Thanatophobia and am I normal

I'm so sorry you're going through this.  I found your story familiar and hope that I can tell you my experience as it may help you.  I am a lot older than you, but several years ago I was going through a similar period of doom.  Constantly on my mind was that I was going to die, my mom was going to die, my son was going to die, my dogs were going to die (interestingly, my husband was not going to die--he would be the lone survivor.)  I was filled with thoughts all the time and would take everything to a catastrophic level.  For example, if my son went somewhere with friends, I was convinced that he was going to die in a fiery auto accident and would picture the scene over and over and could not settle down until he was back safely.  It filled my life.  I didn't know it at the time, but I was going through perimenopause and I finally found out that this is called menopausal doom.  Now, don't stop reading.  I know you're still young and you're not going into menopause, but I'll explain.  It happens when your hormones are unbalanced.  I found out that my hormones were VERY unbalanced.  In fact I had 106% estrogen and 0% progesterone.  Now, everyone's hormones are unbalanced during perimenopause, but mine were major!  Of course, I was also having other symptoms (hot flashes, migraines, tachycardia, histamine rushes, many, many "normal" and "extreme" symptoms.).  My doctor just looked at me shocked as she had never seen this much of a variation before.  This is called Estrogen Dominance and younger women can have it, too--not as bad as mine because I was heading for menopause, but a hormonal imbalance can cause weird thinking like this.  It's the ratio of estrogen to progesterone that is the key--not the actual levels themselves.  I had two doctors (male) check my hormone level and when they saw that my estrogen was "good", they would tell me that I should feel fine.  It was the third doctor (female) that saw that while my estrogen was good, my progesterone was not and it was this ratio that was the problem.  I would suggest that you get your hormones checked.  This was three years ago and I am through menopause and all my menopausal doom is gone now that my estrogen/protesterone ratio is balanced at zero (still have new problems related to having no hormones--but not the doom).  Since your mum has depression, you and she may be very sensitive to hormonal balance, and just super-sensitive as a whole.  At least it's worth getting checked out and if that's it, there are many things to do to help.  In my case, it was hard to help and I had reactions to hormonal therapies because my situation was so extreme, but yours won't be like mine.  There are also natural things you can do.  Stress is a big factor in hormonal balance.  One thing that I found out was that I had a high histamine level (look up histamine intolerance and see if you have other symptoms).  Excess histamine can cause a high estrogen level.   All my best to you.Hope this helps.

Oh, one more thing I wanted to mention.  When I was going through this, I realized that worrying about a situation or a person was my attempt to stay connected in a situation where really I had no influence.  It was my connection to this person and I felt like if I let it go, that I really didn't care and maybe the doomful thing would really happen. It was really an OCD issue.  Finally, I just had to let it go.  Whatever was going to happen was what was going to happen.  I was spinning my wheels and using a lot of my limited energy in worrying 24/7 and thinking I could control or be connected to outcomes that were really up in the air.  (I'm not sure how I got italics here--nothing is meant by it).  I think the hormones sent everything catapaulting out of control, but truthfully, I've always been a worrier--just got so incredibly bad during the menopausal years.