Catastrophizing

I’m the poster child for this when it comes to my moods.

What this means in my case is that I tend to freak the heck out and think that I am in all kinds of trouble or danger or whatever with no real evidence to support it.

This has been especially true for the last two weeks.

I’ve been like Chicken Little screaming that the sky was falling, (and believing it), because my depression has felt so out of control.

The thing is, what I do have lots of evidence of is taking care of myself through depressive episodes and staying safe on the other side. I have one sketchy example from 22 years ago of not taking care of myself, and I still let that haunt me.

I also used the hospital a lot to help get through many of the depressive episodes in the past, so it’s scary to fight one on my own. There’s no reason to go to the hospital though. I don’t need to be there. It’s just an essential default for when I reach a certain emotional state and I need to break that cycle and learn to cope with them on my own.

I have a great support team that won’t let anything happen to me and I won’t let anything happen to myself. I just get scared of my own brain and then don’t know what’s coming next.

The truth is though, it’s pretty predictable. I’m much more predictable than I give myself credit for. I don’t break rules. I don’t disappoint people. I don’t hurt people (intentionally) and I don’t act out in unsafe ways. I just don’t. That’s not what I do.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t have to stomp on Chicken Little every fifteen seconds because I’m still scared and remind myself of these things. Fear doesn’t make any of the rational stuff above less true. It’s the rational stuff that will eventually calm the fear and stop the squawking for good.

Image from Pixabay.