This week, I learned in therapy that there’s a thing that a number of people who struggle with anxiety are prone to doing. It’s called “catastrophizing.” I didn’t learn that I do it, so much as I learned there was a name for something I’ve always known that I do.
Essentially, catastrophizing is when something happens and your mind responds by immediately imagining the worst possible scenario. For example – and for a glimpse into my brand of crazy – every time Sean doesn’t answer his phone, I automatically imagine that he’s been in a fatal car accident and can’t answer his phone.
Of course, that’s a very extreme example, and one that is easier for me to handle. While I can’t prevent that thought from crossing my mind – and I will often call another time or five, text him, and check the news to see if there have been any major car accidents, just to cover all my bases – I can usually also fairly quickly apply logic to the situation and reach the more rational conclusion that he just really sucks at answering his phone.
Importantly: I am able to do that because I have a lot of experience with it. I know Sean quite well, and I know just how much he sucks at answering his phone. So, because I have that experience to draw from, it’s easy for me to bring my mind back down to a more rational place. (And then ease it into a state of irritability, because seriously, bro… answer your phone.)
When it comes to pregnancy, this is all new for me.
I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this: catastrophizing is something I’ve done a lot throughout my pregnancy. In fact, it’s what ultimately led to me finally taking the step to start seeing a therapist.
Pregnancy does a lot of weird things to your body. The first time around, it’s really hard to differentiate between which feelings are normal, and which are cause for concern.
The internet doesn’t help. Anyone who’s ever been on WebMD knows that symptoms can mean anything from “you should just take some NyQuil and sleep it off” to “you should probably tell your loved ones what you want them to do with your prized Beanie Baby collection before it’s too late.” That same thing applies to pregnancy symptoms. So, I catastrophize a lot of them.
A little over a month ago, I casually mentioned to my nurse that “my stomach gets really hard right here sometimes.” This was one of the rare things I hadn’t catastrophized (spoiler alert: yet). I honestly thought it was because I was feeling Charlie reposition her head or something, but the look that flashed across my nurse’s face told me I just how wrong I was. She told me to tell my doctor, who then – way too casually for the situation, I feel – says, “oh… that’s a contraction.”
It’s fine, I didn’t panic. (That’s so much sarcasm, in case you couldn’t tell.)
He tells me it’s “normal” but that if it happens more than four times in an hour, I should come in, because it might be preterm labor.
It’s. Totally. Fine.
Two days later, at about 11:00 at night, the “hardening” sensation happens again.
And again. And again. Or.. I think it does? I don’t actually know. It’s really difficult to tell when one “contraction” is ending and another one is beginning – so I’m not sure if it’s happened four times in an hour or if it’s just been one or two long ones. Do I go in? Am I just being paranoid? Should I bother Sean and make him drive me all the way down to Panorama’s ER just so they can tell me I’m being paranoid? Or should I ignore it and go to sleep? What if I ignore it and it really is something. What if I don’t go in and something horrible happens to her? What if I lose her and I could have done something about it but I didn’t because I was afraid of inconveniencing everyone?
What if I lose her? What if I lose her?
This stream of consciousness is just a small segment of what went through my mind in the span of a millisecond… and I completely lost control. My emotions went into a total tailspin and I could no longer breathe or think rationally. All I could do was panic.
My panic attack lasted about an hour. I eventually regained my normal breathing pattern, drank some water, and was able to relax a bit, but I hardly slept that night and was an emotional wreck the entire next day. Literally, someone simply looked at me and I broke into tears.
I did eventually make an impromptu trip to the doctor just to make sure everything was fine. It was, I was fine and Charlie was fine, and despite what my mind told itself that night, I did not feel sorry for inconveniencing anyone and was glad I made the trip to confirm that everything was fine.
But it had a very profound effect on me. While I’ve always known that my mental struggles were a problem, they were really only an annoyance that I learned to accept – something that simply just made life a bit more difficult for me (and Sean, bless him) every now and then. After that night, I realized that the stakes are now so much higher: my tendency to catastrophize things and push myself into a state of panic prevented me from being able to think and make rational decisions regarding the well-being of my daughter.
And I refuse to accept that. So, I scheduled my first therapy appointment the very next day.
My homework this week is to keep track of how many times I catastrophize something, and log the context so that I can talk it out next week. I’m hoping it will result in some kind of clarity as to why I do this thing, and how I can potentially prevent it.
For now, though, Charlie is practicing her gymnastics, we got a mattress for her crib today, and the Kings are actually winning a game, so I’ll revel in the contentedness while it lasts.
Moms The Word 