I've been told it's impossible to "push intrusive thoughts away", but also that rumination is a compulsion. What is rumination vs. overthinking? And how do I stop ruminating properly and healthfully?
That’s a good question I don’t really know. For me a rumination would look like “what if I did this and don’t remember” and then I would have to go over everything I’ve ever done in my life to see if I’ve don’t something bad. Like idk what do ur ruminations look like?
My ruminations tend to be around coincidences and whether they mean something... real event/magic thinking basically. I spend way too much time trying to figure out any possible reason why they are or are not a "threat" if that makes sense 😅
Im not sure but I interpret "overthinking" as thinking deeper about something than needed. This can happen without anxiety about uncertainty. For example, researching something for work or school and getting caught up going deeper than needed. "Rumination" I interpret as thinking about something over and over again usually due to a fear of uncertainty about this topic. This could include overthinking. I haven't figured out how to stop ruminating all together but instead I just try to shorten rumination sessions as much as possible. Whenever I catch myself doing it I ask myself what is the worst case scenario. And then I say "maybe it will happen, maybe it won't". At this point I usually get flooded with fear. Then I try really hard to focus on the physical sensations (sweating, tingling, shortness of breathe, etc). My mind will naturally try to "fix" it by thinking about things and I'll just keep trying to redirect my attention to sit in the physical discomfort of the fear. Sometimes the fear will transition to sadness (like a mourning of the loss of thinking I can control things). If I get to this point the rumination urges usually stop. Other times it'll stop sooner. Sometimes I can't resist it. I just try to practice as much as possible.
Thank you so much! It can be really hard especially when the fears feel so real and unavoidable... I've been ruminating for years w/o knowing it's a compulsion, so it's disheartening to feel so "behind" on beating OCD. I'm glad you mentioned that sadness is normal, it can be really hard sometimes.
For me, ruminating is reliving past events, having conversations over again differently for a different outcome, and also playing out "what if" scenarios about things that may or may not happen. The past events is the worst for me. The root is always that it's done to solve something, to fix something, to undo something. Usually mistakes I made or bad reactions I had to people or situations.
That makes so much sense!! I think I tend to relive things that have happened, but I try to get 100% comfortable with them, or to get certainty when we all know that isn't possible haha 😅 It can be really hard to know that some things will always be mysterious; have you come up with any ways to at least make the scary less scary w/o needing certainty?
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