I am not asking for reassurance, I just need to get this off my chest- I’m sex-repulsed (have always been) and I don’t know why! I can’t stop ruminating about this. How do you deal with rumination? Do you have any tips on being able to stop trying to figure things out?

I have really started to take control of my compulsions and im starting to string together better days! Still not great days or even good, but they are better!!! I have controlled my outward compulsions (googling, research, reassurance, checking) the past couple of days and felt the positive impact of that. But unfortunately, I am realizing that the rumination is still constant. My sexuality and relationship are the only two things constantly on my brain, and if they aren’t I freak out and wonder why im not thinking about them! Anyone have any advice on how to deal with the rumination. Sometimes I don’t even notice im doing it, but it’s taking up 90% of my day. Once I start to tackle this I think I may make some real big progress! Hope everyone is fighting today! ❤️

This is going to be long and all over the place. To give some context I’ve dealt with SOOCD for a long time now and it had very bad effects on my past relationship. I had a hard time being intimate with my past partner because I was always subconsciously checking if I was getting aroused enough, if I was attracted to him, if I truly liked him, or if I was lying to myself (yk the whole deal). I literally felt nothing but anxiety when we did things which made everything worse. I was also extremely depressed which made my libido and attraction towards men completely vanish (still have low libido and my attraction is kinda the same). Me and the guy broke up and a couple years ago we reconnected. When I saw him again I was extremely attracted to him, romantically and sexually. This made me so happy because I finally felt some confirmation that I knew who I was and my thoughts weren’t real after years of being tortured by them. We didn’t end up lasting because my feelings started to shift but I truly blame that on the fact that it was just a dumb old high school relationship, he was a terrible boyfriend in the past, and we had nothing in common. However while we were together, I had dealt with really bad relationship anxiety. I found other people attractive which gave me reassurance, but also made spiral because I thought it meant I didn’t like him anymore, I was lying to myself about my feelings, and I questioned everything about the relationship. Fast forward to now, I am now in a new relationship and I’ve known this guy for a long time. I developed a crush on him which again made me really happy bc I haven’t had a crush in a VERY long time. I made a couple of posts on here about how I started to overthink everything (pls read those to get more context I don’t want to make this even longer). I started to get really anxious and had more intrusive thoughts about lying to myself about my feelings/and sexuality, not really liking him, not being attracted to him, yk all that. I was able to manage it by watching a video about rumination where the guy basically just said “stop thinking about it.” He said to just let it float there, don’t engage with it, don’t try to solve or understand, don’t try to replace it, don’t say a mantra, don’t be mindful, just let it be there and move on. I also went on reddit and this guy said to stop hyper focusing on the attraction/ the “right” feelings bc the more you try to look for them the less you will feel it. Anyways, I took the advice and the next time we hung out I felt comfortable and just so much better. It was the sweetest date and I truly had a fun time. However, when we kissed I immediately started over analyzing and questioning everything. I had bad experiences with my ex because I kept trying to analyze my feelings like do I really like this kiss? Am I actually attracted to him? Why am I not feeling super excited right now? Why did all these good feelings just go away? It was so annoying and heartbreaking for me because I just want to be normal, I want to truly enjoy this relationship. I want to stop automatically checking and over thinking everything. We’ve discussed sexual things and it automatically made me hyper analyze everything making me feel more anxious and unsure about the relationship and my sexuality. There have been times where we talked about them and I’ve thought about it with no worry, and I even got turned on by it (tmi i’m sorry). But I’m worried that I’ll have the same bad experiences I did with my ex and it’ll ruin how I view the everything. I was so excited for this but now I feel so scared and anxious again. I really want to enjoy this, he’s truly an amazing person and I want to be with him without being bombarded by this shit 😭. Sorry if none of this made sense. Please give me advice if you have any!!!!

I struggle with ruminating on things I did that I deem “cringey” or I feel others may judge me for. For example, we had a very fun and friendly work “Olympics” that I got roped into organizing. The planning process itself was stressful because I am very organized and the ladies I worked to plan it with are organized it their own different ways. That aside, the day came together very nicely. Everyone had fun, nothing went wrong, we had to time everything perfectly (we have people who flew in from out of town and had to leave at a very specific time) and there was only one game that had to be reworked to fit. Objectively it was a very good day and came together very well. However, my brain seems to want to focus on and play on a loop the one singular game I played that I completely fudged. After telling everyone not to hold the child sized bow and arrow a certain way, I of course, held it that way and proceeded to mess up, not once, but four times. A lot - but not all - of the participants were watching and my hands began to shake and I feel it was noticeable. I was the only one to struggle with it so my brain tells me everyone saw it and they were talking about it behind my back and judging me for not being able to do the thing I said not to do. Then I spiral and think of the other slightly cringey moments that I didn’t even necessarily mess up I just had a lot of anxiety during, and a lot of yes on me, and felt it was noticeable. How do you stop the rumination ? I can distract myself with a show or a book or something but it only lasts so long and then BAM the memory pops up in my brain like one of my Inside Out Emotions hit the wrong button. This is a very mild case of ruminating for me, yet I still physically cringe anytime the thought occurs. Any tips would be appreciated.