Catastrophizing, the worst possible scenario

Anyone else?
When i drive, i fear car will break down.
When I’m out of my house,
I fear burglars will break into my house
and steal my books.
And so on so on so on

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I’m the EXACT same. It’s very draining.

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I am obsessed with burglars
taking my favourite books.
Everyone says thieves don’t take books.
I know, but I can’t help it

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I think the worst about everything that has to do with me. It’s exhausting. I try to stop the thoughts because I always feel like they will come true if I think about them. I know that isn’t true, but man does that delusion stick.

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Catastrophizing is a CBT thought distortion. Here is a decatastrophizing worksheet based on CBT.

Sometimes trying to work out your problems in a rational manner helps control irrational thoughts and feelings.

fwiw I’ve had my car break down numerous times. I call the tow truck and get it towed to my mechanic. The expensive of fixing the car sucks but everything was okay, nothing to catastrophize about.

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Ooops, that link didn’t work, I just fixed it.

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Is catasrophizing the same as all or nothing thinking?

No, that is a different thought distortion.

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There is a lot of info about CBT thought distortions online:

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Ok so what are all of the thought distortions?

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See that link I just posted, there are 15 of them.

“All or nothing thinking” is a thought distortion, but I just checked and for some reason it is missing from that list. EDIT: Never mind, they called it polarization, same thing.

Research CBT online. There is a ton of information on various websites. And different websites have different information or different ways of explaining it.

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I’ve used that same worksheet! I’m like king of catastrophizing! I’m always thinking, if THIS happens, then THAT could happen…

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