Catastrophize......view or present a situation as considerably worse than it actually is.

When we are anxious, one thing our mind can do is CATASTROPHIZE- we get caught up in the worse case scenarios...e.g. what if I put on weight and I am alone forever...or what if she does not like me and I lose my job and go broke?....or what if this person is upset with me and leaves me...etc....

And at the depth of the catastrophe are the thoughts that if this or that happens, ' I will NOT cope'. So I really like a quote I give my clients from a book called The Self Esteem workbook (Shiraldi, 2001), which reads " Albert Ellis (a famous psychologist) once said- Although many things in life are inconvenient, unpleasant and difficult, we can really stand anything short from being steam rolled to death. So a person may think to him or herself, I do not like what is happening now, but I certainly can stand it."

A nice way to challenge one's anxious mind.