K-M
- Date posted
- 2y
Blegh
Rumination central right now.
KillianKillian
- User type
- NOCD Alumni
- Date posted
- 2y
I’m sorry you’re dealing with this—mental compulsions can be tricky to tackle. These 2 articles have helped me a lot with rumination: https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/rumination-is-a-compulsion-not-an-obsession-and-that-means-you-have-to-stop/ https://drmichaeljgreenberg.com/how-to-stop-ruminating/ Try to take it one step at a time. You can’t know exactly how you will handle something in the future, so the only way out is to acknowledge that reality and choose to go about your life anyway. It doesn’t have to feel pleasant or easy, and it may feel hard to stop, but the key is practice. Sometimes behavior precedes feeling—we have to choose to stop ruminating first, before the feeling of relief can come. I’m wishing you the best💜
K-MK-M
- Date posted
- 2y
@Killian Thank you!
OCDMMOCDMM
- Date posted
- 2y
Same!! I’m sorry. I’m just crying over it, it’s so bad for me right now, too.
K-MK-M
- Date posted
- 2y
@OCDMM I’m sorry too. I was tearing up too. It’s just painful. I am literally thinking all the way into ten years from now what I’ll do about handling a specific sup type. So annoying.
OCDMMOCDMM
- Date posted
- 2y
@K-M I’m always living in the future and never in the present, it sucks.
K-MK-M
- Date posted
- 2y
@OCDMM It really does. I try to say acceptance statements and they’re helpful, but then I seem to go straight back.
Cassie - AdvocateCassie - Adv...
- Date posted
- 2y
Aww rumination is the worst. I hate it. Something that has helped me is a form of mindfulness where I try to notice every time I start to spiral and label it as rumination. Then I try to refocus on something I value. It's a practice and it will likely take a lot of refocuses at first to stay refocused, but the practice of noticing and labeling rumination has helped me. I also agree with the comment below about thinking about mental compulsions. It can also help to respond with non-engagement responses to your ruminative worries, like "maybe that will happen, maybe not, but I am choosing to try to move on and do something I value instead of ruminating." Sending support!
Related posts
RavenRose77
- Date posted
- 15w
Ruminating Help
I ruminated too much this morning and got distressing mental images (and confirmation) which sent me spiraling again. How do I stop thinking about this and how do I get back to myself? I feel destroyed.
fl5
- Date posted
- 11w
Tips for rumination with real event?
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?
slippery_salad
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 6w
One sneaky mf compulsion
Ruminating is such a sneaky compulsion. It feels like the only “reasonable” thing to do in the moment because your brain is screaming at you that something is urgent, important, and absolutely essential. It’s like your mind is sounding sirens, telling you that you have to think it through right now because everything looks so black and white in the moment. The trap is, if I don’t ruminate, it feels like I’m just ignoring reality and living in some magical fantasy world. But the truth is, even when things feel the most logical and crystal clear to me with OCD, they are almost always totally irrational to everyone else. Someone said something on here that stuck with me: “nobody ever ruminated their way to certainty.” And that’s it. Rumination is just an attempt to feel certain, but with OCD there is no such thing as enough certainty. The more you chase it, the longer you stay stuck. The work, as uncomfortable as it is, is learning to sit in the uncertainty and stop feeding the cycle…even when everything in you is screaming to figure it out. That’s the way forward.
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