Awfulize and Catastrophize

She was standing in the pew near the back of the auditorium with a tense air about her, like a cat ready to pounce. She had deep creases between her eyes and downward-turning lines around her mouth.  I knew I would speak to her. I also knew I wouldn't ask her how she was doing, but she would tell me anyway. "My boss cut my hours again. Down to 10 hours a week, and I can't live on 10 hours a week. And Deborah won't call me; I haven't seen my grandsons in a year. For all she knows, I'm dead and gone."

"Maybe you should call her?" I ventured.

"Why should I call her? She doesn't want to hear from me. I've tried. She doesn't take my calls."

"Oh."

"I'll be homeless by the end of the month. No money to pay the lot rent." She narrowed her eyes and leaned slightly toward me.

Just then Sam Evans breezed by and said, "You're awfulizing, Doris. Stop awfulizing!"

Awfulizing? What a great word. It was the first time I had heard it, but I knew exactly what it meant. Awfulize and its ominous cousin, catastrophize--what great made-up words.  In fact, I have practiced these myself. These verbs have not made it into the Oxford English Dictionary, but I looked them up on urbandictionary.com, and they indeed exist in popular culture and, I assume, in common experience.

Many years ago I suffered a panic attack, the only one I've ever had, and I can tell you I don't want another. It was on a Saturday afternoon, and I hadn't been well. My husband took to children to play tennis. I lay on the bed and thought, "What if they have an accident? They will have an accident! No. I'll think about something else. Why can't I think about anything else?"

My heart began to pound, and I could barely breathe. I didn't want to stay in bed, but I was afraid to get up.

"They're not going to die, but I'm going crazy. What if I go crazy? My children will have to tell their friends their mother is in an insane asylum."

I call this extreme awfulizing or in this case catastrophizing. Though I don't regularly experience panic attacks, thank goodness, I'm afraid I do practice awfulizing far more than I should. One negative thought is followed by a worse one. Why do I do this? Why do we do this? Why do we torture ourselves like this? I believe it is a result of not trusting God. And how do we come to trust God? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. OK, so I hear the Word of God, but am I listening?

The following words from our heavenly Father are beautifully translated in the King James Version, and I can't improve on them by commenting, and so I must just listen.

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
--Matthew 6:25-34