Rumination

Sometimes things happen in your life, which seem quite trivial at the time, but they keep going through your head, particularly at bed time.  Perhaps it is an incident at work, and you go over and over what you should of said or could have said and there is no end to it. 

This starts as sometime quite unworthy of notice, but once you start to ruminate, each time you go over it as you want it to be the harder it is to deal with that person at work, which could lead to other disputes and end up in one of you leaving the workplace.

Other times perhaps a friend has said something hurtful, and you cannot understand why, what had you done to deserve this, why are you being put up as the bad guy, you have done nothing wrong, why is she bringing this up, had she spoken to the other person, what is going on, and once again come bedtime this will keep ruminating around and around to try and understand, and what can needs to be said or done to make it right. 

Something taken the wrong way, has lead to this, but rumination had blown it completely out of context.

Sometimes you may have reacted badly to a situation and just don’t know how to put it right, how can you take back what you said, it was true after all, they have no right to treat you this way, and you had to defend yourself afterall. 

So there it goes again, around and around and around in your head.

So why do we need help to stop this happening and what does this rumination do for you?

It can cause health problems, especially mental health problems, lack of sleep causing you not to function as well during the day, and exacerbation of the problem through rumination can lead to loss of job, it can rob you of your self esteem, cause you to doubt everything you do, or indeed it can cause you to become aggressive and attack. 

It can change your personality and lead to anxiety, stress and depression, all of which can be avoided if we know how to stop the rumination.

Another type of rumination is when someone has passed over and you have not had the chance to say goodbye, perhaps you had to finish something at work before rushing to the hospital, or perhaps you did not realise the severity of the situation, no matter what it is self blame is not healthy, we cannot turn the clock back so we have to find ways to overcome these feelings of guilt, which often we may have been in the room, left to visit the toilet and when you got back your loved one had passed.  It is very common that a loved one will wait to be alone before they take their last breath, it is not your choice it is theirs and we have to respect this.

For those of us who have family pets, when one passes it is equally upsetting, but when we have been at the vets and been given a choice whether to hang on for a few months, or euthanize we are going to end up ruminating. 

If we hang on and then the pet seems really unwell and we have to euthanize then, we blame ourselves for letting them suffer longer, and if we choose to euthanize straight away we beat ourselves up that it was us that did not want to have the pet there if it only had a year or so, reminding us every day that they may not be there in month or two. 

There is no right or wrong decisions, however when choices are given no matter what we choose, we need to know whether it was the right choice.  

The choice is made, it cannot be undone, so why do we ruminate, beating ourselves up.

We cannot turn the clock back, and Yvette has faced many of these examples, but fortunately she sought help and was able to come to terms with her decision, and also able to apologise if she had mistaken a comment made.  Being able to solve or come to terms with the truth is needed to allow us to move forward.

If we don’t seek help when needed, we can end up seriously depressed or have no self esteem, we may not find making decisions at work easy and it can change our life.  Anxiety is one of the top mental health problems, it can lead to panic attacks, and these can cause one to feel you are having a heart attack, and end up in hospital, to undergo a battery of tests. 

Not a pleasant feeling.

If you would like to ask a question or have a confidential talk then please contact me.