Hi. I want to explain to you that you are doing something called catastrophic thinking or anxiety caused by jumping to the worst case scenario, way before you know what will happen. I had therapy especially to stop doing this and I learned, with practice, how to come to more normal conclusions and to be far more at peace. I will try to explain my favorite way of controlling it...
This a common catastrophic thought that I used to have even when I knew Kay had obtained ssdi, a food card, Medicare and Medicaid. Now Kay is homeless on the opposite side of the country, living with her abusive husband in an old dilapidated motorhome. He works part time at a pizza place. She has never worked.
My catastrophic thinking drove me crazy. It went like this:
"Kay is going g to die. I just know it. I may as well start grieving so that maybe it will be easier when it happens. But I can't take it! If she dies, how can I still live? So both of us will die and my family will then have to grieve me too...." yada, yada, Yada in circles as the panic turns to terror. I can barely swallow. My breathing is very fast. I feel dizzy and sick due to my body being in fight or flight mode.
Ok. My therapist told me that when I get a catastrophic thought such as "Kay will die" to write down the thought and all the feelings that follow it. My feelings were fear, grief, terror, horror, desperation (I am copying from my journal.
After I get that out I am supposed to logically write down how likely this is to happen. Right after all those thoughts I wrote...."it will. I believe this 100%." I was supposed to put down how much I believed it would happen.
Now I had to write evidence that Kay will definitely die and I found myself calming down and arguing with myself. I wrote "Actually Kay has shown she can get her needs met and can buy food and get medical help plus she gets a monthly check. Her FB posts are angry but she doesn't talk about not feeling well and suicide rarely comes up. Kay has been doing this for several years already. She is alive. Also one day she could get clean and start getting help and working....there is no evidence to think that she will, but it is a possibility. If not her, maybe Lee will finally get a better job. She COULD survive. She has all this tome." After my writing back to my terror, my belief that Kay will die dropped to 30% and I was much better until the next catastrophic thought, whenever I had one. I did rinse repeat of this evidence based CBT method of using my rational mind. Eventually, by practicing this, my catastrophic thinking was much more controllable. I could talk back to it with reality and logic!
Anything in our mind that predicts the future ("what if" thoughts are the worst) can lead to catastrophic thinking.
Youtube has videos about stopping catastrophic thinking too. I use them! There are a ton!
I hope this helped. That choking panic while alwYs jumping to the worst case scenario can cripple us. But this anxiety problem IS treatable. Lots of tools to work with on youtube. Put in "Stop catastrophizing" and videos will come up
Love and hugs.