.
I set off this morning with a list of jobs. We have guests arriving next week and I’m doing a few last minute things, you know, like having the spare room painted! I rang G this morning to tell him I hadn’t been able to get to the mall as there’d been a fire. As I drove closer to the building I could see they were diverting traffic and had closed the doors.
“Oh yeah, sorry, I should have rang you – I saw the firetrucks and ambulance outside when I was on my way to a meeting.” G knew I was heading there – we’d discussed it earlier that morning.
Ten minutes later, as I drove to the next location, it occurred to me that he obviously hadn’t pictured me blazing away inside the bedding section of Debenhams.
I would have.
I would have had him burnt to a crisp, me an immediate widow. I would have pictured me answering the door to find someone from the office with their head bowed. “I’m so sorry.”
And then I would have started planning.
What would I do? Who would I ring first? Would my parents come here or would it be better if G’s parents came? Would the children and I have to leave straight away or would the company let us stay in the house until we got organised? Where would we live? What sort of car would we get? We wouldn’t need a big car as they’d only be five of us.
I’ve done this a thousand times.
Late home from the office? Massive car crash. Take a little longer to whip to the shop for milk? I begin to envisage a guy with the balaclava and a gun madly grabbing clumps of cash from the register while G lays on the floor fighting for his life. If the beagle takes a longer walk than normal in the morning – I just know they’ve both been left for dead on the side of the road, a terrible hit and run.
Crazy. I know I’m crazy.
I remember reading an article years ago (when I was pregnant) about why pregnancy will make a woman worry more about the death of her partner. It was all about primal instinct – reverting back to our original roles of hunters and gatherers. And although the logic is a perhaps outdated, I get it. We become a little more vulnerable when we’re pregnant, we can’t run as fast, jump as high, or dodge the wild bear as well as we used to – but I had my last baby five years ago? And I know where the supermarket is.
If I had to, I could hunt and gather on my own. If I had to. I would be stoic and strong. I know – I’ve thought about it.
Is it possible that someone who lives in a state of change and adjustment, just needs to throw the worst possible scenario her way to feel like she has some control?
Kirsty Rice is an Australian writer and blogger currently living in Qatar. This piece was originally published on her blog, which you can find here. You can follow Kirsty on Twitter here.
Do you worry unnecessarily? Do you imagine the worst or are you fairly optimistic? Realistic even?
Side Note: Kerri Sackville has just released The Little Book of Anxiety – her recounts of anxiety are well worth reading. You can buy the book here.
Comments
115 Comments so far
I spoke with my counsellor at length about this exact behavior this week – she questioned why I need to imagine the worst case scenario, I explained it gives me a sense of control. I think if I imagine the worst it won’t happen or at least I’ve prepared mentally for it. I’ve faced A LOT over my life and I think it’s a bit of a protective mechanism.
The counsellor thinks its robbing yourself of just being in the moment and that you’re not in reality anymore, it’s catastrophising. When asked how many disasters I’ve imagined have come true…I realise this thinking
probably isn’t helpful.
It’s certainly very comfortable to know there’s a few of us out there….
loading...
My back is a little bit sore right now, and the other day I read an article about a woman diagnosed with early stage ovarian cancer and one of the symptoms was a sore back. Guess what I’m convinced I’ve got right now?
loading...
I do this ALL THE TIME. If he’s late from work, I can’t get him on the phone, I pretty much sit down and wait for the police knock on the door. By the time he does get home, I’ve pretty much mapped out teh rest of my life — where my daughter and I will move to, what we’ll have to do to this house to put it on the market, where she’ll go to school, who will adopt our border collie (because obviously there won’t be room for her in the tiny unit…)
It’s insane. I really don’t think men do this. I know he doesn’t.
loading...
Playing out worst case scenarios like those mentioned in the article and comments below can actually be symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) which is quite common. It runs in families and can manifest itself it many ways from perfectionist tendencies, hoarding stuff, checking things multiple times (eg checking kettle, iron is off, door is locked more than twice) and obsessive compulsive thoughts.
When I was little I would be freaking out and crying if my parents were more than 5 mins late home imagining them in a car accident. I did this with anyone I cared about, but it got worse when I met my now husband to the point where I would ring or text him if he was not home exactly when he said he’d be. He had phone issues before he changed networks and if his phone went straight to message bank, I would have him dead and burried.
I thought it was just me and didn’t want to tell people. Then 3 years ago I had a miscarriage and went to see a psychologist for grief counseling. One night after I came home from a session I spoke to my husband about how I wish I wouldn’t worry about everyone I loved dying all the time. He asked me to tell him what thoughts I had. I told him what goes through my head when people are late. In detail. This was the first time I’d ever told anyone of the dark scenarios that plagued me almost daily. He was shocked. He asked if I’d mentioned it to the psychologist, and when I said no, he recommended I bring it up with her.
So at our next session I told her. And how I often checked things multiple times. Turns out I’d been living with OCD all my life. She gave me strategies to mange it. It doesn’t control me anymore. I still have the thoughts pop into my head but I talk to myself out loud and say “OCD this is you not me, please go away, go away, go away”. It might sound a bit mad but it really stops it in its tracks for me and allows me to regain a rational perspective. I just I’d known how to deal with it before the age of 30 as it would have saved me years of unnecessary anxiety.
loading...
Thank you so so much for sharing that, its nice to know everyone on this page is like me, but its even nicer to know that you can actually DO something about it.
Thank you Thank you
loading...
This is me all over…
In fact just this morning while I was out walking I couldn’t shake the thought that I would get hit by a car and because I had nothing on me but my iPod they wouldn’t be able to identify me!! Crazy I know but that’s just todays example of the scenarios my brain likes to throw at me.
Also, mine is totally not a pregnancy/ mothering thing- I’m 25, single with no kids!!!
loading...
Not entirely crazy. My dad died without any id on him – he was out for a jog one lunch time. He didn’t come home and after a couple of hours mum started ringing hospitals. Mum finally found the hospital where he had been taken, by that stage it was about 8 hours since he’d died. It was probably another 2 hours before we got to the morgue to identify him. The police put a piece in the newspapers the next day asking for help identifying him (by the time we formally identified him the papers had gone to press) and dad’s aunt read it and knew it was dad. Now I never leave the house without id of some sort, i’d hate for my family to have to go through that again.
loading...
I do this too! This exact scenario. I thought it was just me being crazy, but I’m glad other people do it too!
loading...
Oh my lord. That’s me. ME! I don’t think it’s pregnancy related (well, clearly not now, anyway) and I don’t think it’s particular to women. And it doesn’t mean you’re crazy (because if you are, then I am, and I’m NOT). It’s anxiety. Jumping to worst case scenarios. Fretting about things that haven’t happenened (and probably never will). Agonising over things you’ve said or done. I could write at length about WHY we do it, but I kind of did that in the book, so I will just say it’s amazing how many of us are out there, and great post. Love. x
loading...
I do this too – worry that my husband has suffered a terrible accident if he takes too long to grab a coffee from up the road. I especially worry about my children dying these days. The children-dying worry is not even related to actual external triggers like a health problem. It usually happens when I’m having an extra special moment with them and am filled with love… then BOOM: “Imagine if one of them dies! What would I do if my child died?! How would I go on? Could I go on living for the other one??? I’d have to… but how could I? Would I screw up the other one forever with my grief? But then I’d screw them up if I killed myself too.” etc etc etc
loading...
i dont have to write my own comment – you’ve said exactly what i was going to say
loading...
I take a slightly more optimistic view on this issue. I worry as well sometimes and while I am much better at keeping it under control I have developed my own theory as to why I seem to reach for doom at certain times. I think people who have experienced distinct change in their lives, perhaps several times over, become tuned in to pending or possible change. Therefore we start planning – what would we do, who would we call, how would we move forward. Could it just be a sort of planning instinct that would help us should that event actually happen? My husband and I both have an individual plan should something unfortunate and unplanned happen to the other. I think that is a smart thing to do. I don’t know – perhaps it is just me!
loading...
Um … this is totally me. I could worry for Australia and would probably medal at the Olympics. Exactly everything you have described about Kirsty – I’ve done it
In fact, just last night I had to borrow my dad’s car so we drove to my parent’s house to get it. My husband and child drove home in our car and I drove home in dad’s. The whole way home I was worrying that something would happen to them just because I wasn’t in the same car as them and I would be left all alone!
loading...
In the first episode of Offspring this season when Nina was waiting for bad stuff to happen, I was laughing till I realised I do that all the time. My family has had a bad run over the past 15 or so years. Every time it feels like we are getting somewhere something has happened. I’m so tired of it, but now find myself expecting it. Things are good now, getting better and I still find myself expecting the earth to crack open again at any time.
Despite that I’m really a very happy person. There is just this little niggling negativity in the back of my mind. I guess it is a balance thing. As long as the negativity doesn’t make its way into affecting my daily life, it is ok.
loading...
I do this too! My husband is in the building industry. He leaves home at about 6am (sometimes much earlier) and if he doesn’t answer his phone or return my calls by lunch time I start to worry. By 3pm im in full blown panic mode imagining all the terrible things that could have happened. His current job is much less dangerous than some he’s worked on so im worrying less but I have still been known to plan in my head what I would do/how I’d cope.
loading...
Interesting. But I have to say I really dislike the whole ‘It’s because we were hunter-gatherers!’ mindset that people always pull out (‘women multitask because we were minding our cave children and making prehistoric salad and men are more singular-focused because they hunted mammoths!’). Did we all just stop developing then?
loading...
I totally understand Margaret’s comment. I have thought that i got a lot worse after the death of my parents 2 years apart, both were fine got sick went to hospital, dead 3 weeks later..the both of them. That sure makes you think about things differently
loading...
This is me to a tee – except its always about dire health consequences.
My 5y/o had a lump in her arm pit – I was convinced it was a swollen lymph node – and hence cancer – the terminal variety of course.
My 1 y/o was doing some weird stuff with her eyes and after asking Dr Google, as you do, it was a brain tumour – also of the terminal variety.
My 3 y/o had persistant ear infections. Which I didn’t dramatise. However, after hearing from my lawn guy that he’d lost his daughter to a brain tumour at age 5 and the way they found out was an ear infection that just wouldn’t go away….you can imagine what I thought.
I have 4 kids 5 and under so there are COPIOUS amount of things to worry about. Bit I am so, so grateful for their good health.
loading...
OMG, this could have been written by me ! lol
Thankyou, I am so glad that I am not the only one that thinks like this !
loading...
I’m not a worrier in any part of my life but I do often worry about my partner dying.
I play it all out in my head, how I would find out, what I would do, whether I’d continue to live in our house, what I’d say in his eulogy.
I think it’s a way for me to feel like I’m prepared for something that, if it ever happened, would destroy me.
loading...
My partner is an electrician in a mine.
‘Nuff said.
loading...
I am exactly the same! and since I’ve recently had my first baby too its got worse. plus, i always panic about her too. She makes a cough in her sleep and to me she’s got Whooping Cough, or has the blanket over her face and any minute now I’m going to hear the baby monitor breathing alarm go off, or its a cool night and she’s going to freeze – or overheat cause i dressed her too warmly. Sigh! No sleep for Mummy!
loading...
I am definitely a worrier, although i do try and keep it hidden inside! I worry everythime someone close to me goes on a long car trip. I worry about my little baby. I have only left him with someone else in my own home, but do fear the day when he will start going out with other people, even his dad as we generally do family stuff at the moment, and his grandparents. Although I trust these peopel completely and know they will look after him I will worry constantly. I cannot imagine how I will cope when it comes to school camps, sleepover or god forbid if he is invited to the beach by a friend.
I know when he does start going out with my mum, I will be like “rememver to strap him into the car seat/pram, dont leave him alone in bath, watch him on change table etc etc even though she has successfully raised 4 kids herself!
loading...
Im exactly the same.
I prepare for the worst, while obviously hoping for the best.
Admittedly, sometimes that preparation has done me a lot of good, for when the ‘worst’ does happen – but most of the time the ‘worst’ comes like such a blindside it would have been impossible to fathom a minute earlier.
loading...
Oh. My. God. I thought I was the only lunatic to do this. And I don’t even have children! I have fur kids, though – two cats – and one of them has a terminal illness. So, pretty much, every night on my way home from work, I run through the scenario of coming home to find her in death throes, and how the call and subsequent trip to the vet would play out (as I know it has to eventually). I also do it to myself, imagining breaking my ankle when I’m walking on cobblestones with too-high heels (what was I thinking?). If I get stuck sitting across a level crossing for 30 seconds, I begin to imagine the gates coming down, lights flashing and the insistent hoot of the train as it’s bearing down on me. Don’t even get me started about my 72 year old mother with a dodgy hip taking her life into her own hands every single day in a paddock full of hungry horses. She’s been knocked unconscious once before, ending up in the head injuries unit with a subdural haemorrhage. The image of her being trampled to death is not pretty … and she refuses to carry a phone with her – it might get broken. Sigh.
loading...
I made fun of my partner when she adopted an indoor-outdoor cat because she got insanely worried about letting her go outdoors (she’s an old cat) but if I’m at her house alone and let that damn cat outdoors I have one eye/ear turned to the door, imagining her hit by a car or lost or attacked by bigger cats
loading...
I am house sitting for a few weeks this month and taking care of 3 cats… Certain that one is going to get sick/lost/hit by a car…
loading...
Worst offender on earth! Ever.
I cannot begin to tell you how equipped I am to deal with any and every possible worst case scenario. Except that I’m probably not.
loading...
Lana, I have just giggled out loud, which would be fine if I wasn’t sitting alone in a coffee shop.
loading...
I can relate to this article and boy, did everything hit me last night as I was driving home from work. Lights flashing continuously, police stationed near an intersection I frequent almost every day by car and foot with my children and traffic was bumper to bumper. The 6pm news came on the radio and the newsreader announced a mother, holding her 11 month baby daughter as she was crossing the road, was hit by a school bus carrying school children. The mother died at the scene of the accident – the very scene that I was now staring at whilst caught in the traffic chaos. Reports say the baby survived as she was flung from her mother’s arms at the time of the accident and that the mother’s other daughter was in the actual school bus that killed her, having arrived back from a school camp that afternoon. All so tragic and makes you realise life is precious as is the time you have with your family. My heart goes out to the family who has suffered this terrible loss of life. When I arrived home, I couldn’t help but wrap my arms around my children and my husband and hold them tight.
loading...
This story broke my heart this morning. My thoughts are with the family, what a tragedy…
loading...
Heartbreaking. No words. Just heartbreaking.
loading...
Yes. I know that feeling.
The other night my husband went off for a run and I heard an ambulance. I instantly thought he’d dropped dead. I was going to go outside and look down the road I heard the ambulance go down, but then I was worried that my sleeping children would be caught in a terrible fire and burnt to a crisp while I was 20metres away from the house.
loading...
I feel so sorry for you. You really need the help of a good Phsycologist, you cannot continue with thoughts like these. Please speak to your Doctor and arrange for some help. I hope you do not take offence from my words, I mean them in a most caring way.
loading...
I do this all the time. About everyone in my life. I’m assuming it’s because my mum died so suddenly when I was 15. She went shopping, got a horrendous headache, was brought to the hospital and died from a ruptured aneurysm. This all happened in the space of 3 hours. (Not in front of me though, she was with friends, and for that i’m thankful, although im sure it’s something don’t want to have a memory of).
So after that I went from being someone who thought “yeah that only happens to other people” to being the person to whom it happened and that changed my outlook on life forever.
I constantly worry my husband will die. He drinks too much and smokes. He won’t do anything about it. So my reaction? Well i’ve taken out a life insurance policy on him! I can’t control whether I become a widow or not but I can control whether I am a penniless one!
My children are a different matter, I worry about losing them all the time. I haven’t taken a policy out on them of course but i”m super careful with them. I can’t control whether or not they will get ill or worse so what I do is constantly remind myself how bloody lucky I am not to be sitting at the hospital at their beside during chemo or something awful like that. It kind of helps.
As for the rest of my family….well there are some of them I can’t wait to put 6 feet under!
And as for myself – I stopped smoking and I have a cat scan every two years to try and catch any anuerysms that might be or mignt not be forming. I’m always going to the GP for anything change in my body I don’t like. I’m a hypochondriac but now I have kids my job is to stay alive for as long as I can to see them through to adult hood. Again I have no control over whether I die young or not but I do have control over doing my dam best not to.
So in short I totally agree with this:
“Is it possible that someone who lives in a state of change and adjustment, just needs to throw the worst possible scenario her way to feel like she has some control?”
loading...
Margaret, I think your comment is really interesting. My mother went through the same situation as you (I made a comment above about her losing her mother, before reading your comment). And I’m sure her worries have been passed on to my sister and I. It sounds like you’ve done everything possible to gain some control. I really enjoyed your comment, Cheers.
loading...