How do you get rid of obsessive thoughts about the past

[silkpyjamasallday]

Hello, I won't go into massive detail here (it would be a very long story) but essentially I have been bullied at almost every stage of my childhood and early adulthood (I'm 22) and it has massively affected my life. However the most recent instance from 2 years ago will not stay out of my head (I was suicidally depressed for a very long time and it was only discovering I was pregnant that stopped me doing it) and although I am now in a much happier place my obsessive thoughts about what happened and the girls that were involved won't leave me and when they resurface I begin to slide back into a dark place where I find it difficult to cope with everyday life again. I have previously had CBT but I didn't find it useful but I need to be able to let this go in order to live my life to the full and be the best mother I can be for dd.
Has anyone had similar feelings/obsessive thoughts and managed to get rid of them? I am now in a position that I can afford private therapy but I am not sure what type would be most beneficial for this sort of issue. Any help/advice appreciated!

Theres so many different types of therapy its a matter of finding the therapy and most importantly the therapist that are right for you. I have found councelling helpful, I didn't have a great experience with the psychologist I saw, and I found nlp ( neurolinguistic programming ) life changing and a realy positive experience.

Sorry you had to go through that op.

Look up EFT ( emotional freedom technique), also known as tapping. There's lots on you tube.

Tap therapy was really useful for me.

God I could have written your post op. I've ended up moving towns and making myself very cut off from any new friendships. People are so cruel.

I completely sympathise with what you are going through. I've been there and it's awful, all consuming and exhausting. I went through a really grim time when I was a teenager and after years of not thinking about it, it all came flooding back in my late twenties and had horrific anxiety and would ruminate constantly. Thankfully, and to give you some hope, I am feeling and coping much better now. I did go on a low dose of citalporam for a few years and I think this helped but I've been off that for about 6 years now. I tried EMDR, not sure how good that was. I also tried hypnotherapy and counselling which helped and CBT. Actually talking about what I had been through really helped as I am not a talker and so all these thoughts and feelings just went round and round in my head with no way out. I wasnt comfortable talking to people i knew about my experiences and so the counselling and hypnotherapy were the only way I could get my thoughts out my head. My counsellor would help me rationalise these thoughts and come up with different ways of seeing things or ways I could move on. Do you have friends or family you can speak to openly about what you went through and the way you are feeling now? If not, do it through counselling. Finding a good counsellor could help you no end. I read some good books too. I'll look them out and send you the titles. And feel free to PM me if you want. I totally understand how isolating and awful it is to feel that way and just knowing that other people go through it too can help.

Have a look at EMDR and EFT - both can work well for PTSD type symptoms which you may well be suffering from.

Thank you so much to everyone who replied, and so sorry if you've experienced similar it really isn't nice. It's just been bothering me more recently as it is in the past now and my position has changed so entirely I really don't have anything to worry about anymore or any real day to day stress that I used to; but the thoughts are still there all the time and anything that reminds me of them even slightly sets me off. I will try out some of the techniques you've suggested, the tap technique sounds interesting and I have started looking at local jungian psychotherapists as well as dreams are a very big part of it, and the only time that I cannot control my dreams (I've always had totally lucid dreams) is when it's reliving the past or similar scenarios which is distressing.