Reliving the past and torturing myself

[Guest Rogue28]

Hello All,

I have suffered with OCD for about 10 years - medically diagnosed that is - and recently I am having a horrible time of torturing myself and reliving past experiences and going over and over and over them. I seem to go over them repeatedly and every time I do the pain of embarrassment, guilt or shame gets worse and worse.

Does anyone else do this to themselves? I remember once I went out on a night out and walked my mates to a bar only to discover it was the bar we had gone too earlier. It didn't go down well at the time and I knew that but now I am reliving that every night, going over and over.

Also I appear to be doing a lot of "what ifs" - What if I had sworn at the bride? What if I had slapped someone? And it is quite literally keeping me up at night.

Any help?!?!

[PolarBear]

Going over things in your head, over and over, is called ruminating. It is a compulsion like any other compulsion.

You can't directly stop the obsessions you get, like the what if questions popping into your head, but you can control the compulsions. Compulsions do no good. They reinforce the belief in your head that things are not right and make the situation worse for you. Compulsions lead to more compulsions.

What you need to do is learn not to perform compulsions. In this case, that means not ruminating. It's not easy to stop, but it is doable. When you notice yourself going over things in your head, stop yourself and try to refocus onto something else (whatever you are doing at the time is fine.) It will take lots of practice for you to get it right. Eventually you can curb your compulsions. This should have the benefit of reducing the number of obsessions and making the ones that do come through weaker.

[Guest Rogue28]

Thank you for the reply. I am just fixating on that example above of the night out and it was 6 years ago now. Reliving how awful it must have apparently made everyone's night. It comes on at night when my mind has tried to calm down. I want to text them all to apologise again but they would think I was a loon.