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Help with rumination and intrusive thoughts?

Owenthered March 25th
.

Hi everyone! I am currently struggling with ruminating and intrusive thoughts. My parents have told me before that I have like OCD traits but not OCD itself if I recall correctly. I am ruminating on thoughts of past conversations involving some of my friends. I keep getting stuck and going through the conversations on my devices and I want to move on from that as I have already have dealt with it. But I don’t seem very successful. At most a few days of feeling normal a little bit but even that doesn’t last very long. I have already had experience dealing with rumination in the past. And I have gotten over it before. This seems to have come back a few months (3-4 months or so ago). Sometimes it makes me not want to hangout with my friends as I am still dealing with this.


In addition I have had since roughly around the same period of time, intrusive thoughts of various things. (You know the usual and common themes it seems to be the case) eg. Pedophilia, and the like. I wonder why these things are bad and then I do research into this to try to reassure myself why it is bad but then it’s like in a loop and like my brain forgets or something why some time later. I have wondered more recently as I had a thought about why minors cannot be considered attractive even if they are very close in age to an adult. Again I do research online about this and I feel I get stuck in a loop after trying to reassure myself later on. It feels weird writing all of this as I don’t usually write about this. Unlike with the ruminating I haven’t had previous experiences with intrusive thoughts (at least certainly not to this degree anyway). This all started if I remember correctly when I came across a social media post about something pedo, or something else like that a few months ago? Can’t remember. It makes my head hurt thinking about all of this hence why I decided not to be too elaborative. I thought writing this here might help. I hope I don’t regret this decision to do so.


Anyway, totally unrelated to all of this but I am moving back to the UK from Canada (May 2024) (I currently live in Toronto) as I am going to be doing a volunteer opportunity in Leicester for about a month then I will be most likely staying somewhere in the UK. Yes I can legally live and work there FYI (I was born there). Usual hassle with moving countries. Plus I really have to sort out ideally before I go all my (mainly vintage) computer stuff too; in a storage unit that all of my stuff are taking up about half the space in it. My parents are saying that I either I have to sell pretty much all of it, unless I can give some to my family members as cannot afford to take my big, heavy, items over to the UK (as it could cost a small fortune to do so). Plus different voltage is a problem too. For those of you who know what a PVM (professional video monitor) is. Yeah I have one. Things like an old typewriter and an old Apple IIgs, iMac G3, eMac, etc. And various server hardware normally used in data centres too. This is on top of having to deal with my mental health too.


After all this, feel free to send me a private message to me as long as it’s not a hateful one. If it is one I don’t want to hear it. I wouldn’t mind making some new friends primarily in the UK as that is where I will be shortly.

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bestVase7265 March 31st
.

It sounds like it is quite an overwhelming process figuring out moving and getting settled. I bet some of that is connected to why you have been having so many ruminating thoughts lately.

What kinds of things do you do to distract yourself when you start ruminating?

Sending lots of strength and peace. How has your week been? @Owenthered

Owenthered OP March 31st
.

I usually distract myself with listening to music and researching online about my move. And I did actually experience all of these thoughts and rumination before I planned to go back home. They aren’t connected.

bestVase7265 April 1st
.

Ok, I can understand better now. Do you do any kind of getting outside when the ruminating gets rougher? I love the idea of music and doing research. @Owenthered

Owenthered OP April 1st
.

Admittedly I am lazy and I am not always motivated to go outside when though I really should. I was thinking of travelling to another city in Canada (or even to the closest city in US) and spending time there but train travel is very expensive in Canada and taking a cheap bus service that is available is really slow. I was trying to think of fun things to do in Toronto instead but without having to go too far due to the expensive costs incurred. Hard to come up with something. I was really just planning on taking a break from Toronto before I move back home to the UK.

bestVase7265 April 2nd
.

In order to make it through the next bit where ruminating might be harder, maybe find a new park or two in Toronto to visit briefly. Think small, not big. It can really help keep everything else on track when you are getting outside regularly. I walk around the same little pond every day and it has been transformational. @Owenthered