Catastrophizing

Recently Brad and I were watching one of our new favorite shows "Parenthood" and I was struck by how much I could relate to one of the characters, Christina.  She is a soccer mom of two kids and she was teaching her 16 year old daughter Haddie how to drive.  Christina kept freaking out and wouldn't let Haddie drive out of the parking lot.  Both frustrated, mom and daughter get into a huge fight.  Later in the episode, Christina tries to explain to her daughter why she worries so much about Haddie driving.  She said that Adam (her husband/Haddie's dad) created a term for her worrying years ago.  She catastrophizes things because she worries and worries and lets her imagination run away and imagines the worst possible catastrophes occuring...ie, catastrophizing (even though it's not a real world).

Brad and I both looked at each other and immediatley realized that this is EXACTLY what I do.  I catastrophize too.  If Brad tells me he is on his way home and it is taking him a lot longer to get home than it normally would (usually traffic is the culprit) and he isn't answering his phone (usually it's on silent and he didn't see me calling), I begin to convince myself that he has been in a horrible car accident.  If Sam sleeps in much later than he normally does and I don't see him moving on the baby video monitor and I can't hear him breathing, I begin to worry whether or not he is breathing.  When I am awake late at night and hear weird sounds outside, I conjure up images of someone breaking into the house and have woken up Brad to make him go downstairs "and check things out" (really, what's he going to do if someone's there? I have no idea, but it makes me feel better).

One of my resolutions at Rosh Hashanah was to try to worry less.  I told a few close friends about this pledge and they lovingly laughed at me and said "good luck with that," knowing full well that me trying to not worry is like saying "I think I want to be a NBA basketball player when I grow up."  Not going to happen. 

But, I've worked hard at it especially with this pregnancy and tried to reduce the worrying.  Except, for the 24 hours before a obstetrician appointment - then I begin to freak out.  I think it's because I can't feel the baby REALLY kicking hard yet and it's not consistent movement (which is very normal for this stage in the pregnancy - 17.5 wks).  Having had a miscarriage with a pregnancy before Sam and delivering Sam at 32 weeks, I don't feel like I "enjoy" pregnancy the way some of my friends do.  I worry...and catastrophize...and try not to worry...and try not to catastrophize. 

I have an ob appointment this afternoon and last night I had a terrible dream that I went to the appointment and something was terribly wrong and I had to have immediate surgery and would be in the hospital for 2 weeks.  In the dream Brad was laughing and making dumb jokes about something and I got really upset and dumped water on his lap.  But it was SO real and convinced me that something was wrong when I woke up.

Trying to keep tabs on my weight gain with the pregnancy, I've been weighing myself a lot (probably too much) so I don't gain too much weight.  In the past 2 days, I've lost 4 pounds.  LOST 4 pounds!??! I shouldn't be losing weight at this stage of the pregnancy.. And the catastrophizing immediately began after getting off the scale this morning. 

Brad began to rationalize it and try to make me feel better...I threw up a lot yesterday from another poopy diaper/vomiting incident...I've had really bad heartburn lately and haven't been eating as much....I've been exercising more.  Even if he was an obstetrician offering me these perfectly reasonable explanations, his logic would be totally lost on me - I am completely in my head today and worrying like crazy.  Until I see the baby on the ultrasound at 230 and know that everything is fine, I'm going to worry.  It's almost easier to allow myself a day of worrying every now and then, rather than try to fight it off and keep the worrying at bay. 

So if I seem a little tightly wound today, you now know why.  I'm very busy worrying and catastrophizing (and doing other lawyerly stuff at work of course!).