Guides
Rumination: going over it, and over it again.
The third lap of the same conversation, at 2am. Reading the message back to see how it landed. Going over what you said, then over what they probably thought of what you said.
Almost everybody who does this is sure they are the only one who cannot stop. It happens where nobody can see it, so there is nothing to measure it against.
Why you are probably reading this.
Most people arrive at a page like this with one of two questions. How do I stop doing this. Or is this what everyone does, and I am just worse at it. Both are fair to ask.
Going over it is the only compulsion that looks like being sensible. Checking the hob twice is obviously checking. Asking the same question four times is obviously asking. Going back over a conversation looks like taking it seriously.
So stopping does not feel like putting down a compulsion. It feels like giving up on something that matters, halfway through. That is what makes this one so hard to stop, and it is why the rest of this page is about how to tell the two apart.
It also runs where nobody can see it. It fits in bed, in the shower, in the ninety seconds before a meeting starts. From the outside it looks like a quiet person, so even the people who would happily help have no idea it is happening.
What rumination is.
Rumination is repeated internal reviewing: going back over a conversation, a memory, a decision or a feeling to work out what it means. In obsessive-compulsive disorder it behaves the way any other compulsion behaves, because it is one. The job of the move is to make the doubt go away now NOCD.
While it is running it does not feel like a compulsion. It feels like thinking it through, and plenty of what you do in a day genuinely is thinking it through. So the useful question is not whether you think about things. It is which of the two is happening tonight.
Is this working it out, or going round?
While they are happening, the two feel identical. They separate at the end, which is where the test goes.
At the end of a round, is there something to do, or is there a feeling that it is settled?
Working it out ends in something to do
You arrive at a next step that lives outside your head: send the message, book the appointment, say no to the trip, ask for the day off. The thinking stops because it produced the step.
Going round ends in a feeling
You arrive at the version of the story where the dread lets go. Nothing outside your head has changed. You know the round is over by how it feels, and the feeling is all it made.
Two more signs, if the first one is close to call. Something you have genuinely worked out stays worked out; this gets worked out again most nights. And a settled thing does not need checking, while this answer wants checking again within the hour.
The round that settles it is the round that guarantees the next one.
Every round ends somewhere, and the ending is the part that gets learned.
When you finally land on the version that lets the dread drop, that drop is relief. Relief arrives directly after the going over, so the going over is what gets the credit. Your brain now has a move that works, filed under what to do when this doubt turns up.
Asking somebody out loud teaches that the question needed answeringNOCD. Doing the review silently teaches the same lesson through a quieter door NOCD. A lap that settles nothing teaches very little. The one that finally lands, the one that lets you sleep, is the one tomorrow gets built on.
Which means the way out is not a better lap. It is a lap you do not finish.
What to do instead of the next round.
Six moves, in the order you would use them. None of them requires the thought to stop arriving, and none of them asks you to catch the start.
Catching the start is rare. What usually happens is that you surface partway through and realise where you have been for the last ten minutes. Late is the normal way to notice, and late is enough to work with.
Name the round instead of arguing with it
Three or four words, out loud or not. Going over it again. Naming the move takes a second; answering it takes the evening. They are different actions and only one of them is free.
Stop in the middle, not at the end
The end of the round is where the settled feeling sits, so finishing the lap to reach it is the compulsion completing. Leave the sentence unfinished. That is the whole move, and it is meant to feel unfinished.
Do not tidy it up on the way out
Running the logic one last time, landing the version that calms it, telling yourself the conclusion quickly before you stand up: that is the round, finished quietly. The question has to still be open when you walk away.
Give your attention to something with steps in it
Going over it is quiet enough to run underneath most of the day, so pick something it cannot run underneath. A conversation you have to follow, a task with an order to it, work with your hands in it.
Let the words be words for thirty seconds
Acceptance and commitment therapy calls this holding a thought as language rather than as a report on reality. One version is to take the heaviest word and repeat it aloud until it turns into sound. In a small study of eight students, the word became less believable and less uncomfortable to them afterwards. One finding, one move, thirty seconds.Harris 2006Masuda 2004
Expect it to say this one is different
The pull is strongest when the subject feels real and urgent and unfinished. The reply to that is not a verdict on the subject. It is the same move: notice, leave it open, go back to your evening.
You will do all six badly at first, and you will finish laps you meant to leave. A finished lap is one repetition of the old lesson, not a reset of the new ones.
Where this sits with the rest.
Going over it rarely runs on its own. It sits beside the asking, the googling and the checking, and those come down the same way: one door at a time, the smallest first, with the question left open at the top of each rung. How to stop reassurance seeking walks through building that ladder, and the internal reviewing goes on it like everything else.
If the approach behind all of this is new to you, ERP explained from scratch is the plain-words version: face the thing on purpose, then leave out the settling move afterwards IOCDF. A therapist trained in it is the best thing there is, and nothing on this page replaces one. The resources page lists official places to find help, free to everyone.
That is what Maybe is for.
Short lessons show you how: why thoughts stick, what a round of going over it is doing, and how to leave a question open on purpose. Then a coach helps you practise it when it hits, including on the third lap at 2am.
Your ladder is built from what you actually say, so the rungs are your own rounds rather than a general list. Everything you write is sealed on your device before it is sent, so nobody can read it, us included.
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