Hey everybody! Happy Thursday!
And when it's Thursday here, I am doing
either what's in the media, which we all
know Bruce Jenner is in the media.
That is what's happening. And I don't
even know if she has said what the
name that she wants us to call her.
You can let me know below. But I am
doing some FAQ action. So and it's really
hot here today that's why I'm wearing like
a summer dress and my hair is up, because
it's warm in Los Angeles today.
Um, And I have a journal topic thanks to
Dancinginthedarkness, so thank you so much
for sending that to me.
So let's get started!
My first question says "Hey Kati, I am
just wondering what I can do to help
myself being stuck in a heavy cycle of
rumination." Rumination, for those of you
who don't know, is when you just think
things over and over and over and you
just keep thinking about something.
"I have OCD and recently I've been
ruminating a lot over past events in which
I've had intrusive thoughts enter my
dreams, and even though these events were
awhile ago my mind is convincing me that
I am an evil disgusting person and I
cannot stop ruminating badly and thinking
it is really hard to deal... um, and
it can even impact my performance."
Sorry there was a little confusion in the
verbiage there. "it's impacted my
performance in college. I struggle with
heavy amounts of guilt around the whole
thing so much so that's it's crippling.
I know I have no control over bad dreams
and know that I didn't want it. I also
know that ruminating is pointless and
solves nothing but I can't seem to stop."
Oh, that's was a lot. Now I want to talk
about this because I know many of you
have told me that you struggle with
rumination. It can be due to OCD, can be
due to generalized anxiety disorder.
It can be due to our eating disorder.
It can be a lot of different things.
And the important thing to remember is
that we can in fact get out of it.
Therapy is the number one, first thing I
would recommend. A lot of that would be
like CBT like therapy things, where you
talk back to the voice or you argue
against it. You keep track of your
thoughts. You see if there are facts that
disprove thoughts or beliefs. You write
those down. There are a lot of different
things, and I put new worksheets actually
on my website under free resources,
worksheets. There are I think three or
four for CBT, so if you're wondering
Like thought record, what is that, I've
got a worksheet for it. So I would check
that out, because keeping track of it,
arguing back, talking with someone about
it really really help. And I find that
causes those urges to ruminate to slowly
go down. However for many of, and I even
have a couple clients right now that are
really struggling with this. That's just
not enough. And so, the next question is
where do we go from here?
And to be honest, and as much I know many
of you are like Kati I don't want medicine.
I don't want to take medication, but
medication is
that next step. I talked to one of my
friends who is a psychiatrist. They
usually recommend and antidepressant of
some sort. I'm not going to name any names
because that's out of my scope of practice
But I would encourage you to find a
psychiatrist in your area, tell them
what's going on, have them work with your
therapist, and potentially start medication.
And that's not something that we stay on
forever. It's not like, "oh my God I'm on
medication. That's just my life. That's
just what I'm doing."
It's more about getting the thoughts to
stop for a certain amount of time so that
you can work on arguing back and making
them slow, and start using different tools
to manage the rumination.
Some people can't sleep because they're
ruminating so much. And can't focus in
school. it's very common. So we want to
get that under control, so it doesn't
negatively affect other parts of our life.
And keep kind of growing and growing 'til
we feel like we can't get out of our house,
we can't do anything, can't even
communicate with our friends because our
thoughts are just going all the time.
And so that would be my … I guess my
advice about what to do if you really
struggle with ruminating thoughts.
Number one, finding a therapist and
working on that. I have some worksheets on
my website to get you started. It doesn't
have to be anybody who necessarily
specializes in CBT or anything like that.
But that's usually the tools that are used
most for this kind of thing, for anxiety
disorders. And the second, if that's not
enough, is medication. Now medication
can take four to six weeks to kick in, so
I would encourage any of you, if you're
really struggling with this, reach out.
The sooner the better. The sooner we see
a therapist the more likely they are to
help us. And the longer we've been
struggling with ruminating thoughts, the
harder it is to get them to go away.
But know that they can. You're not stuck
like this forever. It will go away. Okay.
So yeah, talk about it. If any of you
have experience in certain techniques and
tools that work for you, let us know.
Because it's really helpful for everybody
to share their experience, okay.
Now, question number 2.
"Kati, is it weird to not want to get
better?" How many times have I heard
this you guys? "I struggle with anxiety,
depression, self harm and emotional
abuse from my
parents and I've been fortunate enough to
be in therapy for almost a year and a half.
I'm almost scared to fully recover and be
happy?" I think that's a very important
question mark.
"Like, I know it's irrational, but I don't
want to get my hopes up because I've
always been disappointed. How can I break
out of this cycle of self-sabotaging?"
Now, it is very normal to not want to get
better. Sooo normal. Holy shmamolies.
And it's usually because we don't know
what it's like to be normal, to be happy,
to be okay. That's scary. We know what's
predictable. Being unhealthy, unhappy,
abused. That's something we can predict.
We know how we can deal with it,
we know it's happening, all of that stuff.
So that makes sense. Think about it.
Logically, that makes sense. That we would
think "I know what to expect out of this."
Even though I know it's a shit
circumstance, it's a horrible situation,
but I know what to expect out of it.
It's predictable. The other stuff is like
"Huh, it's.. it's -- we don't know.
It's kind of scary. It's unpredictable."
So, no wonder we want to stay in the
unhealthy/predictable pattern. So, what
do we do? We talk to our therapist,
we journal about it. What is it that's so
scary about not being sick? Is it because
we don't know who we are, we don't know
what we're about, we don't know what we
would be about if we didn't have all of
this? Those are usually the first
and most common ones
that come up. "Well who am I if I'm not
the 'sick' one in the family or I'm not
the one who 'needs to see a therapist all
the time' If I'm not having
'mental illness' well who am I, what am I?
What am I doing with my life?" And all
those other questions come up. And so,
while we're working on our recovery,
I would encourage you to journal about it;
Think about it. What is it that you do
like? What are things you don't like?
What are some things in your life that
have kind of shown you a little bit about
who you are? And maybe we don't know
anything and we're starting from scratch,
but, isn't that awesome?! We're learning
about ourselves. We're gonna start from
scratch, we're gonna figure it out. And so,
I would take your time with it but, a lot
of it is work with your therapist and your
work on your own. Kind of a self
discovery, um, asking yourself the
questions like, "Why is it so scary?
What is so scary about this, and me not
being the 'sick one,' and me recovering.
What does that mean about me?
What am I afraid of?" Because,
it's usually all that that just holds us
in the sickness because it's predictable,
it's comfortable, we know what it is.
But we also know how shitty it gets.
And wouldn't it be awesome if we didn't
have to feel shitty anymore?
So focus on that, while you think about
why is it that you're so scared to recover
and be the wonderful and amazing you?
Why is that? Okay.
Now, a journal topic from
"Dancing in the darkness," Like I said,
thank you for sending this to me on
twitter, and I know some of you put them
on Youtube, and I save them, we'll use
them later. And it says, are you ready?
"It's better to lose count while counting
your blessings, than to lose your
blessings counting your struggles."
I love that. Because often, we get wrapped
up in the stressful bits, the icky bits,
the things that we're worried about and
the things that we don't understand.
Versus, paying attention and really
focusing on all the blessings that we
have. What are some things that are great
in your life right now? What things are
going your way? I heard from many of
you on Facebook when I asked you how
your day was going and what's going on.
A lot of you said, "Well some of this
stuff that's bad is happening, but this
happened, and this happened, I have
this next job interview. Um, Y'know, I did
well on my test --Whatever it is-- and I
know it's getting better." Or, "I felt
the urges and I fought them, and I'm
6 months clean, or 5 days clean,
or whatever." Focus on those blessings.
Pay attention, make a list. Add to that
list and read it everyday. Because,
reminding ourselves of all the wonderful
blessings that we have can make all that
shitty garbage that we have to deal with
not seem as important. Right?
I love you all. I'll see you on Monday.
Have a good one. Bye!
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