It may be being human.
I’ve yet to meet a person without a disorder who doesn’t experience this.
Yes, I know many people experience and re-live negative thoughts but in my case I can't permanently escape from them. It's like unfinished business from the past
It sounds to me like rumination - this happens when a person turns a situation or a memory over and over in their mind to the point where it feels like they can't stop replaying it. Imagining saying things other than what was said, usually things that the person thinks might have changed the outcome in some way, if they'd said them then.
Rumination is a symptom found in many different disorders - but, it's also a behavior that most people do engage in, as well. It becomes a problem when it begins to interfere with a person's present-day relationships, activities, wants, and needs. From the way you describe it, it's hard to tell how it's affecting you.
Do you feel like it's getting in the way of you living your life the way you'd like to live it? You said it's causing bad feelings - can you write. a bit about how those bad feelings affect your behaviors?
Thanks joeylittle, Rumination: yes, this is very close to what I’m experiencing. I know exactly what was said and really want the opportunity to add new dialog or change that situation in some way to being more satisfactory, which of course I cannot. These events often relate to petty, insignificant life events/conversations which most people would have forgotten about 5 minutes later, but for me are associated with offence and have left a mental wound which has not healed.
I've started to do some online research on Rumination as I think this is more likely my condition rather that flashbacks.
Do you feel like it's getting in the way of you living your life the way you'd like to live it? You said it's causing bad feelings - can you write. a bit about how those bad feelings affect your behaviors?
Does not affect my occupational work, mild impact to none on family life as the condition is hidden and kept mostly self-contained.
My wife has awareness of my condition but has until now taken the view that this is all related to things like work stress, ‘needing a break’, stop doing whatever I’m currently doing, and it will be fine. When I talk about specific episodes, she says that these things are in the past, they can’t hurt you and have nothing to do with the present now, they’re history. As much as I agree with this, these episodes are still in my present, but I need to leave them in the past where they belong. This of course is the challenge I face.
The condition manifests itself in two major ways:
Firstly, what I could call an episodical storm, that is many episodes in a day, with episodes seemingly having no relationship to my present environment. What I mean by this is that I do not get word association triggers from the present to the past, for example.
Secondly, days when virtually none or few episodes occur, this is good day. I can also go many days when very few episodes occur if any.
As an example of a bad episode, I could be sitting at a desk with my laptop and then a few seconds later find myself walking around the room during the playback of this episode and not really remember leaving the desk. There is never any outward aggression shown, it’s all self-contained and other people do not see this. Sometimes I can be within a group of people when this occurs, and they are not aware of my episodical event.
In the past I have tried to understand if the condition is related to alcohol consumption, stress, diet or any other environmental factors and whether these can be considered triggers or contributors in some way.
I never really did a full analysis of this, but should do, so that I can understand the condition better. Writing now on this forum, I can see how difficult it is to relate this to others but it’s something I need to be able to do especially if I move into therapy at some point in the future.
