Why do we assume the worst?

Exploring our natural tendency to catastrophise, and offering some (learned the hard way) advice...

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

It can feel like anxiety has transfused into my bones. Like my blood has been replaced by something fizzy, and chaotic, that runs through me, causing havoc wherever it goes. I’ve found myself, at times, standing, feet firm on the ground when a whoosh of imagined stress has whizzed through me, and it’s as if I’ve been knocked away, and I’m now floating within the air.

I’ve looked out into the inky night, fear gripping my throat, knowing, for sure, my husband’s legs are crushed under a bus. I’ve typed ‘stabbings Soho’ into the search bar of Twitter, frantically scanning the results, oh-so-afraid I’ll see a loved one, laying in a pile of blood. I’ve had to dart into shop doors, to swallow down tears, interrupting my journey to work, as my brain took me, so vividly I could feel the pew beneath me, into my dad’s funeral.

I had begun to accept this ‘something bad is going to happen’ precipice that I exist on. Hovering, always, just above the abyss. Darting my eyes around the corners of my life, in the hope of scaring away whatever lays in that dark. I knew where it came from, it was simple. My mum was fine. Then she wasn’t. Then she died. Of course, that’s going to flip my once-bright thinking. In the years that followed I struggled to trust the ground beneath my feet, to trust my phone when it rang.

But now I’m approaching 40, and my life, and the life of those around me, is developing more cracks. Our health, or the health of our parents, is faltering. Relationships have begun to splinter. We wait within the flames, wondering if we’ll be forged from them. Or… will they turn us to ash?

I’ve learned that my precipice is common, it’s something we all teeter on. Over these recent years, I’ve begun to hear a common refrain: ‘why can’t I stop thinking the worst?’ We all, it seems, create a catastrophe out of the unknown. But, the thing is, as life comes pelting at us at full speed, this isn’t just pessimism, there’s a grounding in reality that (for the lucky) wasn’t there before. With each year collected, we’ve watched the worst actually happen. Our imaginations can create a reality painted from our histories. So, what can be done? Can anything be done? Or should I just carry on accepting my precipice? Particularly when, at this age, it can feel like just the beginning… there’s a whole host of experiences, and tragedies, to be collected.

In my journalism work I’ve been known to seek out solutions. To interview psychologists, medical professionals, all manners of ‘experts’ for actionable advice to a problem. I’d write in briefs, when commissioning writers, “the reader should be able to go away and do three things, straight away, in their life after finishing the article.” Or, if that wasn’t possible, I’d seek out the why. Looking for a reason behind our feelings, a pattern within human life that showed we weren’t abnormal. That this was a reaction.

I don’t like to do that with this newsletter. I prefer to say: ‘this is how I’m feeling, do you feel it too?’ But the catastrophising has become such a theme of late, and, admittedly, at times too much to bear, I went looking for a solution. About two pages into Google I remembered why I don’t like to do this, why I choose, on my own time and in my own newsletter, to not try to find the ‘why’ or what can fix us.

Firstly, I’m not very good at it. I glaze over when reading through scientific, psychological papers. I skim read and get lost in the language. There will be people, trained people, who can break down all of that research and present it to you in a concise way. I’m not that person. So, before I get to the next part, the part where I (slightly) slag off what I’ve found, please note I didn’t look very hard. I’m sure there’s practical advice out there, just what I did see I found (for these circumstances) pretty useless.

‘Catastrophising’ is actually the official term for this way of thinking. But so much of the advice around catastrophising involved students freaking out about failing exams, or going into job interviews and not getting the jobs. The articles beginning this way made me want to scream GET SOME REAL PROBLEMS and slam my laptop shut. ‘Catastrophising’ is damaging as it stops people from seeking out new experiences, from properly living etc etc etc, blah blah blah…

I’m being unfair here. Really unfair. Particularly as catastrophising is linked to anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions. I’ve no doubt that constantly picturing the worst case in all scenarios is draining and limiting. But catastrophising is also linked to trauma, those of us who have good reason to imagine the worst, because we’ve seen it. Those of us who know that, as we get older, there’s a lot more to worry about than job interviews or exams. That often, the things that wait around the corner, are not just one-day and done, phew that’s over, type deals but instead long, drawn out circumstances that cause anxiety to bury itself under our skins. Things with unpredictable, unknown outcomes that we wake up to, some days feeling stronger than others to face.

The problem is, so much advice, is blanket. Some works, some doesn’t. For example, I can confirmation bias my way into thinking I am someone who ‘bad things happen to’ but… my husband has never been found under a lorry. So many of my imagined scenarios did not happen. In those cases, I can remind myself that my thoughts aren’t reality, and flip my brain onto another, more positive scenario. This works for the more outlandish catastrophising, that’s rooted in general panic, rather than any fact.

But then there are the times when fears are justified. What then? A few years ago, I visited multiple doctors for a variety of symptoms. I knew something wasn’t right inside, but, at the same time, I also knew there was a possibility that my ‘something bad is going to happen’ attitude could have led to not being able to properly inhabit and assess my own body. I was, eventually, booked in for a scan and I decided if they didn’t find anything, I’d seek out therapy for this worst-case-scenario anxiety.

They found something. There was a really, really big cyst growing on my ovary! It needed operating on. We were in the middle of a pandemic, it couldn’t be, for months. They’d mentioned that the cyst could be cancerous, that it was so big that, by removing it, I could also lose my ovary. Waiting for that operation, my mind went dark. Statistically, I had good odds. But, realistically, from what I’d seen happen in the past, when alien objects are found lurking within the body, they kill. I could not think positively. I drank so much I fell out of taxis, and woke up bruised. There were other factors at play (including lockdown) but my past loved to tap me on the shoulder, and hiss in my ear, “there’s only one way this goes.”

The view from my hospital bed, after my cyst twisted (and they STILL didn’t operate on it)

My nervous system, I’ve now read, will have been in a constant state of fight-or-flight. Perhaps I should have sought out more calming techniques, like more yoga, meditation, chamomile tea (caffeine apparently spikes our nerves even more.) Instead I sought out: white wine and poor decisions (so I could worry about them, rather than what was really going on.) This did not help. (Did I really need to tell you that?!) It did not make the time passing easier, and… it turns out… I really was catastrophising. I was fine. It was not cancer. I still have both ovaries.

If you’re reading this and you’re thinking, well GOOD FOR YOU but MY THING IS DEFINITELY THE REALLY BAD THING, WHY THE FUCK HAVE YOU TOLD ME THIS, ULTIMATELY HAPPY ENDING STORY GO AWAAAAAYYYY. I get it, at times when typing it I’ve thought ‘why am I telling this story, is it even helpful?’ But I’m telling it as I, looking back, learned from that period of ultimate extreme catastrophising. I learned that a) my behaviour was natural but b) it wasn’t the smartest of behaviours.

I read (in this article) that our brains are like smoke detectors. Imagine you hear your fire alarm go off, do you think – oh, I’ve left the toaster on, or do you think, god damn the house is on fire? (um.. the latter). Either way, you go and find out. In day-to-day life uncertainties are like smoke. Your job is to figure out what’s causing the smoke, and respond accordingly.

The reality is we don’t know what the smoke is, until we know what the smoke is. And life isn’t as simple as seeing burnt crumbs in a toaster and feeling relieved. So much of our lives are spent waiting, and having absolutely no idea what’s going to arrive. We try to protect ourselves by imagining what could happen, but this only really works if you can accurately predict what awaits. I wish I could have recognised that, back then. I’d find myself endlessly Googling stories of people like me who did lose their ovary, who did have cancer. I thought ‘fuck it’ what’s the point in even trying to calm myself down, I chose to live in the panic. I don’t blame myself for being this way but if I could time-hop back I’d remember the following…

(mostly writing this all down as I will need it in the future.)

• Pouring white wine on anxiety is like pouring oil onto flames. You’re seeking release, a numbness, I get it, but it can be found elsewhere – weight lifting, spinning to Taylor Swift, inside a really engrossing thriller…

• Go help others. After this period of madness, I sought out volunteering. It’s too hard to explain how it has helped me, without worrying I sound like a dick head, but it really does help me, in a myriad of ways, every shift that I do.

• Try healthy denial. My wise friend Amy Grier (who recently wrote this piece) reminded me that denial is only unhealthy if you know the outcome and are pretending that you don’t (and even then, sometimes, you just have to embrace it for a while.) When you don’t know, and you’re just guessing what the smoke is, tell yourself it’s just the toaster, flip your brain to the most positive scenario. This isn’t me trying to toxic positivity your very real, very natural fears, it’s OK to be afraid, to think the worst, as despite what multiple manifestation TikTokers will have you believe, your thoughts are just thoughts. But the thing is, bad news will always be bad news, whether you were prepared for it or not. Your thoughts can’t change the future. What they can do is change your present moment, making it much worse. So whenever your brain goes there, think of the best possible outcome. IT’S JUST TOAST CRUMBS.

• Plan worry time. This is something I used to do, and I got out of the habit of it as I found it felt a little self-indulgent and woe-is-me. But WOE-IS-YOU, if you’re going through something shit it’s OK to feel shit. Allow yourself it. Let your mind go to those horrendous places, just not all the time. I like to cry in the bath. You need to release how you’re feeling, I’ve pushed it all down too many times to know it does come out in other ways. It’s totally fine if it does, if you do behave unhealthily, but – if and when you can – let it all out, in a controlled way (btw… a friend of mine told me her therapist even advised this, so it’s legit advice too.)

• Watch Friends/Gilmore Girls/whatever your watch-a-million-times show is. I can’t remember the study, but essentially it can provide the same brain-switching-off rest that meditation does, but it’s (especially for meditation novices) much easier. Also, as we’ve watched it so many times before, we know exactly what’s going to happen. It helps to have one area of life, even if that area is just our TV screen, where there isn’t uncertainty.

Anyway, I really hope my lived it advice helps, and didn’t make you cross. Ultimately, and grooooooan, this is a red pen cliché, you have to find out what works for you. I only really learned the above by doing the exact opposite. And hey, I’ll probably do the exact opposite again… probably some time soon. Life’s really hard. But if there’s one thing I do know, it’s that – even in the roughest of times, even when we don’t think we’re holding anything together – we are.

Do you have any advice? Or things that help when you’re catastrophising? Or things that really don’t help? Please let me know by sharing below!