The delicate, (And horrible) Art of ‘Catastrophisation’

[wannabefreeParticipant]

I learnt about this from a book by Dr David Burns, called ‘Feeling good, the new mood therapy’. It has helped me a lot, and I think it is still possible to get it on ebay.

Catastrophisation’ is when we take an issue or situation, that can be tiny to start with, and blow it up out of all proportion, making something up into a catastrophe… The worst it can possibly be, within our minds ability to imagine it.

I still do this sometimes, or feel it starting…

For instance, this morning I needed to place some items up into our loft space at home. I sorted the step-ladder, got the hatch open, and started placing stuff up there for dry storage. When it was all done, I had a cup of coffee, sitting on one of our ‘best’ chairs in the living room, and relaxing. My mind then remembered the loft insulation material, that could have got on my hair or the back of my shirt… So now it is on the chair… My head resting back on the cushions… My daughter will sit there tomorrow, and the grandchildren, it will be in her car, her house… And so on… SSTTOPP! In truth, if there ever could be anything, it certainly won’t be enough to even get on my chair in the first place… So the worry is only going to distress me, even ruin my day…

So… We have to jam the thoughts before they become anything at all… And anyway, the grandchildren only come a couple of times a month… What else do they come into contact with, on a daily basis, between visits? We have to put our brakes on hard… Give those thoughts no significance, no power… Jam the whirring gears, metaphorically speaking… Spanner in the works comes to mind here. Refuse to allow the thing to become an issue, let alone a Catastrophe.

I’m still drinking that same cup of Coffee right now!

Washing hands… Can be a good thing, can be a not so good thing…

Let me explain… Ordinarily, we wash our hands periodically, to keep them nice and reasonably clean.

With Contamination OCD, we can ‘Overwash’ our hands, making the skin cracked and sore. The natural oils in our skin form a protective barrier, to keep us safe. Ironically, in these times of pandemic, If we excessively over sanitise our hands, we could be killing off the ‘good guys’ as well. This may, or may not be how allergies start. Anyway… When we make a cheese sandwich, for instance, it is very likely, in our lifetime anyway, will never have washed the cheese packet… Or the bread bag, Or the butter dish/pack… Has that ever, in our lifetime made us ill? As babies and children crawling about on the floor, we touched everything, and actually also strengthened our natural defences/immunity. We buy food in the supermarket, and it all goes through the checkout… and we pay, sometimes with cash… The checkout operator will have handled absolutely everything, not just my stuff, but the many customers before me… Stuff they’ve handled between picking their noses, or going into the toilets, where many don’t wash, and then we all have to pull handles to return to the main store… Everything is on everything, and has been for years. And now it is once again on my cheese sandwich… By the way, it tasted lovely!

‘Overwashing’… Each time we repeat it, sure, we ‘clean’ our hands, but we also, by so doing, actually put more emphasis, and more power, to the idea that the last item touched could have ever been ‘Dangerous’, in the first place, setting ourselves up for feeling guilty… But what of? Wash hands ‘Once Only’, and not between individual items… We give others the right to do that… Think of that evidence, next time you are in a Cafe eating ‘finger food’… They don’t get shut down… And they may actually have the ‘Cleanest’ toilets available. But not everyone around us will have washed or sanitised their hands…Wannabe</span>

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