Confessions of a Practicing Pessimist

I never considered myself to be a pessimistic person until I read this quote from author Nicole Zasowski: “Pessimism is a means of control as we attempt to take the element of surprise out of our grief.” I’d always thought I leaned toward the glass-half-full side; I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

The revelation that I was indeed pessimistic came on the heels of a life trauma. As I write this, my 49-year-old “baby” brother is in a coma in a Pittsburgh hospital three hours away. He had fallen, and the blood thinners he was on made the bleeding in his brain worse. He was flown to a local trauma center, where a surgeon removed the right side of his skull. Later that day he was flown to the more equipped hospital in Pittsburgh.

I was preparing myself the entire time for his death; the impending grief had begun. It was then that I happened upon the quote, and my world was rocked. Hello, my name is Tammy, and I am a practicing pessimist.

Six months ago I lost my mother to dementia and Parkinson’s disease. The year before that, my father died. I grieved for their deaths before they were gone too; I see that clearly now. It appears I’ve always lived waiting for the next bomb to drop.

Almost two years ago, my husband began a thyroid cancer journey in which I found myself imagining life without him. It wasn’t until I read the quote connecting pessimism to grief that I understood what I was doing—and why.

Self-preservation is a sneaky thing.

I understand now how much I catastrophize in the hopes that no pain, disappointment, or trauma will take me by surprise. It turns out dread carries a hefty price tag. There are losses, and then there are losses connected to those losses, and that’s a heavy burden to bear. Christ wants me to cast those cares upon him (1 Peter 5:7).

But if I’m busy preparing for the worst, I forfeit the present and the possibilities within it. My default has been to rehearse the potential pain as a means of lessening or controlling it instead of pressing into a hopeful imagination.

Ephesians 3:20 says that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Living hyper-aware of potential disappointment or pain isn’t genuine living. What if, instead of imagining the worst, I imagine the best—God’s best? Disappointment and pain might still come, but not always. I was imagining life without my husband, but he’s been declared cancer free.

Here’s the thing: My feelings might be real, but that doesn’t mean they’re true. When my husband received the cancer diagnosis, dread washed over me. I imagined myself a widow, and the grieving began right then and there. My feeling of dread was real, but it wasn’t true. Now I understand that I can feel a feeling but not allow it to control my life.

And that’s where I am today: allowing myself to feel the feelings, but not allowing them to consume me. I can fear the future, or I can live in the present moment, uncertain as it might be.

My goal is to put my pessimistic days behind me, to deal with life’s trials as they come in a way that allows for peace to coincide with uncertainty and for joy to be present with sorrow. Life is a beautiful mixture of good and hard, and I want to fully embrace every moment, trusting in God.