NIMH » Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: When Unwanted Thoughts or Repetitive Behaviors Take Over.
Rumination involves repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions.
Rumination and OCD
Rumination is a core feature of OCD that causes a person to spend an inordinate amount time worrying about, analyzing, and trying to understand or clarify a particular thought or theme.
People who are distressed by recurring, unwanted, and uncontrollable thoughts or who feel driven to repeat specific behaviors may have obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The thoughts and behaviors that characterize OCD can interfere with daily life, but treatment can help people manage their symptoms.
Obsessing and ruminating are often part of living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). No matter how hard you try to ignore them, those negative thoughts just keep coming back, replaying themselves in an infinite loop. You know it's not healthy, but you can't seem to stop yourself.
While both mental health conditions involve repetitive worrying, people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often engage in unwanted and repetitive behavior in response to their worry. People with anxiety, however, tend to overthink their worry, but don't act in specific responsive manners.
Some potential triggers of ruminating thoughts include: a specific stressor, such as a failed relationship. a recent traumatic event. perfectionism.
For example, some ruminative thoughts include "why am I such a loser", "I'm in such a bad mood" or "I just don't feel like doing anything". There exist several types of rumination. State rumination, which involves dwelling on the consequences and feelings associated with the failure.
Overthinking is also often associated with mental health issues like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress and borderline personality disorder.
Repeating entire conversations in your head is a type of rumination. It's how your mind attempts to self-soothe. The more you replay the details of a conversation, the more you may feel you can interpret what happened. You may also find that this helps you plan for a future outcome.
The Psychology of Looping Thoughts
A reoccurring thought loop is a fixation on fears, motives, or how we feel we should have acted or not acted. While looping thoughts are a bi-product of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), other individuals with anxiety can also have looping thoughts.
People with OCD tend to have obsessive thoughts, which they try to prevent by engaging in repetitive rituals, or compulsions. In contrast, a person with ADHD typically presents with excessive hyperactivity and impulsivity and difficulty focusing on one task at a time.
Although both OCD and ASD have similar symptoms, they are different conditions. OCD is a mental health disorder, whereas ASD is a developmental condition. ASD is a condition that a person is born with. OCD can develop during a person's lifetime.
The bottom line
OCD can manifest in four main ways: contamination/washing, doubt/checking, ordering/arranging, and unacceptable/taboo thoughts. Obsessions and compulsions that revolve about contamination and germs are the most common type of OCD, but OCD can cover a wide range of topics.
People struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are often misdiagnosed as having other psychological conditions. One of the most common misdiagnoses for this population is Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). This diagnostic problem arises for two reasons.
Overthinking can be an all-natural process, it can also be the result if the creative and overly active ADHD brain. While most believe overthinking to be a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it' actually relates more to ADHD.
The mind of a person with ADHD is full of the minutiae of life (“Where are my keys?” “Where did I park the car?”), so there is little room left for new thoughts and memories. Something has to be discarded or forgotten to make room for new information. Often the information individuals with ADHD need is in their memory…
What causes OCD? Experts aren't sure of the exact cause of OCD. Genetics, brain abnormalities, and the environment are thought to play a role. It often starts in the teens or early adulthood.
Ignoring symptoms of OCD will not cause them to disappear, and they're not going to just go away. That's not the way OCD works. In fact, ignoring symptoms, telling yourself that you're not really that bad and you can manage the disorder by trying self-help for OCD will only exacerbate the situation.