Ruminating thoughts

Post Reply New Topic

I’m a mess. How do I make them stop? The worst thing is I can literally spend 8 or 9 hours talking like a broken record about the same problem. Pulling it to pieces without ever solving it.

This has happened to me ever since I was a child. Sometimes I call helplines but that only makes it worse.

Mostly I ruminate about how someone was verbally mean to me or traumatic evens from the past that remind me of my current situations. I feel like a child in an adult’s world. Does this happen to anyone else? How do I make it stop? I’m considering self harm or even suicide and before you tell me to reach out to the services, I literally went to the hospital and they misinterpreted everything I was saying and sent me home.

My dad who was on the spectrum drank and smoked his entire life and I can see why. He also had the same issues with not being able to calm down or sleep. Please help.

I'm not sure that I have any very effective advice to give, but I certainly know the problem well enough. I've spoken to enough other autistic people (and others) who struggle with this problem to know that we are not the only ones.

Having had problems with alcohol abuse in the past, I would advise you very strongly not to go down that route. It may seem to block the thoughts for a little while, but past a certain point of drunkenness or when you stop drinking, the thoughts just come back ten times worse than before.

Finding something else which exercises my brain helps to a certain extent; pushing the thoughts out of my brain by getting deeply immersed in my interests. And I find that getting some exercise outside, especially out in the countryside, helps a lot. But the thoughts still sneak through when my attention wanders - especially at night, when all I want to do is switch my brain off completely.

Aspies tend to communicate better in writing than orally. Therefore it would be a good idea to write down what you wished to say ahead of time when you went to the hospital rather than speak to them orally.

The symptoms you are feeling are all related to stress. Bullying has caused you great harm in the past. It caused your body to release a cascade of hormones into you muscles and nervous system and because you never completed using this hormonal chemicals up, they are now stored in your limbs. So to gain relief, you will need to learn how to vent this stored stress energy.

In reality, you have 5 limbs. These are your 2 arms, your 2 legs and your neck. Since it seems like your bullying was concentrated more on verbal abuse rather than physical abuse, I suspect this energy is stored in you neck. If that is the case, the stored energy can be relieved by screaming at the top of your lungs.

One needs to vent the stored stress energy in their neck muscles, vocal cords, and jaw. The best way is to scream at the top of your lungs several times. But this must be done in a socially acceptable manner. Never scream at a person. I live in the rural countryside and my dog is a free-range dog. When it is mealtime and my dog is up and about; I call my dog very loudly.

R-o-c-k-y. Come here puppy.
R-o-c-k-y.
R-o-c-k-y. Where are you puppy?
R-o-c-k-y.
R-o-c-k-y. Come here puppy.

I yell so loud that I can hear my voice being echoed back to me from nearby hills and mountains. My voice carries about a mile. The call is so strong that it borders on a roar. It is a very good feeling. It gives me a sense of great strength, like I could split a mountain in two just with my voice alone. I feel strong to my core. It is a great stress reliever or normalizer. And it is socially acceptable in the countryside.

One might try howling like a wolf at the moon. There is an individual in New York City on this site that howls at the subway cars as they pass by deep down in the subway stations. But there are other ways to scream in a socially acceptable manner. A singer can do this if it is a very powerful song. A barker in the county fair can do this. A fan at a rock concert can sing along at the top of their lungs. Even a Girl Scout can practice barking in front of the local grocery store when she sells Girl Scout cookies. Or find yourself a soundproof room.

Golden Rule: Never scream AT someone. Because this could be interpreted as an attack, a verbal assault.

If you are not taking an antidepressant, and it certainly sounds like you aren't, please visit your doctor and ask for a prescription. Your family doctor/general practitioner will do; it does not have to be a mental health professional. I don't know why these meds are called antidepressants; they relieve anxiety more than anything else. Once you have found one that works for you and are taking the proper dose, I am confident you will see a major improvement over the way you "used to feel."

I was in a similar situation when my GP put me on amitriptyline supposedly to help me sleep. It did help me sleep some better but it worked more to lessen my anxiety. That was over 20 years ago and I have been taking it ever since.

I think ruminating is very common with people on the spectrum.

I hate when I can't stop ruminating over things that upset me in the past, it makes me feel ridiculous that I can end up getting upset again over stuff from years ago that I know shouldn't really matter (like people who upset me in school for example-ffs, I'm 31!!). Or sometimes I ruminate over problems that have already been solved (but I get all anxious that for some reason maybe they are not fixed like I think they am, so I keep going over and over it and coming to the same conclusion that no, it's fine, everything's sorted...aaand then it starts all over again).

Sometimes I find it helpful to write things down and get them out of my head when I'm ruminating. I find it helps me sort through them, and just to have them in some physical form so I can physically put them to one side. I also have a few ways I try to disrupt the thoughts (I keep telling myself 'it doesn't matter' every time the same thoughts come up in my head, or sometimes I literally tell my brain to shut up -my favourite silly ways are to go 'quiet you!' and 'shut up brain or I'll stab you with a q-tip' ). Also listening to music, or deliberately turning my thoughts to something else that requires some thought (planning something out, solving an actual problem) sometimes works. If I'm ruminating when I'm trying to sleep and none of the above works, I get up and I do something (read, etc) until I'm tired again, and then try again (repeat if necessary) rather than lying there and letting myself do it.

Commercial drugs are the last thing I'd try - the goal of a company is non-fatal addictions, and they are very good at promoting them. I don't have a cure-all for looping thoughts, but a combination will usually do the job.
First is making a list. Once something is written down, I don't have to worry about forgetting it if I stop refreshing the memory.
Sometimes, the next step is "doing something about it" that is non-committal - putting out a query or some such, at which point I can "forget it" until new data is in.
Some people can just file many memories under "Mystery" and leave it at that. There are some that nobody can solve, and many that always get by. Is there really anything to gain by understanding one detail? I was once asked to explain what had been going on in one five-minute period in one small room, and it took five hours to take it out to where further details seemed irrelevant to three witnesses.
Vigorous exercise, somewhat surprisingly, can convince your endocrine system that you are making some progress on the featured problem. Sunlight, scenery, and healthy diet help a lot too. Even dehydration is a common problem.
Meditation, even if laughably inconsistent, can help a lot. Ultimately, control of one's mind is the challenge of being human.
More distracting distractions, such as studies, games, or even entertainment can "shuffle your deck" back to varied interests.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is very good for this. I also highly recommend a book by the British philosopher Bertrand Russell called Conquest of Happiness which you can get as a free pdf at https://archive.org/details/TheConquest ... ell1930VTS

It's a very short book, and Russell's prose is a joy to read; the book is written in his typical playful, light-hearted but humane style. Needless to say, you don't need to be a philosopher to understand it.

Particularly important is the chapter on fatigue.

Please let me know what you think.

What's helped me most of all with excessive rumination is mindfulness practice and meditation. It's not a quick fix; it is a practice; it takes time, and the changes are gradual, gentle, and subtle, but I've found it to be enormously helpful. When I find myself ruminating, I stop, and take three slow, deep breaths; focusing all of my attention upon "right here, right now", and the subjective sensations of breathing, and my body. Having reoriented myself upon wherever I am and whatever I'm doing, I try to maintain my mental focus upon the present moment. When I find that I've lost the plot, I simply do it again. I have found the "mindfulness bell" on this web site really helpful; when the bell sounds, I stop whatever I'm doing, and take three breaths as above. Sometimes I use stop lights when in a car, or a phone ringing as a cue; anything in my environment which might help me to remember to pause and bring my mind back to this present moment.
When I meditate, I focus all of my attention upon the count of my breath; "one" on inhalation, "one" on exhalation, "two" on the next inhalation, and so on, through the count of ten. If I loose track of the count or my mind wanders, I gently bring my mind back to "one", without self-judgement, recrimination, or condemnation. How many times I loose the count and start over is of absolutely no consequence; what's important is starting again; "fall down seven - get up eight". It's been my experience that to derive any benefit, I need to spend some time in meditation daily; for me, it works much better if I spend even five minutes in meditation every day rather than meditating for an hour once a week. I have not found insight or vipassana meditation to be helpful with excessive rumination. My mind needs a point of focus, otherwise it has a strong tendency to drift back into it's long-established patterns of watching re-runs in my head.
There have been times in my life when psychotropic medications have been real life-savers. Considering your level of distress, you might want to explore that option, too.
May peace be with you.

^^ That's interesting. I used to help with meditation lessons until the group became like a cult, and have heard of dozens of techniques. When I took it up again, I also hit on the counting method. I think that any "object of meditation" from a candle to a koan is about equal to any other, depending on one's respect for it. I like numbers because they include some feedback on how well I'm concentrating, and because I can distract myself with comparing the primes to the rest, etc. I use zero to twelve. On a bad day, I lose count, or just keep a tally running in the background. On a better day, the ruminations are replaced with numbers and their relationships, and other "internal" distractions, such as the inner light and sounds. People assume that they can't hear or see anything with their eyes and ears closed, but the more you focus, the more interesting it gets. I've heard it compared to a Pink Floyd show. On the best days, the numbers float by like little puffs of cloud in a vast sky of calm, while I rest on the waves of breath.