Not surprisingly given the painful experiences many readers have experienced living with psychopaths, letters to Lovefraud describe much troublesome rumination. This week and next I will be describing a two-pronged way of thinking about the problem of rumination – why it’s harmful to deal with these matters this way and next week (sorry to delay it) a very way that psychologists have found for processing such things.
Disclaimer
You will appreciate that I am not in a position to give psychological advice in this forum. What follows is not a recommendation but rather a way to think about what’s involved when one ruminates. If it makes sense to you please discuss it with a mental health professional.
What rumination is and isn’t
Rumination is unproductively, endlessly going over something in one’s mind. When one is troubled by something rumination is an attempt to resolve that distress – but it is a failed attempt in that it doesn’t resolve anything. Rumination is circular and all it succeeds in doing is entrenching pointless and demoralising regurgitation. “I should have…”, “Next time…”, “If only…”, “Perhaps…”, etc.
Rumination is not the healthy experiencing of true emotions, nor is it working something out or through. If rumination is circular, feeling and thinking are linear in that they lead somewhere; it’s important to be able to recognise the difference. When therapists and psychologists advocate stopping rumination they are not suggesting that one stops feeling or thinking. It is on the round-and-round, repetitious activity of rumination that is being addressed.
Why rumination is unhelpful
Rumination can increase anxiety, depression, and sleeplessness; it can interfere with clear thinking, ordinary life, and regular pleasures. It is importrant that we’re careful about what we ruminate on because it uses up valuable megabytes and entrenches stuck thinking patterns.
The bad news is that in the brain ‘neurons that fire together wire together’. So obsessing about something produces and then strengthens a neural pathway where a thought leads to a feeling which leads to a memory which leads to another feeling which leads to another thought, etc. The more we activate that neural pathway the stronger it gets and the more likely stray thoughts will lead to the pathway and strengthen it further. Thus people say thay they can’t switch it off, or can’t stop thinking about something.
The good news is that in the brain the rule ‘use it or lose it’ also applies. The less a neural pathway is activated the weaker the connections get. That means that seemingly fixed lines of thought can be unfixed. And, what’s more, because of the ‘neurons that fire together wire together’ rule, new preferred pathways can be produced.
Neuropsychology tells us that it takes about three weeks to form and strengthen a new neural pathway. After that it becomes easier and easier to go down the new pathway rather than the old one. Thus the stronger the new pathway becomes and the weaker the old one. (To be clear – the problem is not necessarily conquered in three weeks, but by then significant neurological changes have begun.)
To summarise, constant thinking about, worrying on, a topic will entrench it and make it harder and harder to avoid, and vice versa. In this sense thoughts are things, as Napoleon Hill said.
Yes, but CAN it be done?
How does one stop ruminating? Here’s an old Bob Newhart clip which heartlessly shows what’s required.
Sometimes people distract themselves as they would distract a child: No, don’t look there, look here! They turn the music up, they cook a meal, they change seats…anything to interrupt the the endless chain of ruminative thought. I’d be very interested to hear from readers what strategies they’ve come up with.
Here’s an example of an ‘ever-present’ thought going away for a spell
A Doonesbury cartoon has this conversation between B.D., a Gulf War veteran, and his therapist:
B.D: The thing is I just can’t stop thinking about Iraq. It crowds out everything.
Th: Okay, B.D., I want you to do something for me…
First, think about the worst thing you experienced in Iraq. Fix it in your mind, Okay?
All right, now I want you to tell me the birthdates of everyone in your family as fast as you can. Go!
B.D: Uh…July 21, 1919, May 27, 1921, September 16, 1945, October 31, 1950, January 11, 1951, May 14, 1992!
Th: Very good.
B.D.: So what’s that prove?
Th: You said you couldn’t stop thinking about Iraq. Well, you just did.
D.B.: But that’s…that’s cheating.
Th: By making yourself think about something else? How you figure?
B.D.: Well, I’ll be damned.
Th: No, I’ll be damned. I’ve never seen you smile before.
The point here isn’t that B.D.’s rumination problem is over, but that he sees that it can be over – that he is able to think about something else after all. Now it’s up to him, the therapist is suggesting, to practice that.
Is all rumination bad? No
It might be that some rumination is part of one’s natural ways of coping. If, however, one is still obsessively thinking about something six months later, those mechanisms aren’t doing the job.
Can rumination actually be prevented? Sometimes…
I wrote a post once how I once narrowly avoided rumination:
At about age 10 I suddenly realised one day that eggs contain chick foetuses. (I say ‘realised’ because (a) in fact the eggs we eat have not been fertilised and so can’t produce chicks, but (b) it felt like a sudden insight.)
Horrified by the idea I began to think through the implications…. And then – here’s the relevant bit -caught myself in the act, as it were. In an early instance of metathinking I realised that if I continued this way that I would make it impossible for myself to eat eggs, to stand having eggs eaten around me…and so on. In short I saw that I was on the road to becoming what might nowadays be called a pro-lifer of the poultry world.
Vegans, please relax. Whether or not egg-eating is a bad thing is not the point here. The point is how to prevent oneself constructing a train of thought which in turn may construct us.
My realisation was enough and early enough to begin combatting the rumination. I stopped myself thinking about X (eating eggs is murder) and thought about Y (something else that caught my 10-year old mind).
No egg problems since.
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Let me know your thoughts and experiences.
I think part of the trouble (at least for me) with the rumination issues is that he took a very detailed oriented, analytic woman and trained me to be downright obsessive. He flooded me with calls, texts, and attention. I willingly dropped whatever I was doing to respond, every single time. Once a habit like that becomes ingrained, it’s very difficult to change it, and they know that. They keep us guessing, it’s part of their ploy to keep the game going. Personally, I wound up a slobbering Pavlov’s dog, completely at his whim. And I still miss him, miss that heart-pounding feeling when my phone rang, miss the thrill of a ding when a text message arrived, miss the calls at odd hours “just because he missed me,” when he was actually checking up on me. And a part of me still stupidly wishes I’d never figured out the truth, too. If I just didn’t have to know, I could have gone on blissfully ignorant that he was doing several other women and that I could NEVER be enough for him. That one sticks with me. Why wasn’t I enough? The truth of the matter is that we are all enough for a normal guy, but we were trained to question everything about ourselves and can’t seem to give that up. Like dodged_a_bullet says, I’m always thinking SOMETHING about him, whether it’s remembering good things or anger about the lousy ones. I want to let this go, and sometimes I can for a little while, but it always seems to come back. Just like he does.
Today I had an “ah ha” moment while I was e mailing a friend. I have pretty well stopped ruminating about the Ps in my life, and the “episode analysis” is —completed (as a member of my volunteer fire department, after an episode of either fire or a medical emergency we had an episode analysis to figure out what went wrong, what went right and how we could improve, if there had been a death involved in the episode either from injury or medical we also worked through how we felt about the death)—any way, I realized that now that I am OUT of the clutches of the Ps, that my life is CALM and I do longer think about the “episodes” or details of life with them, or if I do think about it, it is sort of like telling the plot of a movie I saw or a book I read, it isn’t painful any longer, just a “story” or a “plot”
But at the same time, it is a new experience to live in PEACE. In a way it almost seems ABNORMAL to not be angry, frustrated, scared, terrified, frantic, depressed, etc. on a daily basis. No longer waiting for “the other shoe to fall” or expecting the next crisis to happen any minute.
All my Ps are either in prison, dead, or NC so I am surounded only by positive people that love me, and no UNNECESSARY drama–the worst thing that can happen is an act of nature, a plumbing problem, or some other thing that is NOT deliberately out to hurt me.
I realize that people who have children by these monsters are in many ways chained to them for the length of the time it takes the kids to reach 18, and depending on other things, maybe longer if the kids don’t “catch on” to what the N or P parent is and decrease or stop contact. I can only imagine how much of a living hell it is to have to share your children with these monsters. To know that they will actually hurt your children to “get back at” you.
I have a great deal of sympathy and admiration for men & women who survive this hell on earth and somehow keep their sanity. I just thank God that I never had to endure that. I have been blessed that I can be away from them totally NC because 2 are in prison and one on a restraining order and on parole after 7 months in jail which scared the dickens out of her apparently, and the 4th N is NC and no chance of violence.
But, after years of thinking about nothing but them, dreading the next attack, trying to figure out from which one and which aspect it would come, peace somehow seems abnormal. I LIKE IT THOUGH! LOL ROTF.
I am still healing, regaining physical and mental and emotional stability and strength, and the need for analysis, and the need for hypervigilence is gone. I think the hypervigilence that goes with a lot of this, wondering where the next attack will come from and in what form is one of the most damaging things to our psyches.
Constantly thinking about them also seems to increase this hypervigilence.
Notquitebroken. Remembering back to the start of the relationship he flooded me with text messages, 48 the first night, he worked nights, so the mobile was his main means of keeping contact. But I resented it, remember sitting waiting for his texts to come in like Pavlovs Dogs, I remember actually saying that. I too am a very conscientious I dont like unfinished business and loose ends, so this was ripe to engage my mind.
His nonsense all calculated and covered by excuses was all designed to throw me off balance, make me suffer, punish, insult, demean and he could do it so easily once he used the push and pull technique. He must have used this formula on his other victims, that is why he knew it would work, and he was very good at playing the waiting game. He would rather sit in his home round the corner alone than see me which was very odd for someone who adored and ‘cherised’ me, I couldnt get hold of him, he was the master of privacy – you felt that you could never call on him unannounced. He kept his privacy and his phones very closed, he used pin number on his phone (he had 12 phones) so that I couldnt get into it. then with great glee he gave me one of his used phones with all his women’s phone numbers on it. I rang one of them, it was a married woman at his work, who was adament they were work colleagues (even though he sent her intimate text essages). This was his cover, telling me it was reasonable to have phone numbers from ‘mates’ at work (all married women), and mentioning them sometimes to reassure me that it was a working relationship. What lies.
Oh how I did this, MONTHS and MONTHS lost. I drank to try to make the thoughts, and memories stop. I cried myself to sleep in a new tiny apartment I had escaped with my son to live. No furniture, no appliances nothing but my thoughts, no TV,,, then instead of doing this circular thinking that got me only sicker and sicker, I got up and did some good things, volunteered to help others. Now I don’t repeat my story over and over. I told it to the judge, to a spiritual leader, and to my best friend. When it pops into my head, it is of no use, unless I am helping another woman that needs to hear my story and see me today. Otherwise I am stilli n the grip of that dangerous man, and I am free today. I have everything I need, I am grateful that I was strong enough to leave when I did, I tried long and hard to GET MY MONEY BACK… had liens put on everything — but he foreclosed, lost that lien, cars disappeared? Well, I just said F it. It is not worth 35 thousand dollars to be sick, so let it go. And from that day forward, no more crying to sleep I don’t feel the need to tell the story in my head over and over and over, reliving and resenting, just sinks me to no self-worth. I am worthy, and loving and deserve a kind man. If I want to attract the good I must allow myself to feel loved BY MYSELF… i can’t love me if I am a prisoner in my dark thoughts. There is nothing to figure out. I married a psycopath, and am alive!!! Live is here to be lived. I am sharing only to this posting site some of me. And therapy when necessary for the damage of the sexual abuse… but moved ON and yes it was IN PAIN, but pain is going to happen, suffering from it, well that is an option, and my choice of suffering is NO way, I choose to live!
Girls, Women, Choose to live, don’t relive… LIVE today.
Give yourself a hug, and don’t look back, it can’t follow you if you just put it down! me…Thank you for this reminder!!!
Dodged :
“I really have a problem with this. It’s like no matter what I’m doing, I am always thinking SOMETHING about the sociopath.
It drives me crazy.”
Me, too, in years past more so than this time around. I foolishly thought it was further proof I loved him – wanting to share all the parts of my life with him, get his advice on matters that concerned my heart and soul…and you know what? On my part, maybe it was. I keep trying to pare the equation down, knowing that he felt nothing real for me I keep trying to rationalize my feelings for him down to the same level…maybe to avoid that feeling of being duped or gullible. But, really? I think I did love him sincerely, warts and all, and part of that thinking about him all the time was normal. The other part was brought-on by his keeping me off-balance, by never knowing what hoops he’d require my jumping through on that particular day and not being able to break the cognitive dissonance that comes from someone doing unspeakably mean things to you while saying they loved you.
He conditioned me. I even said as much, saying that “if you don’t like the fact I question everything, blame yourself. Your actions and inconsistencies created this mistrust in me.”
Like a normal person, I thought sharing that would result in him trying to be more consistent. It wasn’t until reading all this stuff and the lightbulb moment of discovering it had a name that I realized he WANTED ME to be insecure and mistrustful. He wanted me to do that because then I would think of nothing else BUT HIM. The perfect supply for a person who suffers from the feeling they are all that’s important in the world — a woman who will also feel that way.
It’s a long journey, I realize, to getting this virus out of your soul permanently. Still think about him too much. Wish I had an answer as to how to make it stop. Eventually it does on its own, but I remember that in the years between the last go-round and 2006, nearly every morning for about two years or so I woke-up and the first thought I had was of him — -and we hadn’t even seen each other for years.
Now what bothers me is that I compare everyone else’s actions to his, in a negative way, and am so distrustful of people’s motives. The virus is still there.
Finding myself again :
“It baffles me, I am able to stop loving, able to stop missing, able to stop caring —but I am finding it so hard to believe the ugliness I’ve discovered in another human being that professed so much love for me.”
Wow – that’s the greatest explanation (and I did not know about Mr. Green so thanks for that, too). I refuse to even really look right now at the way waking up from an illusion of his loving me to the reality of his abusing me feels, because it’s a terrible, awful betrayal. Right at this point, I’m just walking around the perimeter of it, looking down, measuring it, but refusing to jump in because doing so might mean never getting back up again. But eventually it’s a requirement, or else being stuck where I just won’t ever trust anyone who says they love me.
Remember finally admitting that the space between his “love” and his abuse kills me to think about, and having a good cry over it with my father of all people…the notion of love and someone else telling me they loved me, now feeling contaminated in light of what he said, did and didn’t mean at all.
This area is where it seems, more than anything, time is what heals, experience with people who are not Jekyl and Hyde, whose words match their deeds. We slowly begin to trust again through exposure to good reality and this will happen for you, too. I am sure of it.
“
LilOrphan. I still have the same problem too. Although dubious about him from the start, I threw myself into the relationship and gave him my best gold star relationship, but he had another script in his head and it had nothing to do with forging an honest bountiful and loving relationship. I feel a fool for that. But as a single mum, I had been bringing up my child and had not had a proper relationship for 16 years – I just fell for him as the first bloke that seemed to show genuine interest in me.
It is 6 months since we split, but I think about him every day which I am annoyed with myself for, because out of all the men I have been out with, he is the one who had the least prospects and the meanest character. I am annoyed because if he turned up at my place, I would have to send him away knowing he is no good – but yet I am still expendin mental energy on him. He did a good job on me. When we first split he was the only thing I thought of from waking till bedtime, but I am trying to do things in my home which temporarily takes my mind off him. He really does not deserve my mental effort.
Findingmyselfagain. For me that betrayal was the biggest shock, the most hurtful and biggest con in the name of love – thinking that they are being loving. Feeling ‘contaminated’ (virus) and abused are feelings I too have had. This episode has really changed me and I only went with him for a year. I get days when I think, yes I have really learned alot and grown through the experience – I get other days when I sink down, especially to think of him and his new girlfriend (which I know wont last) – but he has denied any responsibility and ran to the next person without giving me any explanations at all – I have had no closure and I hate that.
BEverly, the trick is you have to MAKE YOUR OWN CLOSURE. And that is I think one of the most difficult things. I wanted to “tell him off” (insert one of the names of one of my Ps in here) to get that closure and unfortunately that doesn’t get through to them. NC is the only closure you will get, and you have to make it yourself. Physical NC is good, but EMOTIONAL NC is the ultimate “end” of it all–when you quit renting them emotinal space in your head.
I can still think about the Ps, but the details of what they did are not so importnat to me and even talking about them on this forum etc doesn’t bring up the EMOTIONS like it did, if at all. Off forum I do not talk about the Ps much at all, and then only to people who know the situation. Outsiders don’t understand or get it or believe it in some cases, so no sense in speaking about it.
The trauma and recovery may be the center of your focus at some time (or for some time) but others don’t find it interesting unless they are very close to you and really CARE. Otherwise it is just the plot to a bad soap opera.
There was a time Ii had to FORCE myself to NOT think about them, and of course that is like the joke of “I will give you a million dollars if you don’t think about pink elephants for 1 hour.” Of course before I said that, you were NOT thinking about pink elephants, but after I have suggested pink elephants and a reward for not thinking about them, you can think of NOTHING else! LOL
Sometimes not thinking about them was as simple as “singing” songs inside my head (you DON’T want to hear me singing with my mouth, but inside my head I should pretty good as long as my lips are not making a sound) LOL
Self meditation and relaxiation techniques were also used, ANYthing to keep my thoughts focused on something else, ANY thing else….and sometimes I failed and obscessed, which I think is a better word than rumination for this behavior.
OxDrover – many thanks for your suggestions. When we split I did write him a scathing letter calling him a deceitful coward amongst other things. He quickly sent his sister round to tell me not to contact him or he would threaten harrassment. To be honest, I was pleased to get shot of him because I knew he was no good. But that one letter did not quench my anger when I realised I had been ‘had’.
I talk to one friend regularly and if someone asks, but I no longer make it the main topic of conversation – so that is progress. What I also realise is that I have time on my hands and this was my life before him. So that I need to expand my life more and make some changes to occupy more thinking and doing time. A project is good.
I also have realised off the back of this, that my father was a narcissist, so I have had the double whammy, which explains some deep rooted beliefs for me which have damaged my self esteem and worthiness and being with him has compounded that – and on top of that I now feel like I’m damaged/tainted.
Beverly,
Many of us were/are surrounded by Ns and Ps and didn’t really realize that they were “disordered” we just thought they were jerks, or mean or A$$es, but didn’t see the symptoms of the disorder in an orderly fashion. Once you see the order in the chaos, you can see that you have met them BEFORE in various places and times.
It is a bit like when you get a poodle dog, you start looking arond and it seems that EVERYONE has a poodle, they were there before but you just didn’t notice them, now you do.
The Ns and Ps are a reasonably large percentage of the population in some form or other,and are 99% (my statistic!) of the TROUBLE in the world. They to me are responsible for almost all of the interpersonal pain in any interactions between people.
Some are of course worse than others but they all leave a trail of chaos and pain in their wake as they skate off into the search for their next victim. Some, however, will never turn loose of a victim until they have killed it or destroyed it completely (the stalkers etc) others just leave it behind like a used kleenex, and with as much consideration for it’s disposition.
Thinking about them is necessary in order to see the patterns, but obscessing about them is counter productive. I think at the first when we realize “we’ve been had” we DO obscess as a natural part of the grief process, it fills our being with pain, but if you STAY in that mode of thought your soul shrivels up and dies or goes underground at least.
I am sure you have met someone in your life at some time who had some unfortunate event happen to them, the death of a spouse or child, a cripling injury or whatever, and they NEVER turn loose of that and “get a life” beyond that. And you have also probably met people who had some other horrible thing happen to them that “eventually got over it” and made alife for themselves—even in a wheel chair, or bliind, or whatever the disability or loss is.
What makes the difference in those two people’s outcome?
We can be like the first or the latter person, we can CHOOSE to let the Ps and their trauma to our hearts souls and bodies, define the rest of our lives or we can work towawrd going forward or we can let thaT determine our life for the rest of our life.