catastrophising

[trampoline123]

I've always been quite easy breezy, until I had children.

I get the most awful thoughts in my head of things that could happen, I'm aware I'm catastrophising and can snap myself out of it but I think it's getting harder to do that.

Examples are for example last night I was planning what we'd do if Russia attacked Britain - we need to get New Zealand passports (their dad is from NZ) so they can go there at the first thing of trouble, I'd have to hunker down and move to Wales until I can get a visa to NZ blah blah. Need to keep the car full with petrol and with bags ready to go.

Or there's a fire and I can only save one of the kids.

I am scared to go on holiday incase the plane crashes and we all die.

These are all in my head and I don't show this on the outside but my thoughts are keeping me awake at night more and more and I'm wondering at which point is it not a normal level?

My mum has become very anxious as she's got older but generally around health and I don't want to end up like that.

It's interesting (on an intellectual basis) that the things you are catastrophising about are things totally out of your control. If Russia did attack the UK there wouldn't be any flights, never mind visas. You can mitigate the risk of a fire but you can't do anything about plane crashes. Do you feel generally in control of the things you can influence, your day to day life?

Also, was your mum anxious while you were growing up?

There's also other things, for example my partner works some weekends and I think what if I had a heart attack and died and the boys would be calling for me and they wouldn't be able to get food and the eldest one might try and climb the kitchen tops and fall and hit his head - that type of thing.

I do tend to get overwhelmed but am generally in control, but maybe too much control as I'm the organiser of the house, food shop, life admin etc.

No, she started with it when I was at university and I've not moved back home since so I wasn't around it growing up.

You're right, it's all things I have no control of.

If this is really distressing you you could consider therapy but - as you mention in your OP - if you can snap yourself out of the negative daydreaming you could try deliberately replacing these thoughts with more positive ones.

What I do when I find myself on the edge of a "OMG what if..." doom spiral is to actively switch my thoughts to "OMG what if my lottery/Euromillions numbers come up this week?" This begin a far more pleasant (and equally highly unlikely!) daydream of what I would do, how my life would change and how I could help other people.

Knowing that your thoughts aren't facts is a big step to dismissing them as harmless.

The absolute best thing I have found for my catastrophising thoughts is to give them a time and a place. For me what works best is a short time that is limited by an external factor. My favourite times have been my walk home from work when it was about 15 minutes, whilst in the shower or whilst doing the washing up.

When trying to remove them completely they get very loud and they just don't understand why I'm not getting very worried about the very real possibility about xyz. I try to have a conversation with them as if they are another person the back and forth can stop the spirals. When I get to the end of the activity I say are you done? Is that the best you have?

It does require good support in the day to day life but try giving and sticky to a time for day when the thoughts are allowed to voice their fears and shut them down the rest of the time.

The amount of time I was wasted on imaginary terrorist attacks, family members dying general tragedy and drama is unreal. The real kicker is I have generally been very unfortunate and things that should never happen have happened to people semi close to me. Talking helps. There's a situation currently which is anxiety provoking and in previous incarnation of myself I would be spiralling into despair but I'm having a few counselling sessions with my HV whilst it's around which is helping

It's about control. Once you have dc you feel like you have lost control. You can't protect them. You can't control all aspects of life.
The obvious thing is therapy. CBT focusing on lack of control issues.
If you can't access that, try reading online resources.

Thank you all for the tips, I will try brining in more positive thoughts and having chats with the more dramatic side of my imagination and see how I go.

It's also really nice to know it's not just me.