Does anyone else obsess / feel bad about stupid things they’ve said or done in the past?

[Nicecuppatea2025]

Just that really.

Can’t get to sleep because I’m either worrying about work, or picking over mistakes and stupid things I’ve said and done over the past 25 years.

It just goes round and round in my head, and I just feel a total douchebag.

Does anyone else do this?

I used to, OP. I’d ruminate about anything and everything where I felt I’d slipped up, been silly, or made a faux pas. Then about five years ago I had therapy for another reason, but we started discussing things like this. She suggested that when I started ruminating about these events that I picture myself now hugging myself then, and it worked for me. There was something so powerful in it.

All the time.

I console myself that I can never remember someone else ever doing/saying the same stupid mistakes I have, so therefore I doubt they can remember the stupid things I beat myself up over.

It's a thinking style called ruminating. You can train your brain to stop it.-

Example-

A friend compliments you and you get embarrassed and say "oh no I look awful "

That night you realise you have inadvertently insulted your friends taste. You start to worry that she is offended and may judge you.

Stop

What can you do to change this situation?
You can - apologise and own it, explain you felt uncomfortable but didn't mean to be rude.
Or assume it wasn't that big a deal as if someone said that to you you wouldn’t be offended.

Decide if you need to act or let go

Then tell your brain you have managed this situation and do not need to think about it again. Every time it comes into your head, don't react nor continue the conversation. Feel the uncomfortable feelings and don't react to them.

Train yourself not to jump on negative feelings and try to resist them as it only makes you feel worse.

If it helps before you go to bed write brown your worries and put them away. Eventually your brain will stop reacting in that way.

What you are describing, that is going, continually going over past mistakes, for example, over and over again, is called rumination OCD.

Sometimes. What helps me is trying to remember times when others have made a total boob out of themselves, and I never can. Not one single instance, and I'm sure there must be many.

No one cares about you like you do, no one remembers the silly things you've said or done. They only exist in your head now, so may as well not exist at all.

I'm terrible for this. I do have OCD and I never equated the two!

Yes. Now I have started to worry that the "obsessive ruminations" will lead to dementia!

I'd love someone else's brain....

Yes, but not for too long after, generally a few days then forget about it.

I do this too, Once I go to bed, it's definitely worse, but I can get them pop up whenever I'm not busy. I have to have background noise to 'drown' it out. I either put tv on, very low volume and something I'm not interested in. Otherwise, I've recently discovered an aurora light box that plays music. I found relaxation music on Spotify. It's definitely helping with intrusive thoughts, menopausal sleep disturbance and general brain noise.

Yes.
In my case I would say it's an aspect of autism, I'm extremely prone to ruminating endlessly, especially when I'm stressed. It's exhausting.

This is put so beautifully.

I used to. I would wake up in the middle of the night with that awful sinking feeling, reliving stupid things I’d done 20 years ago. I hated it. But then some people did some really, really bloody awful things to me and it gave me some perspective. To be honest, I’d rather go back to the ruminating. The realisation that people can be so utterly cruel has been a hard one.

Yes, I do.

Regret is one of the worst feelings and it comes out to haunt at night!