Thinking the Worst

While at my parents house one Sunday I was looking at my son, laying on the floor on his quilt, playing and rolling around. Suddenly I imagined that he rolled all the way to the stairway and fell, head over heals, down the stairs. Am I the only one that does this? Thinks of the worst possible thing that could happen and slightly freak out. I hope not.

When driving down the street, with my family in the car, we will be stopped at the light, a car will start coming up behind us, and I will imagine that the car slams into us and there is blood everywhere. It is the weirdest thing because before having a child I never thought these things happening to anyone other than myself.

I wonder, why do our minds immediately go to the worst possible scenario that isn’t happening?

I was talking to one of my colleagues the other day discussing this exact topic. She told me of a time when her daughter was a baby. Her daughter always had the most pink skin that was the cutest. While holding her one time she swore that her daughter turned blue. As any parent would be, she completely freaked out! “She’s blue! She’s BLUE!!!” she screamed to her husband, as she handed her baby over. Her baby was completely fine. To this day, she still says that she was completely blue and she will never forget it.

Do we get these images in our heads because of the media and what we see everyday. Time after time the news shares stores of complete tragedy that we could never imagine going through, but do we?

I have woken up in the middle of the night swearing that my son isn’t breathing, run into his room, and I put my head down by him to listen