Rebutting Catastrophizing

At the recommendation of my Med-Shrink, I am reading the book "The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook". I am reading a part right now about rebutting various cognitive distortions. One of them is catastrophizing, which basically seems to be blowing something so out of proportion that it seems like the end of the world, unconquerable, unendurable. I find myself doing this a lot. I will start to worry about something and before I know it, it has me all riled up and seriously freaked out.

There is a technique that I've learned that really helps me. It calms me down and lets me start thinking rationally again. I look at the situation that has me freaking out and ask myself what is the worst thing that could happen. Once I've acknowledged the worst thing, I ask myself what I would do then. Once I make a plan for handling the worst case, I don't obsess with worry over it anymore.

For example, the papers I just did for school. I was so worried about not getting them done on time that I paralyzed myself and couldn't write them. So I asked myself what would be the worst thing that could happen. The answer: I wouldn't get the papers done in time and would get an F in course. That would be truly horrible. BUT... if I got an F in the course, I can always retake it and it would disappear out of my GPA. Now the worst case isn't a scary, shadowy, mystery any more and I can focus. (BTW, I got the papers written. I actually got As on them and therefore in the class but because I was prepared to cope with any grade I received, the fear didn't paralyze me any more.)

This really works for me. It gets me unstuck out of the paralyzing fear of failure. But it bothers people if I try to involve them. They say that I'm being pessimistic. Or they just tell me that I won't fail and how much faith they have in me. It doesn't matter if I tell them that I just need to know it will be okay if I do fail; all they tell me is that I won't fail. I've never been able to get them to see that planning for the worst helps me stop freaking out about whether or not it will come to pass.

So when I read this part in the book about rebutting catastrophizing, I was shocked (in a good way). On page 166, it says,

"There are many rebuttals to this pervasive distortion:" [snip]

Think, "OK, let's assume the worst really is happening or will happen. What will I do then?" There is something calming about fully facing the worst, accepting that it could happen or is happening, and then determine what you would do to improve upon the worst. Turn a "What if..." to an "If... then..." (If such and such happens, then I'll do such and such to make the best of the situation and salvage what I can.) [snip]

It goes on to talk about asking what if the worst doesn't happen. I change that just slightly to read more like, "So if the worst happens, I can handle it. That means I don't have to be afraid now. So what can I do to make sure the worst DOESN'T happen?

The moral of the story is, the coping device that I use frequently but that people don't think is a good one turns out to be a good idea after all. Maybe if I show this part of the book to the people who want to tell me nothing except that the worst WON'T happen, they will understand what I am trying to do and how they can help me with it...