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How do you stop ruminating?


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It is automatic to start with. The first thing you need to do is recognize when you are ruminating. The quicker the better.

The next step is to stop yourself (I'm not going to do that right now) and then shift your attention onto something else.

It takes practice. Lots and lots of practice. It won't work the first thirty times you do it. But keep on it and slowly you should get a handle on your ruminating.

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Thanks everyone!

I'm currently doing ERP around sex, i.e. 4 weeks of not planning or scheduling it, with the help of my therapist. Not mentioning it to my wife is one thing, but the stuff in my head is harder to stop. Am I right to categorise it as rumination? It's remembering when we last did it and thinking we need to do it again after a week so we don't break up. Is this stuff in my head rumination? I'm assuming it is so I can employ the techniques you have mentioned?

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35 minutes ago, kaheath80 said:

Thanks everyone!

I'm currently doing ERP around sex, i.e. 4 weeks of not planning or scheduling it, with the help of my therapist. Not mentioning it to my wife is one thing, but the stuff in my head is harder to stop. Am I right to categorise it as rumination? It's remembering when we last did it and thinking we need to do it again after a week so we don't break up. Is this stuff in my head rumination? I'm assuming it is so I can employ the techniques you have mentioned?

Yes this sounds like your ruminating over it kaheath and giving it importance. This is the thing you have to let go of and not give importance to.  Every time you think of it, think I'm not going to do this right now and focus your attention to something else and just keep repeating this process over and over again. Believe me it does get easier but it takes time and practice. At times you will ruminate and not even realise you are doing it, as soon as you realise you are apply the same teqnique. Remember that no matter how much ruminating you do you never get the answer you are looking for.

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It will still be important to you and that won't change, what will change is your thoughts and behaviour towards it. 

At the moment you are giving it importance by feeling A. compelled to do it the right amount of times and B. because if you don't you fear your relationship might end. A. you are ruminating about it and when you last did it, because B you fear that if you havnt had it this week your fear of breaking up might come true?  Is this correct ? 

A is a compulsion and B is an obsession the things you need to work on stopping. So it will still be important to you but you will be changing the importance you associate with it. 

You need to work hard on the cognitive side as well as the behavioural side. 

Hope this helps you kaheath :)

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Thanks, that is helpful. 

Yes you are right in your understanding, also I feel if we don't do it once a week it means she doesn't love me. Which makes me worry we'll break up.

I think it's so bad because it's mixed up with my BPD, I'm scared of losing my wife and I feel if we have sex once a week we're ok and will stay together.

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"I'm scared of losing my wife and I feel if we have sex once a week we're ok and will stay together".

You need to accept there is no actual real connection between having sex once a week and staying together - only you disorders are making one. 

As lostinme says, this is what you need to address. 

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All you will do there is devalue the love and joy and create threat, bring in performance anxiety. 

You need to break free of this. 

Lovemaking can be predictable and boring if staged in this way. There needs to be affection, suggestion it might be nice to... Plus allow for spontaneity. 

 

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You can do this kaheath just focus on something else every time the thought pops up, just think I'm not doing this right now and just keep doing it over and over again :yes:

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It is hard at first, but it does become easier the more you do it. In time you will wish you had done it sooner. It's very rare I ruminate now it's usually when I don't even realise I'm doing it, but as soon as I realise I am I stop it straight in it's tracks and say I'm not going there. You will feel so much better believe me :yes:

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Compulsions worsen not weaken OCD so we have to reel them in. 

But when we start to overcome them, we really improve a lot. 

Edited by taurean
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Usually at weekends I have to make sure that we have sex because we don't usually do it during the week and I worry it will be our only chance.

I managed to resist that compulsion this weekend. But we didn't have sex.

Last night I had trouble sleeping because my mind kept telling me that my wife doesn't love me because she didn't want sex and that we're going to break up. I kept trying to push it out of my head but it kept coming back, I was almost crying with the effort of stopping the rumination.

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Don't try and stop it /push the thoughts away - you will just make them stronger. 

Just bear in mind these thoughts are not true, they are OCD 's lies and distortions. The sex act is not the be all and end all to love that OCD is making out - it's a show of affection, a shared pleasure - it happens when both partners feel happy and loving and affectionate - on their, not OCD 's, terms :)

 

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Aren't the thoughts a compulsion though? I'm trying to move onto thinking about something else when the thought pops into my head, but it's so hard.

What are the compulsions I should be resisting?

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Hi kaheath, your obsession is you fear that if you don't have sex once a week your relationship will break up.

Your compulsion is to have sex once a week to prevent this from happening so you feel compelled to do it. Also ruminating about when you last had sex and when you need to do it again etc is also a compulsion. You need to accept the thoughts and see them for what they are as Roy has said in his earlier post and then refocus your thoughts doing something else and not to spend time ruminating over these thoughts. 

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I will try to explain best way I can because my theme is different to yours.

For me one of my intrusive thoughts whilst doing sewing, would maybe something like I've swallowed a pin, and it's gone and I'm going to die. This is the one I don't ignore or try to push away, I learn to accept it and see it for what it is a OCD thought. 

Ruminating the one I'm not suppose to do, is I would go over it over and over again in my mind, what I did, where I put it, where it's gone, I can't find it etc backtracking everything I did to try to find the answer something I will never get. So we have to learn to live with the uncertainty of never knowing. 

Hope this helps and makes sense? 

Lost 

 

 

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Your welcome kaheath :) just hope it's been helpful for you. 

The first thing I had to do before starting cbt was to work out what was the compulsions, obsessions, intrusions, rituals etc were, because I didn't know what was what, I just knew I had thoughts and things I needed to do in a certain way. Once I began to learn what part was what it made it easier to connect to the cbt and erp part of therapy. 

Best wishes 

lost

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