Why Do I Always Seem to Assume the Worst?
Dear Consumed by Thought,
I see you understand yourself very well—better than most people do, in fact, and I think your understanding comes from your intellectual abilities, which I believe are way above average. You’re quite blessed to have this capacity, but the mind alone is not capable of changing this style of processing.
You write that you are in a relationship, and I wonder how your partner is impacted by your distortions, and how you deal with that together. You say that you obsess that your partner may be cheating, though there is no evidence that this is true. If you’re feeling unwanted, you might ask for excessive reassurance, which rarely works for very long to calm anxiety and which can be annoying to others. How does your partner react to your fears? Does your partner know ways to help? If not, couples counseling might be good for both of you.
Listen to the way you talk to yourself—what you say about yourself to yourself. Perhaps you berate yourself as you lose patience with your repetitive and catastrophizing thoughts. Be kind, as kind as you probably are to others. Remember that charity begins at home, and exercise compassion. And practice ways to so soothe yourself, perhaps through restorative yoga or long walks or jogs.
Finally, your obsessions may be an indication of obsessive compulsion, which often runs in families, and treatment can help effectively manage this. One way to treat obsessive thoughts is with cognitive behavioral therapy, during which people are exposed to situations that they are afraid of until they gradually become less sensitized. Psychodynamic psychotherapy with someone who specializes in helping people reach their unconscious feelings and work them out in relationship with the therapist might be ideal, or you might want to work with an art therapist or even a psychoanalyst.
Anti-anxiety or antidepressant medications benefit some people, too, but if you and your doctor decide that this is your path, you must be carefully monitored by a psychiatrist. If you do take medication, you might consider combining this with some form of psychotherapy.
Thank you very much for consulting GoodTherapy.org; I wish you a successful journey!
Kind regards,
Lynn
Lynn Somerstein
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Reese
September 20th, 2013 at 11:43 AMI would kind of like to know how you were brought up. Is this how you were raised, to always assume that the bottom was about to drop out because those are the people whom I have always found in life who always think that the worst is about to happen. You don’t drive me a little bit crazy but I do like to have people who are a little bit more upbeat in my life and I am sure that your partner feels the same and I am guessing that you kind of want to change a little too or you wouldn’t be writing in, right? This is something that can be changed you just kind of have to change your perspective and how you view life. Things aren’t always going to happen with a negative spin if you try to see them from a little bit more of a sunnier side.
Dr. Lynn Somerstein
September 21st, 2013 at 7:08 AMDear Reese,
It’s true that the sunny side is warmer and more optimistic, I agree with you totally on this, and I wonder if you can try to see the letter written by “Consumed by Thought” from the sunny side too; you seem angrier than you probably intend. I have a feeling that you may know quite a bit about this issue.Nell
September 21st, 2013 at 9:58 AMJust because you assume the worst does not make you a bad person- you just may not have yet discovered the ebst ways to cope with unpleasant situations in life yet.
There are so many better ways that you could find to cope with things, but instead I get the sense that you spend a lot of time and energy worrying about things that really don’t deserve all of that attention.
I would like to encourage you to try a few things a little differently, that might make you feel better, mand once this becomes habitual for you then you may find it easier to see things from a new perspective instead of always from teh angle of the worst thing imaginable.
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