Causal Catastrophizing
I will enlarge upon the examples provided by the experts in order to sketch out this category of catastrophizing. Let us consider Beck's woman on the airplane, convinced that the plane will crash and she will be killed. I find this example to be distressingly crude. Even if one is in mid-air, dreading each shudder and lurch of the plane, one should be capable of a better showing. Catastrophizing should draw upon as many discrete worries as possible, and do so in a sustained manner. If the fruits of your catastrophizing can be expressed in one brief sentence, you're not working hard enough.
Causal catastrophizing builds upon the relationship between cause and effect:
Causal catastrophizing builds upon the relationship between cause and effect:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost;
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
For want of a rider, the battle was lost;
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost;
For want of a horse, the rider was lost;
For want of a rider, the battle was lost;
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost;
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
This traditional rhyme dramatizes the idea that something seemingly small and unimportant can set in motion a chain of events that climaxes in a great calamity. Let's translate this into the realm of catastrophizing and imagine the thoughts of a woman who has woken up late because she neglected to set her alarm:
Because I forgot to set my alarm, I overslept and will be late for work;
Because I'm late for work, my superior will think I'm irresponsible;
Because my superior thinks I'm irresponsible, I will be fired;
Because I am the kind of person who forgets to set my alarm, I will be unemployed for a long period of time;
Because I am unemployed for a long period of time, I will become depressed and poverty-stricken.
Because I forgot to set my alarm, I overslept and will be late for work;
Because I'm late for work, my superior will think I'm irresponsible;
Because my superior thinks I'm irresponsible, I will be fired;
Because I am the kind of person who forgets to set my alarm, I will be unemployed for a long period of time;
Because I am unemployed for a long period of time, I will become depressed and poverty-stricken.
This kind of thought-chain can be extended nearly indefinitely ("Because I will become depressed, my husband will leave me..." etc...). I say "nearly", because in many cases, it is forced up against an immovable endpoint: death. The death of the individual marks the end of catastrophizing and as such is both a relief and a scourge, because it is, of course, the understandable inspiration for the most catastrophisms and because it marks the end of your very own life. Take comfort, though, in the fact that while you are still alive and catastrophizing, you can use your death as the jump-off point for another series of shattering events, all tracing their origins back to your personal failures while alive.
Don't forget: a dutiful catastrophizer never misses an opportunity to imaginatively expand those personal failures through associative catastrophizing!
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