This is a relatively common psychological problem. It’s a common reaction to stress. You need to take it seriously, though, because for some people it can be a crippling, disabling thing. But there is stuff you can do.
First of all, acknowledge the truth of what your fear is saying—sudden catastrophe could happen without warning. But the flip side is that worldwide the vast majority of deaths don’t come from sudden catastrophe. You should fear eating more than you fear such catastrophe—in terms of the real risk of it. It’s fear, but not reasonable fear—as it’s not sufficiently likely to happen to make it worth worrying about it. Particularly given that you can’t do much to avoid most such disasters in the first place !
Secondly, it’s OK to be irrationally afraid of something. All of us do it sometimes. What’s not OK is to let an irrational fear take away your right to do something. Right where you are now, you’ve probably lost some territories to the fear, and you need to identify some losses, and start taking them back. Choose some target territories and go. You will get used to being in the territory again, and you will progressively lose your fear of it each time you go. Don’t tackle everything at once, but start identifying territories and taking them back one by one. And don’t accept losing any others. Expect this to take some time to work through.
That’s all that CBT generally is—keep exposing yourself to circumstances that you’re irrationally afraid of until you learn from experience that actually nothing terrible happens. Start with something fairly easy, and make it really easy by learning it’s OK. Then move onto something a bit harder that just got easier because of your first victory, and do that until it’s no problem.
Rinse and repeat until your fears are all reasonable ones. Which may never happen. But you’ll get nearly all the territory back.
Make sure you talk to someone about this even if it isn’t a therapist. But I think a therapist might be good, as might something like Prozac—although on that matter you can’t simply base your view on a blog opinion.....
Finally, mental problems are essentially normal—all of our minds are capable of getting a bit weird, and it’s the responsibility of your rational brain to learn what sometimes go awry, spot it, and nudge you back in the right direction. You really can win this one yourself.
This is a relatively common psychological problem. It’s a common reaction to stress. You need to take it seriously, though, because for some people it can be a crippling, disabling thing. But there is stuff you can do.
First of all, acknowledge the truth of what your fear is saying—sudden catastrophe could happen without warning. But the flip side is that worldwide the vast majority of deaths don’t come from sudden catastrophe. You should fear eating more than you fear such catastrophe—in terms of the real risk of it. It’s fear, but not reasonable fear—as it’s not sufficiently likely to happen to make it worth worrying about it. Particularly given that you can’t do much to avoid most such disasters in the first place !
Secondly, it’s OK to be irrationally afraid of something. All of us do it sometimes. What’s not OK is to let an irrational fear take away your right to do something. Right where you are now, you’ve probably lost some territories to the fear, and you need to identify some losses, and start taking them back. Choose some target territories and go. You will get used to being in the territory again, and you will progressively lose your fear of it each time you go. Don’t tackle everything at once, but start identifying territories and taking them back one by one. And don’t accept losing any others. Expect this to take some time to work through.
That’s all that CBT generally is—keep exposing yourself to circumstances that you’re irrationally afraid of until you learn from experience that actually nothing terrible happens. Start with something fairly easy, and make it really easy by learning it’s OK. Then move onto something a bit harder that just got easier because of your first victory, and do that until it’s no problem.
Rinse and repeat until your fears are all reasonable ones. Which may never happen. But you’ll get nearly all the territory back.
Make sure you talk to someone about this even if it isn’t a therapist. But I think a therapist might be good, as might something like Prozac—although on that matter you can’t simply base your view on a blog opinion.....
Finally, mental problems are essentially normal—all of our minds are capable of getting a bit weird, and it’s the responsibility of your rational brain to learn what sometimes go awry, spot it, and nudge you back in the right direction. You really can win this one yourself.