would hate me for that. I don't know, they might hate me on the inside, but nobody's openly made fun about me for that or asked me anything about that situation and I have never heard anyone gossip about that situation. Everyone in class treats me like they normally do, and I am super duper grateful for that. 😊
@exuberantBlackberry9105
That is a great and relatable real-life example. I believe we all have felt the same way at times. But when we think about it, we have not made fun of or really paid that much attention when someone else did something that maybe seen as embarrassing. But for some reason, we make things harder for ourselves by worrying about it.
Thank you for reflecting with us
@Hope
Speaking of a time where I catastrophized was when I got my grades back from 8th grade. They were very bad, and for me it was the worst I'd ever done. I was scared and I vividly remember saying "this isit. You can't recover from this. Say goodbye to med school." I was really struggling that year with my mental health and family issues, both of which I knew weren't gonna get better.
After 9th grade I had completely reversed my grades and gotten everything back on track. Things weren't over.
It's really hard to quiet those voices in my head, but I find I can't let them win either.
Could you tag me in the whole series? Thanks
@Hope thanks
