Do any other ruminators do this? How do I stop?

[Ruminnnn]

I’m a big time ruminator. Always have been. One of my problems though, is that when I wake up in the middle of the night,I fixate on one problem, and then fantasise about how - if I could go back 5,10,15 etc years I’d fix it. I can spend hours in this fantasy of how my life would be if I could go back and change it.

It’s very unhealthy! At the moment, my secondary infertility and our house are my big “fixes”. I’d have that other baby, and live in X place, and then I’d think about how lovely life would be. I get lost in the cosy fantasy.

Because I’m half asleep when I start (and I do it almost every single day), I don’t use any strength of mind to stop!

I’ve been doing this since I was a young teen. I used to fantasise about fixing the past - but also the future - then (now I only look back). It’s really unhelpful. I think for a while I was stuck in a lot of daytime maladaptive daydreaming.

How did you stop if you did the same?

I have therapy, I’ve tried all sorts, but I’m still doing it.

Bump!

I’m like this. Always have been. I’ve never been able to stop it, it goes through better/ worse times though

I have a big tendency to do this, often combined with anxiety over the future or actually it's more like anxiety re the future kicks off the ruminating habit. I think I may do it to try and manage anxiety and it's obviously very unhelpful for that and starts a whole additional negative cycle. Like you OP I often focussing on fixing things that happened many many years ago. I haven't found an easily solution but it does go through worse spells. It def takes effort and energy to stop, and while it's really hard I think that the switching does get easier if you try, so my advice would be to start trying to switch to other thoughts whenever you find yourself ruminating. Like you say that its way harder to do that when tried at night so insomnia / night waking and ruminating can be a big vicious cycle for me. When I was struggling with getting back to sleep after night waking a few years ago I got prescribed amitriptyline and it was a big help in terms of both tackling the insomnia and associated night time ruminating. Periods of insomnia now are when I really struggle as well, and if v bad I use over the counter sleep meds to get me over the hump. I also find putting on a podcast / audio book a great help to stop negative though patterns, I start listening and stop thinking and often the fall back asleep easily and even if I don't at least I'm not ruminating as much. In the day time, focussing on tasks and personally particular creative things like drawing is extremely helpful for switching the brain off ruminating

Thank you, This is really helpful. I like the idea of putting on a podcast at night if I start - switch my focus.

Drawing / something creative if I start to in the day is a great idea as well. I find I listen to s lot of audiobooks when I’m doing non-work tasks to stop my brain from going. It’s the only way I can quieten it down. I hadn’t thought about something that might get me in the zone!

@Ruminnnn I also listen to a lot of podcasts in the day when walking places, doing chores like hanging washing (to help them be less boring as well as stop any ruminating) and sometimes when doing creative things though with drawing etc the activity itself especially if trickier can get me into the present and out of the ruminating habit. I think I'm probably bit too dependent on external support to aid the mind switch, but I also just really like podcasts which have become my main news source since brexit really.