This is going to sound beyond stupid but I’m a little confused on what ruminating is. Like I have heard it a lot on this app, but I have also heard it otherwise and I just don’t really know what it means. I know this is stupid but if someone could let me know, that would be great!

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?

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.

You’re all ruminating!!! My therapist put it best when I told him, “rumination is my biggest compulsion.” He replied, “rumination is the overarching compulsion, every other one falls under it.” The real muscle you’re trying to train when it comes to uncertainty is the ability to stop ruminating. Rumination isn’t the same as regular thinking, it’s thinking with your will behind it. Your mind will naturally wander and generate thoughts, like clouds drifting across the sky, but ruminating is like grabbing a cloud and trying to squeeze rain out of it. That’s not natural thinking anymore, that’s you forcing the process. And here’s the part people struggle to believe: ruminating is a choice. You can choose not to chase every thought. The key is refusing to treat a thought as gospel truth. Instead, leave it where it is, neutral, just another car passing on the freeway. If you stop running into traffic and just let them drive by, the road gets clearer. The more you practice this, the stronger your “uncertainty muscle” becomes. At first it feels painful, like going to the gym after years of inactivity. But over time, the soreness turns into strength, and what used to weigh you down becomes easier to carry, or not carry at all.