I used to spend a lot of time entertaining catastrophic thoughts. I was volunterring my time trying to better some pretty dark situations and it started to bleed over into many aspects of my life. I started to see many things through an abusive worst case scenario lens. I did not realize the toll it was taking on my psyche until I was in IP after an extreme breakdown.

I took a hard look at myself and my life choices as a result. I realized I needed to care for my mind the same way I do my body or any other aspect of my health. I started analyzing my thoughts and looking for patterns. I became a lot more self aware.

I then forced myself to ask the question I ask of my teams before we go down any proposed path. 'Does this add value and if so, how?' Taking a look at a line of thought and testing it to see how it would benefit or hinder my mental health helps me jump off unhealthy trains of thought before they leave the station. A therapist once told me that relapse begins with entertaining unhealthy thoughts and I took that to heart.

I'm now better able to avoid delusional, irrational or catastrophic thoughts this way because even if the scenarios are 'possible', thinking through them does not add as much value to my day as refocusing on something else more productive does. The frequency of the intrusive and catastrophic thoughts lessens the more I redirect them. I don't challenge them or argue with myself over their validity. I simply push them aside because they are less valuable. It feels a bit like training for my brain, but the patterns are shifting in the right direction.

At first I started trying to challenge each thought. I would consider how unlikely it was, but then my brain would serve up fact after fact from my previous research to validate that the thought was in fact a valid concern. That battle took time and did not help my health. In fact, it was exhausting. I'm finding that just recognizing it will hurt me to entertain these thoughts and that I have healthier options is a better strategy for me. It allows me to accept that the catastrophic situations could be valid, but they simply aren't the best possible use of my time.