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Posted: July 04 2004,11:20   
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Sometimes our brains go over and over the same subjects: still we repeat the same habits and compulsions.  My brain sometimes repeats the same conversations with itself - all day long!
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lizzy


gigi
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Posted: July 04 2004,16:06   
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Well, I'm most definitely a ruminator, so I guess this thread is the place for me!  I'm too tired to go into specifics right now, and I've already described some of it in another thread.  Just wanted to say hi.  



leonarda
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Posted: July 05 2004,05:32   
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Thanks Lizzy!
I most definetly am a ruminator, at least some times, if that counts. It varies from a particular song that I don't even like and is in my head the whole day (talking about unpleasant!) to repeating certain sentences over and over again in my mind(from ''nowhere'' they come). That's actually like having repetitive thoughts, right?
I remember that was actually my first symptom of ''real'' OCD. There was one short stupid sentence that I couldn't get out of my head for days and it started scaring me eventually...
Anyway, I'm in!

Edited by leonarda on July 05 2004,05:32


inner_chaos
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Posted: July 05 2004,16:51   
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what if you have the same conversation from 100 different angles?
I do this alot.  its like looking at it from every different veiw point.  it gets beyond ridiculous.  
For example.....
i'd like to chew on a piece of gum..the only problem is that i have ten different flavours in front of me..which do i choose....
the cherry
the  mint
the grape
the watermelon
the bubblegum
the spiramint
the strawberry
the cinnamon
the lemon
and that blue trident kind that tastes like tooth paste
so i go over this 100 different ways of trying to decide what flavour i want to chew and some days it takes  me up to an hour to decide....but by the time i decide...the problem is that i no longer feel like chewing.

i do this with conversations.....

if i am going to to the pdoc or the t.  i will think about every possible thing that could possibly come up as a topic of conversation and work out what exactly i will say in response to his or her questions.  then i reannalyze  and reevaluate and do it again and try to think of better answers and more questions.  after the appointements i rethink what was said and how it went and what was said by both of us and what was said in between the lines.  were there any inuendos on the t.s behalf or the pdocs behalf.  (see i dont want to look crazy or they might lock me up again)

i do this with my family as well constantly. what are they implying, what do i think, what do they really think,
i do this with all my psts and pms on here as well.
is this ruminating?

my problem is that I JUST CANT LET THINGS GO.
IC~  
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~Inner Chaos~
I ask for peace
it is not granted.
A storm is brewing,
I rage within.
Let lightening
strike me down,
For then perhaps
I may find peace.~IC



aguppe
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Posted: July 05 2004,22:51   
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put me down as a ruminator!!!!!
I post mortem nearly every action i have, every thought, every word. I even ruminate on songs...lol
   
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This is not me
I used to be strong
Now I feel weak
This is not me
I never said it was
I didn't like it because I lost my way
From Delta Goodrem's "inocent eyes"album




obeetaybee
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Posted: July 06 2004,05:30   
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I'm a ruminator too!  I have many conversations in my head about how I think the conversation should or may go...



michaelIRL
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Posted: July 06 2004,12:36   
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hand up!! im one to!!!
songs i dont think are a problem, cos everyone has that i think, but phrases, my god!!! they go over and over!!! for example, i watched this documentary on the american military, well actually it was about american 'imperialism', but neways they described the military as having 'full spectrum dominance', i went over that phrase in my head all day long for like a week, lol, quite funny when u think about it.

then, the funniest one was, after reading somone on this website talking about their doctor telling them that they ruminate, i was making the dinner and doing the dishes after and the whole think i said that word over and over again 'ruminating', hmmmmmmmmm, comforting! its quite ironic that i would ruminate about the word rumination. Its like the most ironic word in the english dictionary, verbose, which means overly elaborate language use. So to describe somones verbose language u yourself will be verbose, that is ofcoursae if u use the word verbose(eh u got it, no explaination was needed, oh well).



inner_chaos
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Posted: July 06 2004,14:46   
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"ruminating" and "verbose"
*sigh*

they  both do have such a lovely ring to them as i repeat them over and over in my head...maybe they will be my new words to repeat as i count my ceiling tonight......thanks

michealIRL......lol......
new words to repeat.....lol.....well...repeating words sure counting!

do you repeat them..i do  over and over sometimes fast and then slower and then really slow and then medium speed ...just to see how they sound at different rythems.  lol.

oh well.......
maybe i will go to bed now just so i do thqat and see how it feels to me....counting my ceiling and saying those new words instead of my old two words........
       
IC~   
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~Inner Chaos~
I ask for peace
it is not granted.
A storm is brewing,
I rage within.
Let lightening
strike me down,
For then perhaps
I may find peace.~IC



michaelIRL
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Group: Newbie
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Joined: June 2004
Posted: July 07 2004,01:08   
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LOL, ur welcome! i can give u a multitude more, i joke!!!! sorry for giving u a little bit of a trigger!
but, as opposed to saying things at differnt paces, i say them in differnt accents, infact i just talk all the time in loads of differnt accents, people tend to get slightly confused!



inner_chaos
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Group: Senior Member
Posts: 2108
Joined: June 2004
Posted: July 07 2004,05:54   
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trust me micheal,
you did not trigger me at all.
if you did not give me new words to think about...then there is always the dictionary!
IC~  
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~Inner Chaos~
I ask for peace
it is not granted.
A storm is brewing,
I rage within.
Let lightening
strike me down,
For then perhaps
I may find peace.~IC


leonarda
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Group: Member
Posts: 328
Joined: April 2004
Posted: July 07 2004,07:23   
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I sometimes try to be smarter than my phrases repeating themselves and I convert them into comics in my mind. You know, to really think them through and then ''bye bye, go away'' so they'd go away and stop bugging me. Does that work? Lol it does   . Any more affective ways of fighting them?



Orso
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Posted: July 07 2004,12:25   
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I AM the RUMINATOR!!!
[it gets SO noisy in my head that I have to tell the conversations to just 'shut up' - really annoying]
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Orso
œI held my tongue until it turned blue . . .you said I had ˜an attitude™ . . .?
Paul Westerberg

Wow.  Count me in for this one too.  

I had no idea that there could be so many different ways for OCD to manifest itself.  I always kinda thought that I just spent too much time wraped up in my own thoughts.

nope. Its called ruminating..and lots of people do it. i talk to myself all day long, nonstop. having conversations from different angles, etc.... i think about words there meanings, fitting them into scentences, etc... on and on and on. its never ending. my mind races, all night long some nights.

welcome to the forums BTW~ :)

Thanks.  ;)  Good to be here.    

I've found that one of the best side effects of my zoloft is that it makes me sleepy.  hehe  Now when I go to bed at night, I drop right out.  Don't lie awake with my mind going a mile a minute all night.  hehe

Its just the bit when I'm awake during the day that I wish I could shut off now... lol.

I am not on meds anymore...so i lay awake and my mind races. i wake up in the middle of the night with it running a mile a minute. its constanly on the go. I wish it would just shut up! for me there is no such thing as silence. Night and day and day and night. Too bad I could not put my mind to good use and do something productive with these thoughts like write a book! Now there is an :idea3: LOL! Now given my thoughts...what a crazy book it would be!

Ouch.  Poor thing.  That can be really rough.  Several years ago I became an alcoholic because when I was drunk was about the only time that I could get any silence in my head.   It worked, sort of.  I really don't recommend it.  heh  Finally quit about 8 years ago.   I took up knitting instead.  When I can't sleep I get up and work on that.  I make myself focus on what I'm doing exclusively.  

Either that or when I'm in bed, I pretend that I'm falling backwards into a bottomless hole filled with clouds and they close over my head like water as I fall.  I imagine that the clouds are my thoughts and I'm falling past them too fast for them to catch up.   Just falling and the thoughts racing away.  Kinda like falling deeper into my mind, in the dark.  Usually within 10 minutes or so, I'm ready to roll over onto my stomach and drift off.  Doesn't work all of the time, but often enough.  =)  

Sorry that I couldn't give you any better ideas.  =(

that falling thing wont work for me. i have falling nightmares, so i wont purposely think of falling! For obvious reasons.

Knitting, I sometimes do that, but I am not really good at it, so I dont have a lot of patience for it as of yet. LOL. I need something though to keep me occupied and even while knitting and counting stitches my mind still races.  Cant win for trying.

It seems like I am shooting down all your good ideas. Not purposefully they just wont work for me...got any other tricks up your sleeve?

Ack!   Ok, no falling for you.  =(    

Well, about the only other thing that I can think of off of the top of my head is pretty much just escapism.   I can get lost in a good book pretty easily.  I usually take my lunch hour and read.  Its not much, but I can get away from myself for a little bit and recharge so to speak.  

If I can think of anything else that I do, I'll post it here as soon as I can.  Sorry that I couldn't be of more help to you.  =(


Peter

i read but not a lot. i used to read all the time. But now i have concentration problems...probably all that ruminating that is going on upstairs. lol. seriously. it is the depression. so i read a little when i can. and i love it. Big books like i used to find myself delving into are now sitting on my shelves collecting dust so i am sticking to shorter less complex things, but at least that is better than nothing.

I amused that you are a 28 year old male knitter. knitting is becoming a lost art these days. People just go out and buy things. and you are a guy. I have said that twice now. what made you take up knitting? ??? And what do you like to knit?  :)

*Grin*  I tend to hear that quite a bit.  hehe  I took it up when I was about 13 or so.  

It was something to do with my hands to keep me busy more than anything else.  I find it relaxing.  I don't do anything fancy or complicated.  Pretty much just straight knit or perle(can never remember if its perle or pearl for knitting hehe) once in a great while.  

Currently, I'm working an afghan.  Well, sort of.  hehe I started it a year or so ago and I do a bit on it here and there. lol.

that is cute. you started when you were 13? lol. that is funny. i cant picture a 13 year old boy knitting.

i cant knit fancy stuff either. i knit scarfs and that is the extent of my great talent. lol. i can barly pearl. i have to straight knit most of the time because i get confused. lol. a knitter i really am not, but at least i try. lol. :;):

i get board of working on the same thing, so i have about 5 scarfs on the go, but i have not touched any of them in quite some time now. lol. i get board easily. lol. then when i start again i do knit a lot. then i leave it for a while. i am funny that way.

IC,

Try writing all the racing thoughts down before you try to go to sleep and see if it alleviates it, a little.  This works great for some.........

Ruminating is a part of depression when your mind gets stuck on something and that's all you want to talk about or think about.  It drives the people around you away, and they start to avoid you..............Here she come again, and she'll tell us all the stupid stuff about her ex!  Let's get out of here, before she comes over here.

Chances are it's working to keep you depressed, so if you do it, it's best to try to change this....  I think we sometimes think that if we think something to death, it won't bother us anymore...like desentizing your mind and reactions.  I don't think this is true, though.  I think it keeps the depression rolling.  

                                                       Jackie  

Thanks for the reply jackie,

I already do a lot of writing myslf. i find that it helps to write out my thoughts. It is very theraputic and i encourage others to take up writing as a daily activity as well.

I dont talk to other people, just myself so i dont drive people away with it. The only people I talk to in real life are my t and pdoc really and that is their job to listen to me about what my current problems are that are bothering me and to help me sort out those issues. So that really is not too much of an issue with me.

I agree that when we keep re-hashing issues and thoughts and ideas  it helps to keep us depressed and i need to find a way to let these obsessive ideas and thoughts go. Writing it out helps though becuase it gets it down on paper and out of my head to a certain degree.