Minds that do not turn off

Minds that do not turn off

Rumination means having a thought enter your mind over and over again. But this is an abstract definition. The literal definition of this word is taken from the way animals use to eat their food in such a way that they return their food to the mouth after swallowing to chew it again and again. Rumination alone is not considered a mental disorder, but a defense mechanism that we see in depression and anxiety. This mechanism makes people stuck in their thoughts; In this situation, people feel that they are stuck in the straits of unpleasant feelings. Ruminations in a depressed state may usually be things like:

Why can't I be happy like everyone else? Why don't these thoughts leave me?

Rumination in anxious people is usually in the form of worrying about things that happened in the past, such as analyzing past situations and worrying about what kind of impression they left, or what someone meant by so-and-so. What was the word? At the time the person said what they did, you didn't think much of it, but when you get to the end of the day and start ruminating on your own interaction, what the person said takes on a whole different meaning. And usually that meaning will be negative for you. In both situations, this is repetitive, unhelpful and negative thinking. This is different from examining a past situation because in that situation your goal is to be able to process that situation so that you can solve that problem. In this case, analyzing the past is constructive, but in rumination you only think about the negative aspects of the situation.

What happens when we become captive to rumination?

All of us unconsciously use defense mechanisms when faced with situations that are associated with anxiety or emotional tension. And rumination is one of our defenses against not facing the root of the anxieties we experience in the face of the painful realities of life. The purpose of rumination is to reduce emotional distress, paradoxically rumination keeps you at the highest emotional level. but how? By judging thoughts focusing on self and other. When you judge yourself, the hope is to fix your flaws or mistakes, but the real result is that you will experience a deeper sense of failure and chronic depression. The judgment of others also gives you a feeling of failure and disappointment, and the result will be chronic anger and disturbed relationships. Predicting thoughts in a way creates hope for the future to appear, and catastrophic prediction can give you hope that you can plan and prevent bad things from happening. And this state can cause anxiety, and the reason is that a catastrophic prediction creates a feeling of anxiety. Explaining thoughts creates hope in a person that he can control painful experiences. These thoughts seek to answer the question of why this happened; If he can find the cause of painful behavior, he can manage it and prevent it from happening. But the question "why" has no answer and usually leads to helplessness or leads you to the conclusion that the cause is a personal defect; It means that it is your fault that this bitter incident happened, and this issue causes the excitement to intensify. Despite your hope to complete, respond and control external thoughts and events, rumination causes emotional pain and keeps you at the highest level of emotional wave in a severe state of anxiety, sadness and chronic anger. It is better to find the root of the problem instead of fighting these thoughts. In the process of psychotherapy sessions, you will have the opportunity to learn how to tap into your thoughts and let them come and go, while also finding the roots of your anxiety and repressed emotions. without paralyzing you and inflicting serious psychological damage on you.

Author and Editor : Saba Hadi- ISTDP Therapist