- Date posted
- 35w ago
Rumination
What should I do if I catch my self ruminating. Most of the time when I ruminate is when I have urges, sensations or images. I just want my life back.
What should I do if I catch my self ruminating. Most of the time when I ruminate is when I have urges, sensations or images. I just want my life back.
Stop thoughts have always helped me. An example of a stop thought I use is to just yell "STOP!" to myself. And then I shake it off physically, take a shower, or stand up and walk outside just to breathe the fresh air.
Personally I find rumination very, very difficult and tricky . For me to at least a certain extent there is normally a particular subject or issue that requires my attention legitimately perhaps to the point of generating a pro and con list to work out the matter . It often leads to over analyzing and rumination when I often take things too far for too long . I have to make myself stop and tear myself away from the issue and make myself move onto something else or otherwise I will end up in the counter productive category which often I end up in.
Someone said this the other day and I thought it was amazing because it actually worked. It was "if you can't solve this in 5 minutes move on." I have a lot of work to do so I ruminate for 5 minutes and then I just got back to work, still kind of ruminating, but it went away because I became so focused on my work. When the thoughts would come back up I'd say to myself "you couldn't solve this in 5 minutes so just wait a little longer until you're done with work to figure it out." You could even delay things by thinking "I'll think about this in 5 minutes, but right now let me do x or y" and I tend to really get lost in time so that also worked for me.
@CalicoTiramisu Mine is really bad that even when I’m doing things I still think about it. Do I just try to focus on what I’m doing if so? How??
@Ocdsucks56 Sometimes that's all you can do. I was having a near meltdown the other day trying to work through it, but take baby steps. No one is expecting these issues to be solved overnight. Progress is often times not linear when it comes to this. Sometimes nothing will help, but I feel I get to the point sometimes of "aren't you tired of this?" and I just say "I am absolutely tired of this" and we agree to leave the thoughts for just a second even if the guilt is still there. We aren't going to be magically fixed overnight and we're always going to have rough days, understanding ocd and our thoughts to help prevent a rumination cycle is all we can do for now. Best wishes!
@CalicoTiramisu Yes, I am starting therapy again, I hope it helps like it did last time. I hope we all overcome this. We deserve a life without pain, even tho is not physically pain but is mental pain.
@Ocdsucks56 In my experience, mental pain has left more scars than any physical pain. Just remember some stranger is always rooting for you!
does anyone else use the fact that they dont like their thoughts as a confirmation/compulsion, and or when you go through something stressful with little to no compulsions take it as a sign they actually like it? is this apart of usual rumination or am I expirencing something different? and how do you deal with it?
I'm having the hardest time right now with my own ruminating negative thoughts that may or may not possibly come true. I fear the worst and replay what that looks like in my head over and over. The best I can do is my best and wait for the horror to end. I want to cry, but can't. I'm scared and alone in my head. My anxiety is extreme. What should I do in the meantime while I'm going through this? How can I minimize or stop the way I'm feeling? Please, I need help.
Advice needed please: Has anybody ever been in a situation where something traumatic or heartbreaking was happening in their life and struggled with rumination? I know there is like a normal amount that you should process something and cry it out but I don’t know that it is conducive to anything to do that on and off for hours? Wouldn’t it at a certain point be considered unhelpful rumination? And if so how does one stop? Because I’m going through something so hurtful and confusing that I don’t know how to stop thinking about it and the usual distractions don’t work for very long. And idk how important this is but it just happened today so it’s very fresh which makes it even harder to not think about and “figure out” why x, y, z happened. Goodness, I’m sorry if I’m weird or a baby
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