I find quite often I will imagine future conversations with my partner - often these conversations are in relation to something bad, e.g. imagining my responses to her breaking up with me. In this case, I think I see that's some form of rumination; I'm trying to control the fear and uncertainty that I might get broken up with by imagining it to control it. But I also spend time imagining good scenarios and imagining our conversations and what I would say in them. Is this still rumination? Something else? It's trickier to be aware of it, in a way, because it feels like a positive thing. And yet I can still waste hours of time doing it.

I have really started to take control of my compulsions and im starting to string together better days! Still not great days or even good, but they are better!!! I have controlled my outward compulsions (googling, research, reassurance, checking) the past couple of days and felt the positive impact of that. But unfortunately, I am realizing that the rumination is still constant. My sexuality and relationship are the only two things constantly on my brain, and if they aren’t I freak out and wonder why im not thinking about them! Anyone have any advice on how to deal with the rumination. Sometimes I don’t even notice im doing it, but it’s taking up 90% of my day. Once I start to tackle this I think I may make some real big progress! Hope everyone is fighting today! ❤️

I've been doing well the past month in cutting down on compulsions and have been feeling better however, last night I had a set back that carried on into today. I had gotten very poor sleep (4ish hours) and then something triggered my memory. I think with the sudden anxiety spike and lack of sleep I didn't have the strength to ignore my compulsions. Last night and today I've realised I've gone back into rumination and mentally reviewing the event excessively again and comparing my situation to other people's, but most of the times that I start going down these rabbit holes I don't even realise I'm doing it? Also been fixating a bit on the fear that I've ruined my progress and that I will fall back into the deep end of it all again, that I have done so much work getting myself out of, although trying my best to not be too discouraged. Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with rumination more specifically?

Been doing ERP for a while now, and overall my OCD is leaps and bounds better than it used to be. I'm not in a crippling panic state anymore thank God. However, at this point I am just trying to figure out how other people with OCD manage their rumination and mentally replaying things in their head? A lot of times I don't even realize that I'm doing it, I will just be doing an activity such as yardwork and while I'm doing it, I will be mildly ruminating about a topic and just find it hard to avoid doing so. My therapist suggested setting a timer every so often to see where my mind is currently at and trying to redirect to something more appropriate (or do ERP exercises). Sometimes it just feels so noisy even though I'm not directly paying attention to it and it ends up being very distracting and affects my productivity. Overall, it's much better, honestly thought it was gone entirely, but OCD is attempting to relapse a little bit I've noticed. Thank you for your experiences and I hope you all have a safe Labor Day weekend!