Breaking the Cycle of Rumination

[Freddyt]

Talked about this with my T yesterday and was surprised how she jumped into this subject. To me its an important part of managing PTSD when symptoms kick up.

I realize fro me, that I have a bunch of things I do to help break the cycle of rumination, I want to hear what everyone else does.

My go to's are:

- Computer games. Lots of violent FPS (Call of Duty, Left4Dead) but a couple others like Sid Mieiers Pirates, Civilization, and a real oldie Snoopy and the Red Baron.

- Prrojects my media server, digitizing my vinyl records.

-Favorite Movies and TV - great sountracks or songs you can sing along with predefined. Comedies preferred. Wallace and Gromit anytime...

-MyPTSD, the social forum especially....

So what do you do when you realize you are obcessing on one thing or thought?

 

[arfie]

i translate my thought loops into foreign languages. at the very least, it turns those obsessive thought loops into beneficial language practice. at best, it forges new neural pathways. the ultimate reframing. . .

walking and logging into the bio-web also help tremendously.

 

[Freida]

computer games - more adventure based than first person shooter
going to the stables and brushing the horses
This forum, of course
walking my dog

 

[Friday]

4F

f*ck it
Fight it
Get Fawked Up
Make it go Faaaaster.

Even then, that will only total out to a short break, whilst I am 100% of me engaged in / hyperfocused on mind blowing sex, life or death situations, or chemical hijack.

It’s an ADHD problem. I generally have 6 or 7 thought streams running at any given time. As few as none (can’t rub two brain cells together to get a spark, there’s just static or fog up there), and as many as dozen or so. For example, at the moment?

Spoiler: The ADHD piece

Background Streams / always running
1 - Total sensory awareness of everything “me” (my entire body, minus a few blind spots, from the way my toes feel against each other, and in my slippers, and in relation to the ground; to my pulse about 18” radiating out from my heart, including through my lungs and the feeling of the air moving against those vessels; to the teeth in my mouth, the bones in my ears moving… there are a few hundred data points always in awareness, and maybe a thousand or so, in total).
2 - Total sensory awarenesss of everything around me (not just everything I can 5 sense, but also constructing a sort of “map” of 365 degrees xyz axis; and adding misc emotional overtones to that 3D map)
3 - General “mapping” of where my people/pets are, and what they’re doing.

- This Thread, and attempting to concise up what ADHD mental hyperactivity married to PTSD dysregulated thinking looks like

- The architecture & geography involved in houses built over water, with a sub-stream of the financial cost of such in various parts of the world, and tweaks for local weather.

- Werewolves, Vampires, Witches, & a few other supernatural denizens in a few different fictional universes; and the intersection of how those universes relate

- Tetris’ing various job-related things + illness/injury/recovery + potential short & long term futures

- My son’s upcoming trip, along with aspects I’m attempting to block out / distract myself from.

- Saturnaila & Christmas

So if I’m ruminating on any particular thing? I CANNOT stop thinking/feeling about it without either so overloading my system that I become nonfunctional, or so hyperfocused that all my thought streams merge to become the ONE thing my everything is focused on, or drugs do 1 of those 2 things for me.

It’s a vexing double-disorder asskick.

I have several steps doooown from my nuclear coping mechanisms (4F, above) that work exceptionally well managing most of my PTSD symptoms… as well as a helluva lotta ADHD tricks, that smooth out most of the sharp edges without any trouble whatsoever (except the fun kind). But when they link up? Sometimes using tools for both disorders help. Other times, like with intrusive thinking & rumination, nothing short of big guns even leaves a dent.

 

[Freddyt]

This Thread, and attempting to concise up what ADHD mental hyperactivity married to PTSD dysregulated thinking looks like

How about - when you take benzos for your dentist visit and an hour later when you walk out you wonder when they are going to kick in........

 

[Friday]

How about - when you take benzos for your dentist visit and an hour later when you walk out you wonder when they are going to kick in........

LMFAO

No way for you to know, but that’s not something I wouldn’t notice.

Spoiler: Every 6 mo?!? I’m supposed to what what every 6mo?!?

(Teeth, electrocution, gangrape, snapped small bones, & suffocation were the pillars they used in torturing us; against a background of starvation, sleep dep, sound, and cold. Fortunately none of the other pillars are something one is supposed to “do” twice a year to remain healthy Although the idea of doing so IS making me laugh just a bit. “Hi! I’d like to schedule my next… Tuesday at 4? Can we do earlier, maybe? I’ve got a Pilates class right after.” Bwaaahahaha. )

I do get your point, though, I think? On the ‘get f*cked up’ &/or chemical distance side of coping mechanisms? I drink myself “sober” on a fairly regular basis. (Does it count as speedballing if you’re counteracting interior uppers with outside downers? Hmmm.). Which is why if I’ve been drinking at all in the past 24, I don’t drive for anything short of a zombie apocalypse.

Spoiler: Not noticing how under the influence I may actually be

Ditto a rather alarming range of hardcore medications/substances. Low levels will have tremendous effect, but at a certain point, my brain just “accounts” for them being on board & to all observation (my own and others) I APPEAR normal/sober. Even though I’m very much not. It drives anesthesiologists a little crazy, (and or totally fascinated), because I’m notorious for waking up multiple times during surgery.

 

[Freddyt]

I do get your point, though, I think? On the ‘get f*cked up’ &/or chemical distance side of coping mechanisms?

Yesterday was special circumstances - and I wasn't driving. My T told me she was moving in March on Monday, pile on a few other stressy things (support money, special festive anxiety, reprocessing, various other things....) and I was sort of in need of benzos to start with. Then the hygienist accidentally covered nose and mouth and......things went pretty sideways......

But yeah, I get the meds stuff too. Been in some seriously bad places. Same ones where I look normal but I'm messed up. Pain stuff with the eye. Head pain does not bring on clear thinking, more like - maybe if I blow my head off it will stop level thinking. It's why my wife keeps those meds somewhere now....because we have the same GP, when the GP told her what was going on it scared the hell out of her because I seemed "normal".

In a way that is part of rumination too - just wanting to get away/shut it off/escape for a bit, to stop the whirlwind of thought........