Dwelling on unpleasant memories - making me miserable

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A problem I've had all my life, which is starting to make me miserable, is that I have a huge tendency to subconsciously dwell on memories of unpleasant situations I've been in. Usually, when people encounter an unpleasant situation (e.g. a break-up in a relationship, being told off by someone at work, being taunted by a stranger) it can upset them at the time, and cause unpleasant and bitter feelings, but these subside after days or weeks or so. However, in my case, whenever an unpleasant thing happens to me, it gets permanently stored in my head and keeps subconsciously repeating; even if the event happened years ago, the severity of the memories can make me feel as though the event happened yesterday and affect my mood now.

Examples of such situations which have been causing me anxiety (which I have a history of, along with depression) include:

• being told off in a shop for coming in and asking for change for a bus a couple of times
• overcomplicating things in school assignments and getting shouted at/reprimanded for it
• when I still remained friends with my ex-girlfriend for a while, and asking for a break from talking and her taking it the wrong way and making me feel negligent, which led to us stopping talking in the end
• being whinged at by my Master's supervisor, for not meeting the agreed task over the Easter holidays, making slow progress throughout and frustrating him during my final year as an undergraduate
• similarly being told off by my supervisor during my PhD attempt, for missing deadlines and making little progress (due to not being able to cope)
• my parents fairly recently getting panicked and making me feel miserable due to having very little money to be able to move into the job I'm in now
• comments from my mother suggesting that I need to lose weight.

It's at the point at the moment where it's making me feel sad and upset, even when the cause of the unpleasant situation or stimulus of anxiety is no longer in my life. Events from the past can influence my mindset now and permanently affect me, in a similar way to victims of abuse. Even if the situation happened years ago, I still feel like I want to tell the person who caused the situation how much it adversely affected me and ask for an apology for the way they behaved. This would be considered a disproportionate reaction due to the amount of time elapsed since the situation occurred (and indicate that I have problems), and they probably would have forgotten what it was I was talking about and apologise anyway to make me go away.

I feel I am at the stage where I need to see a professional about this, and I worry that unless I do something about it, it’s going to make me permanently miserable and I’ll never be able to live a happy life. If I encounter a negative event that strikes me a lot, it can put me into “shut-down mode” in which I numb myself to the situation and accept everything the perpetrator says (whether it is reasonable or not), and then I end up feeling depressed. I have tried taking anti-depressants in the past to help me cope with this, but it hasn’t helped me very much.

Even if every other aspect of my life seems to be going well, the replaying of these thoughts makes me feel like a constant failure for past instances where I have failed to meet people’s expectations.

Does anyone else experience this? I don't know why it happens to me - I think I could be internalising the situations subconsciously because of an Aspie tendency to take what other people say literally, and also the tendency to not feel able to express emotions.

I have been in experiences like this. The pain my social losses and failures do not last as long, but I have had this peoblem of obsessive thoughts in regards to things in the past. I sought professional help and I would advise it. It was actually waht got me diagnosed with ASD. But yea there are therapys that help. My phychologist focused on helping me to acceptance and helping me learn to move on. Best of luck.

This happens to me. It can be things that were hurtful or embarrassing which bring those feelings back or stupid little things where I may not even have been at fault that get stuck in my head for years and years and years and keep coming back once in a blue moon when something somehow triggers them off. I don't know what it is that makes them stick, it's only a fraction of such incidents that get stored. The majority of such things don't get stored and revisited like this. It's not something that has much of a hold on me though. I never thought it was an aspergers trait though or have ever really thought anything of it until now as I think it's the first time the subject has come up. I kind of thought of it as just a by-product of having an excellent long term memory. But I can certainly see how it would be, and I guess an NT with a great memory wouldn't have such experiences?

This sort of thing happens to me a lot. Any minor embarrassment real or imaginary can become stored and stuck in my mind. I find that my current emotional state strongly influences this behaviour. If I'm feeling embarrassed, I will relive similar experiences. The worst thing you can do is respond to these thoughts. I know that's far easier said than done but thinking, ruminating about these things will only make you angry or depressed. Professional help would be a good idea.

I do this endlessly. I wish I didn't. It really does create obstacles in life.