Hi there, does anyone have any tips for dealing with constant mental rumination. I did something that I despise myself for and i can’t stop playing it step by step in my head (though I’m forgetting loads now/ false memory is occurring). I can’t eat or sleep or work as all I’m doing is going over and over this event. Any tips are appreciated Thanks x
I want you to know that this is common in OCD. The more you try to review things, the less clear you actually are. Rumination or reviewing past events is associated with more uncertainty, more doubt, more depression, more anxiety, and less confidence in your memory. This is why you continue to have a hard time feeling less and less sure of things. Try as hard as you can not to answer the questions as it relates to what you did or didn't do - let it be there as hard as that sounds - and try to continue on with your day.https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/dealing-with-doubt
Thank you so much x
Hello! Ruminating and constantly going over these thoughts won’t change the past. The only thing that you can change is the present and the future. Just because you messed up doesn’t mean you should beat yourself over it. Learn from that experience to do better the next time! Ruminating is going to make the thoughts more and more unclear. Your mind will throw new thoughts together that could be “memories”. Try cutting down on the ruminating a little at a time. Go 5 minutes without ruminating, then the the next day go 10 minutes, then 20, then 40, etc. This will help build your tolerance towards uncertainty. Doing a little bit better everyday will get you to where you want to go! I went through the same thing as I couldn’t eat or sleep either. I truly understand how tough it is. Use this frustration as motivation to tackle these OCD thoughts. We are done listening to the thoughts and we are going to start ignoring them. You got this!
Something that really helped me was delaying. I would be like "oh look here's that thought again, I'm just going to let it be there, if I really must think about it/review it, I will in 15 minutes." Once 15 minutes goes by, try delaying again... and again after that. See how long you can delay! "One of the most effective ways of combating these obsessions is not to fight them at all, but to accept their presence. A thought is not a prediction, instruction, or call to action. A thought is a chemical and electrical event in your brain, neurons firing this way instead of that way. You have weird, unpleasant, or violent thoughts simply as a result of having a brain, which means you can think about anything." - Jon Hershfield "Rumination is a compulsion” by OCD stories with Micheal Greenburg is good! I recommend checking it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcFTi7HJYnk It might also be helpful to check out NOCD's support groups. They have a "Dealing with Mental Compulsions" group that meets every Monday. https://www.treatmyocd.com/support-groups
Hi there! Does anyone else experience real event OCD? My days lately are filled with (sometimes) crippling guilt and shame over real things that have happened in the past. These are all things that are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. I’ve talked to friends/family/therapists about them and I’m reassured they aren’t “that bad” but my mind can’t seem to let them go. Anyone else dealing with this? Any tips for forward progress? Much love to you all. ❤️
So I got diagnosed with OCD this past summer. Since then I've been in ERP therapy for my OCD. I'm 24 and it took a long time to figure out that what I had was OCD because a lot of my compulsions are internal. I struggle a lot with rumination, my brain just chewing on the problem to find a definitive answer. My therapist told me to focus on the feelings in my body, to try and be present in my body and not just stuck in my head. But it's really hard because I don't realize I'm ruminating until I've already started and it can be hard to drag myself away from it. I usually just start ruminating about something else related. My question is, does anyone have any tips and tricks to stop ruminating? I read the article by Dr. Michael Greenberg about stopping rumination but it just seemed like his advice was "Just don't ruminate" and it was very stressful.
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