I'm Going To Get Sucked Into a Tornado With Glass Shards and Great White Sharks Whirling Around Me. No, Really.

I’m the sort of person who turns every gale into a hurricane. If there’s a fire, I imagine my house burning all the way down to the foundation. Then I never find another home again for some reason. If there’s a storm warning, I imagine a tornado on the way. Obviously I get sucked into the spiral with shards of glass and great white sharks blowing around me. If I have a work shortage, I imagine myself homeless and living under a bridge with a heroin syringe in my arm. Yup. It might take other people years to become homeless, but if my clients vanish for two weeks, I will land up on the streets immediately, my career in tatters. Then I will get murdered. I mean, obviously.

Not so long ago, I had a revelation in my therapist’s office.

“There’s something wrong with me,” I said.

“Why?”

“I always think the worst will happen even though it never does.”

“And?” said my therapist. There was nothing to see here. Apparently, my impending homelessness was an ordinary thing for a patient.

“Well, I always catastrophise.”

“Yes, of course,” he said. My therapist is an awfully smart man. He knows everything. That day he explained that my tendency to catastrophise was normal in people like me. We grow up in unsafe homes. There is always a catastrophe at the end of every dinner and report card. For the 18 years we spend in our family homes, we're taught that everything is always a catastrophe, so we never learn what others learn: that it will turn out okay.

It’s a kind of faith, and as a stubborn atheist, I don’t have much of that. I’m trying to learn that everything will be okay now. Not so long ago, a dog moved into my home. All my isolation fizzled away. Suddenly, my life was full of cuddles and walks and laughter. It relieved my catastrophising almost entirely. My therapist says Bosco is the best therapist there is. I said, well, no, you’re the best, but Bosco takes second place.

Bosco has brought me into the present tense. I think that’s what love does. It makes the current moment so beautiful you don’t have space to think about tomorrow. Maybe love is the best cure for everything. It might not be able to fix schizophrenia or an eating disorder, but it’s a damn side better at fixing the damage of an abusive home. Love fills you up so much you don’t have room for the uglies.

My therapist treats a lot of addicts. He told me they often volunteer at animal shelters while they start learning to live without drugs. I came across the idea of volunteering quite by accident. My last dom took me to a shelter on our first Valentine’s day. Years have passed since then, and it’s still the best gift anyone’s ever given me. They say it’s good to help others. The dogs know that. They help an awful lot of people. Maybe you should volunteer at an animal shelter, too.