Bridge displays Lightroom Catalog files (.lrcat) instead of photos, and opens the file in Lightroom. How do I change this?

Actually, it gets worse. I also discovered today that Lightroom lists all of my folders but all of the photos in them are missing. So,

(1) I can't open any Photos in Lightroom 5 because they are all missing from their folders. (2) I can't open files in Photoshop from Bridge, because they are all missing in Bridge as well. (3) BUT if I click on the lrcat file that has displaced my photos in Bridge, Lightroom opens and displays all of my photos that I can't see if I try to use Lightroom alone. So if I want to use Photoshop, I have to go to Bridge, find the .lrcat file in my photo folder, double click on it, which opens Lightroom and displays all of the photos in that folder, and then I can open the photo in Photoshop using Lightroom.

This is seriously crazy stuff, and it all happened at the same time (yesterday). I have moved no files, and I have been accessing my photos in all three programs as per usual for years. What happened, and how can I fix it?

Actually it gets even worse. Some of the .lrcat files in Bridge are empty and won't display at all. Suddenly, I have lost all functionality in Bridge, Lightroom and Photoshop at the same time.

Problem solved in Lightroom help.