Episode 10
Catastrophising: The Unexpected Consequence of Babyloss
Catastrophizing can take on a new dimension for those who have experienced the trauma of baby loss, as explored in this heartfelt discussion between Siobhan and David. They delve into how the suddenness of losing a child can create an intense fear of potential dangers in everyday situations, amplifying feelings of anxiety and panic. Siobhan shares her personal journey of navigating these overwhelming emotions, highlighting the struggle between logical reasoning and the visceral responses triggered by past trauma. David adds his perspective, noting that the experience of loss can lead to a perpetual state of worry about the safety of loved ones. Together, they emphasize the importance of communication and self-care strategies in managing these feelings, encouraging listeners to recognize that they are not alone in their experiences.
Takeaways:
- Catastrophizing can manifest as a physical and emotional response, often triggered by stress.
- Communication between partners is crucial when managing feelings of anxiety and fear.
- Understanding one's nervous system can help in recognizing patterns of anxiety and panic.
- The traumatic experience of losing a child can alter one's perception of safety and security.
- Using techniques like meditation and emotional freedom techniques can aid in managing catastrophizing.
- Acknowledging that everyone's response to grief and anxiety is unique and individual is essential.
Transcript
Welcome to life after baby Loss, a podcast brought to you by Grace in action.
Siobhan:I'm Siobhan, Grace's mum.
Siobhan:And together with David, Grace's dad, we'll be exploring life after loss.
Siobhan:Hi, everyone.
Siobhan:Apparently David waiting to see whether or not I get a podcasting voice.
Siobhan:Yeah, I have one.
Siobhan:It's my normal voice, mate.
David:Just introduce it.
Siobhan:I will just introduce it.
Siobhan:Hi, this is Siobhan for grace in action, and I'm here with my lovely hubby, David.
David:It's me.
Siobhan:Yeah, hi.
David:And today we're going to talk about catastrophizing.
Siobhan:Yeah, a bit of a buzz word, isn't it, at the moment, is it?
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:Oh, it's a bit of a buzzword at the moment.
Siobhan:I've heard it being slung around all over the shop.
David:Well, like, in general.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Stop catastrophizing.
David:So I just put catastrophizing into the interweb, as the young people call it.
David:And it says catastrophizing means that a person fixates on the worst possible outcome and treats it as likely, even when it is not.
David:Therapy and medication can help people reduce or stop catastrophizing.
David:Catastrophizing is a type of cognitive distortion.
Siobhan:Okay, interesting.
Siobhan:That is not my experience of it.
David:What do you mean?
Siobhan:So, you know, a person fixates, you know, makes it sound like you have a choice.
Siobhan:My experience of catastrophizing is that it's like a whole body, like lizard brain nervous system response to fear that I have no immediate control over.
David:To be fair, it doesn't say whether fixating is conscious or unconscious decision.
David:It just says that's what happens.
David:The language is loaded.
David:It feels loaded.
Siobhan:It does feel loaded.
David:I hear you.
David:It does feel loaded.
David:It doesn't mean it necessarily is.
Siobhan:I mean.
Siobhan:Yeah, well, let me explain a little bit about my experience of it.
Siobhan:So, before Grace died, I don't think that I ever had any kind of a response that I could call catastrophizing.
Siobhan:I'm not a massive overthinker.
Siobhan:I like to think deeply about stuff, but I'm, I suppose in that way, I'm kind of sort of quite creatively brained and can think around things and turn them around in my mind without sort of getting too, I suppose, fixated on them or sort of stuck in a rut around them or that kind of thing.
Siobhan:But since Grace died, that has not been my experience.
Siobhan:And I have experienced repeated episodes of catastrophizing and panic and anxiety in all sorts of random situations where, I mean, in that moment, like the me before grace died would have been looking at me like, going, what the heck is going on?
Siobhan:And to be fair, the first few times it happened, that's exactly what that kind of part of me that was still present was, kind of looking at the rest of me going, holy shit, I need help.
Siobhan:Yeah, I've kind of got a bit more of a handle on it now, but it can still really take me by surprise.
Siobhan:And it can happen in moments when I'm not expecting it at all and have to work really, really, really hard to kind of come through it and come out of it.
Siobhan:I will say, for me, that.
Siobhan:And I.
Siobhan:And I gather this is not necessarily other people's experience.
Siobhan:It's quite sort of isolated, distinct episodes.
David:Not every day of your every minute, of every waking.
Siobhan:No.
Siobhan:And it's not happening continuously.
Siobhan:I will have an isolated episode and then I will probably be okay for a while.
Siobhan:And I've also started over the years to recognise what's happening in the rest of my life when I am more likely to end up in that sort of catastrophizing snowball avalanche.
Siobhan:So sometimes I say to you, don't I?
Siobhan:If you're heading out, I say, I'm feeling a little bit on edge at the moment.
Siobhan:Can you make sure that you check in with me?
David:Or you know what?
David:I like that.
David:I was speaking recently and talked about communication being key.
David:And we've had times where we've lost that communication.
David:But communication is always something we've sought to.
Siobhan:Keep open and clear.
David:Thank you.
David:That'll do.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:Yeah.
David:Good words.
David:And I think it's important because I don't think anyone likes to feel like they're being nagged to keep in touch like their mum used to do when you used to go nightclubbing and, like, my mom's like, I won't be able to sleep if I don't know when you come.
David:That's before we had mobile.
Siobhan:Oh, no, I remember.
Siobhan:I did not want a mobile phone.
Siobhan:Can you imagine my mum being able to ring me and find out where?
Siobhan:Heck no.
Siobhan:I did not want to be able to be found.
Siobhan:She insisted that I got a mobile phone when I was out of.
Siobhan:Because I had a car quite young.
Siobhan:She's like, you're out driving on your own at night.
David:Looks fair, isn't it?
David:Now you've got children of your own.
Siobhan:Oh, I get it.
Siobhan:I totally get it.
Siobhan:But, oh, my goodness me.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:And I.
Siobhan:And, you know, as a partner, I've never been like that, ever.
Siobhan:I've never been like, you know, where are you?
Siobhan:What's going on?
Siobhan:But that's the space that I've ended up in with the catastrophizing, not where are you?
Siobhan:What's going on?
Siobhan:Like, what are you doing?
Siobhan:Like, something's happened, something terrible has happened.
Siobhan:I don't know.
Siobhan:A manhole cover was broken and you've been walking down the road and you've dropped into it and you're stuck at the bottom of a drain somewhere with a broken leg.
David:That's really scary.
Siobhan:No mobile reception.
Siobhan:Yes, and that was the scary flipping thing.
Siobhan:That is the scary thing about it when it happens.
Siobhan:Wow, my imagination.
Siobhan:What?
Siobhan:The kind of stuff it can offer up.
Siobhan:It's bonkers.
Siobhan:And also in that moment, so possible and real.
Siobhan:I should, like, write stories.
David:No, that's the interesting thing is how what you've just said there really struck me is that, you know, you can go to that kind of mad specific place, but at the moment it seems utterly real to you.
Siobhan:Utterly real and utterly possible.
Siobhan:Right, right, yeah.
David:So going back a sec, just say that I think the communication's important because it's good to know where you're at.
David:So that I'm thinking, blimey.
David:Yeah.
David:Of course, our daughter died and this is where it's left us, so it doesn't feel like a chore to ring.
David:It feels like an act of care or of love to do that.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:I think it's really important to know you're not getting on my case about where am I, what am I doing?
David:You're just in that place because of what we've been through.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:And it's good to be reminded of that sometimes.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:And for me, most of the incidences have mainly been with you in terms of just, like, not knowing where you are or, you know, I thought you were going to be home an hour ago and you weren't there yet.
Siobhan:And that was completely my assumption.
Siobhan:That's where the communication helps as well, is, you know, can you let me know when you're on your way?
Siobhan:You know, those kind of things where just life's got in the way and I haven't checked in or you haven't checked in and.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Having some conversations about that afterwards, we've changed the way we do things a bit because we never rolled like that.
David:I mean, I think there's a certain amount of stuff that comes with being a parent anyway.
David:You know, after Alanna was born, there were certain tv shows I could no longer watch, so I think there's a certain, you know, people worry about their kids.
David:It's kind of natural, I think.
David:But after Grace died, I think what the difference is there is that you can imagine bad things happening, but the bad thing actually happened.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:So all the potentialities.
David:Yeah.
David:Yeah.
David:One of the things I looked at on online about catastrophizing was saying, you know, ask yourself the question, is what you're thinking based more in fiction than fact?
David:No, it's based in fact.
David:I've seen the worst shit happen.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:And it happened to me.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:And so everything I catastrophize about is born out of something that actually happened.
Siobhan:And of course, this is what annoys me with the definitions and stuff that make it sound like it's only in your brain.
Siobhan:Like, for us, then, that is an actual physical child dying, visceral, physical reaction.
Siobhan:It is a trauma response.
Siobhan:It's not just.
Siobhan:Yeah, like, you know, I'm caught.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:This BBC.
Siobhan:There's a BBC work life article that I found catastrophizing.
Siobhan:How toxic thinking leads you down dark paths.
Siobhan:That's not what we're talking about here.
David:Toxic thinking.
Siobhan:I'm not saying that.
Siobhan:That isn't like, maybe one, you know, kind of aspect of.
Siobhan:Or one version of catastrophizing, but that, just to be really clear, that is not what we're talking about here.
Siobhan:And I worry because.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Because I know, oddly, it hasn't happened too much with the kids I have yet.
Siobhan:Maybe they're still too young with our little children.
David:I don't know.
David:Cause, like, you know, this morning, Kira wanted to walk to school for the first time on her own.
David:And I took her to the end of the road and watched her go.
David:And part of me's, like, smiling, going, my little girl's growing up a little bit.
David:And part of me's like, I hope I see her at the end of the day.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:We have no idea that she's actually there.
David:Well, something could.
David:It's like I was thinking, did I say I love you as she went, in case I die or she dies.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Because goodbyes become.
David:Goodbyes become very poignant, very important.
David:And I have never.
David:And oddly enough, I also catastrophize about my own death.
Siobhan:Do you?
David:Yeah.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:I didn't know that all the time.
David:Because I've never been scared of death.
David:Never.
David:But now I'm scared of leaving my children alone and the trauma that comes from that, because that shit happens to.
David:So I worry about that.
David:If you've gone to.
David:If you've popped to the shop and you should have been back in ten minutes and it's been half an hour.
David:I'm like, is Siobhan dead?
David:Has something happened?
David:There's been a car crash.
David:Because car crashes happen.
David:Things happen.
David:And I don't go crazy about it, but it's there in my head and sometimes.
David:Ringo, are you okay?
David:Hunter?
David:Just.
Siobhan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, so.
David:But I think my.
Siobhan:It's gone further than that.
Siobhan:It's gone.
Siobhan:Sometimes.
Siobhan:A lot of the time, I'll be in that position as well, and I'll just go, well, you know, I'll check on your phone.
Siobhan:My phone?
Siobhan:Where you are, or I'll ring you.
Siobhan:It's when I then can't get through to you, or I then I don't know.
Siobhan:I have no information.
Siobhan:Like, there was one time last year, I think you were doing that job in Kew and you were meeting someone for a drink afterwards, and then.
Siobhan:But, you know, had an unspecified time of when you're going to be home.
Siobhan:And then I couldn't get hold of you.
Siobhan:And sometimes that happens, you know, with.
David:The public transport, I'd ask the guys behind the bar to plug my phone in.
Siobhan:Yes.
Siobhan:And it hadn't charged properly or whatever had happened or, you know, and just in that moment, trying to trust.
Siobhan:And I think I must have phoned you about 50 times and then trying to calm myself down.
Siobhan:It's really hard.
Siobhan:Really hard, because I'm literally having a full on nervous system response to that, which is, you know, like, for me, that often manifests as a freeze.
Siobhan:Like, I'm panicking inside, but on the outside, it doesn't look like much is going on or some kind of panic action.
Siobhan:Like lots and lots of phone calls or, you know, where are you?
Siobhan:What's going on?
Siobhan:Who could I ring?
Siobhan:Is there someone else I could know?
Siobhan:Check on Facebook and Instagram to see if you posted anything or has anyone posted any picture with you.
Siobhan:Happen a few times when you've been working away as well.
Siobhan:But then, of course, then if you still find I've moved away from that a little bit in the sense that it doesn't actually get you anywhere, it actually makes you more worried because you're doing things, but you'll still get no information.
Siobhan:So the place I've ended up dealing with it is logicking myself out of it.
Siobhan:So I sit there and go, right?
Siobhan:My brain is offering me up all the terrible things that could, you know, very specific sometimes, manhole cover, terrible things that could have happened to you.
Siobhan:And I go, okay, what are all the other things that might have happened, that, you know, they're kind of more normal, logical.
Siobhan:And I sort of try and beat my own brain by coming up with more reasonable, logical suggestions than my brain is offering me.
Siobhan:Fantastical, scary, horrific suggestions.
Siobhan:I don't ever totally win, to be fair, because it's actually quicker to run out of logical explanations, but it seems to be just trying to do that, like, brainstorm.
Siobhan:Right.
Siobhan:What could have happened?
Siobhan:He's dropped his phone down the toilet.
Siobhan:You know, I don't know that the.
Siobhan:The train lines down or, or I didn't.
Siobhan:Whatever.
Siobhan:You left your.
Siobhan:You were drunk and left your phone in a taxi.
Siobhan:I mean, there is precedent for that.
Siobhan:It's happened more than once.
David:More than once.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:Okay.
Siobhan:It has.
Siobhan:Drink.
David:Kids, stay in school.
Siobhan:Just try to kind of, you know, based on history and general logic, sort of logic myself out of it.
Siobhan:But it's really hard, and it's such a horrible place to be.
Siobhan:Inside your own head.
Siobhan:Stressful.
David:I'm quite lucky because I get bored really easy.
David:So I actually.
David:I go down.
David:I go down these dark holes, but I never stay there too long.
Siobhan:Because you get bored of yourself?
David:I get bored of myself.
David:It's like if I was a dog chasing the stick, I'd never get the stick.
David:Cause I'd be like, ooh, ooh, squirrel.
David:All the time.
David:Because.
David:Yeah, but it's often.
David:It's really often for me.
David:It's literally all the time.
David:Take the kids to bed.
David:I wonder if they'll wake up.
David:Do you know what I mean?
David:It's fairly constant, and I'm lucky it's not deep because if it was deep all the time that I do it, then it would be too much.
David:I wouldn't be able to.
David:I couldn't survive that.
Siobhan:So let's talk about a knock on effect of this, then, which is that having to refocus your brain all the time in that way is absolutely exhausting.
Siobhan:It's really tiring.
Siobhan:My brain doesn't work like that a lot of the time, but when it does, it goes haywire.
Siobhan:So I'm not fielding that as frequently.
Siobhan:I think you're fielding it on a lower level more frequently, and then I'm having less frequent, like, bigger things.
Siobhan:But either way, it's absolutely exhausting.
Siobhan:Such hard work.
David:And I think what makes that hard is everyone's got stuff going on, but I think being freelance, we're kind of scrabbling for work.
David:So there's a general level of, we don't know what's happening next.
David:We don't know what's going on, blah, blah, blah, going on.
David:Then you factor that in.
David:I don't know.
David:I don't know.
David:Factoring that into any kind of life situation, I suppose, is going to make it harder.
David:And I don't know what my point is, really.
Siobhan:What do you do to deal with it then?
Siobhan:How do you get through that?
Siobhan:Apart from being bored?
Siobhan:What?
Siobhan:Is there anything conscious that you do?
David:So I've got this.
David:There's a mantra that I always have in my.
David:I don't say it to myself.
David:It's just part of my head.
David:And it's from Winnie the Pooh.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:And I think it's.
David:I can't remember which way it's pooh and Piglet, I think, sitting there, and one of them says, you know, what if this tree falls over?
David:And the other one says, what if it doesn't?
Siobhan:What if it doesn't?
David:And that's something that I just.
David:That's.
David:That's the architecture of my brain now.
Siobhan:We use that with the kids as well, don't we?
David:So I've just got to remember, what if this happens?
Siobhan:Both.
Siobhan:What if it doesn't?
David:So I kind of.
David:I kind of.
David:Yeah, that's just part of how my brain works.
David:So I just kind of lean into that, take a breath and get on with it.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Okay.
David:And I think it doesn't go.
David:It's the same.
David:It's the same thing we said about grief is that you never get over grief.
David:Grief never goes away, but you grow around it.
David:You get bigger.
David:So my catastrophizing, my fear doesn't go away, but I just came up with my day, and my day grows around it, and it's just there in the corner doing its thing, losing its religion.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:Thank you very much.
Siobhan:Yes, yes, yes.
Siobhan:We don't need your singing right now.
Siobhan:One of the things I've done, I'll share with you is I've learned a bit more about the nervous system and nervous system responses and understanding about how my nervous system in particular works.
Siobhan:And I tend to have these catastrophizing epsilon when are more likely, when I'm stressed and tired.
Siobhan:So I am generally working on my nervous system.
Siobhan:I use tapping, or it's also called EFT, emotional freedom technique.
Siobhan:I use that quite a lot.
Siobhan:I've also, more recently, been trying, specifically some meditation.
Siobhan:I've done some meditation before with yoga, but this is just meditation on its own, which has been really helping, I think, just to generally calm my brain down overall.
Siobhan:And I think I'm having sort of fewer incidences of less, like, less severe when they've happened.
Siobhan:I don't know.
Siobhan:I mean, you're about to go off on another job for ten weeks, so let's see.
Siobhan:Let's see how that time period goes.
Siobhan:That might.
David:Yeah, let's do a podcast after that.
Siobhan:Might show how well it's working.
David:Maybe what I'll do is if I have moments while I'm on tour, I might just pick up my phone and record something.
David:And maybe if you do the same, we can see what we come to in the end.
David:Recently, I've had this really interesting thing, so I think it's really important for me to let the girls know that I love them quite viscerally.
David:Viscerally.
David:Viscerally, viscerally.
David:Thank you.
David:Which is not something that really happened with the older generation, the generation above me.
David:And I've no doubt that my parents loved me, but no doubt at all.
David:I'm not sure if I ever heard my dad say it, do you know what I mean?
David:And I want them to know without doubt and then catastrophizing about what might happen if I went out and never came home.
David:And I was like, actually, do I want to stop doing that?
David:I don't want them to love me so much that their grief is so horrifically bad if I were to die.
David:Yeah, no, yeah, I know.
David:That's where I went in my head.
Siobhan:Oh, damn.
David:I was like, I don't want them to love me this, you know, because they're returning that love hugely.
David:And I was like, I don't want them to love me that much in case I die.
David:And they can't deal with the grief.
David:That's where I went.
Siobhan:Oh, damn.
David:And it's like, it's so easy to get caught in these avenues and maze, you know, different lanes keep opening up in this labyrinth of navigating this whole thing, and they keep going down different ones and going, well, we can't get lost down it because there's actually.
Siobhan:There's no end to it.
David:Yeah.
David:If you follow it, there is no end.
David:You just get back on the path.
Siobhan:Gosh, I didn't know that.
Siobhan:Yeah, no, that's not.
Siobhan:That's no way to go.
David:No.
Siobhan:Interesting.
Siobhan:That's what your brain was offering you.
David:Yeah.
David:It's a bit extreme in it.
Siobhan:It is.
David:Stop telling your children you love them in case you die, which you get into at some point, you know what I mean?
David:It's like.
Siobhan:I think that.
Siobhan:And that's the.
Siobhan:For me, that's the tricky thing here is that, you know, neither of us are sort of unaware of death or the, you know, death is a part of life.
Siobhan:We've already talked about that in other episodes.
Siobhan:And I think the difference here is the traumatic nature in which grace dies, the suddenness with which she died, the fact that, you know, she was just about to be born and then she died, it was all of that potential suddenly dashed.
Siobhan:And that, to me, that's the thing that makes a difference to me, I think, than, you know, I don't know.
Siobhan:I've lost grandparents.
Siobhan:I've lost.
Siobhan:I've lost some other people in traumatic, sudden traumatic circumstances.
Siobhan:And it.
David:That's the essence of Willome, isn't it?
David:Do you remember that Vilma Villoma?
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:I said Willome.
David:I don't know why it was Nicola Bowles.
David:I think, that kind of captured that.
David:It says, a parent who has lost a child is known as Vilma.
David:Vilma is a sanskrit word meaning that.
David:Meaning vlima is a sanskrit word that means against the natural order.
David:And I think it's a whole thing.
Siobhan:Yes.
Siobhan:Okay.
David:Losing my parents, losing my father.
Siobhan:Yeah.
David:It's horrible.
David:But he was older than me.
Siobhan:Yes.
David:And he'd lived.
David:If I die now, I've lived more than my children have.
David:So it's the natural order to lose.
David:It's that whole feeling of a child should never die before its parent.
David:You know, it's the wrong way around.
David:It's against the natural order.
David:And I don't know.
David:I think that's what you're kind of tapping into.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:That and the suddenness of it.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:There was no.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:I mean, you know, we thought we.
Siobhan:1 minute we thought she was alive, and the next minute we're being told she's not.
Siobhan:Literally, from minute to minute.
David:Yeah.
David:Which, I mean, having said Willamer, you know, that can happen to anyone at any age.
David:You know, people die suddenly.
Siobhan:Exactly.
David:Shock to the system.
Siobhan:Yeah.
Siobhan:And I think it's that.
Siobhan:I think that gave me that flick, that switch that means that my brain is scared of that happening.
Siobhan:Quite rightly scared of that happening again, because that almost completely broke me.
Siobhan:And the pain is.
Siobhan:And continues to be sometimes.
David:And that's the thing.
David:It's not an imagined response.
Siobhan:No.
David:It's a response you've already had.
David:You know, it's experience you're talking from.
Siobhan:If you're experiencing these episodes or, you know, maybe more like David frequently kind of having to reroute your own brain.
Siobhan:You're not alone.
Siobhan:You're not alone.
David:Far from it.
Siobhan:And if you think you need more professional help with that, I mean, just go seek it.
Siobhan:Go seek it.
David:And I think you've heard our responses, but I think all responses are as individual as anyone is.
David:But once again, I'm just going to ask if this resonates with you, let us know how you deal, what your way forward is.
David:Because once again, sharing those things helps us all.
David:Help someone else.
Siobhan:Absolutely.
David:So, yeah, that's us for today.
David:Till next time, take care of yourselves.
Siobhan:Peace, love and strengthen.
