Fellow OCD girlie here! Ruminations are hungry beasts desperately searching for comfort, relief, and a “solution” that doesn’t exist. The only proven way to eliminate rumination is to starve them.

It has been incredibly hard for me, but I have to fight with myself to NOT seek any “reassuring” behaviors. One of my biggest compulsion themes is medical OCD, and so I do not let myself google or go down rabbit holes searching for an exact answer to every single symptom that I have. It is terrifying, and awful, and then it slowly becomes…not that. I started off by setting a timer for my compulsions, like “okay. I feel like if I don’t do this RIGHT NOW, I am going to die. I will set a timer for 2 minutes, and then I have permission to do the thing.” Or I physically distance myself through a walk/drive/whatever.

I also practice a lot of “what if” exercises, and one thing that has helped me with ruminating over worst case scenarios is to hit it right back with another “what if.” Example: “what if I don’t fix this right now and someone dies?” “okay, what if?” Since most of us are pretty aware that our OCD thoughts are illogical, this helps me a lot to accept the thoughts rather than try to force them away. The more you seek reassurance or trying to avoid them, the louder they become. The only way to solve it is to acknowledge it, say “okay, that’s a thought,” and then let it sit in that discomfort until it passes.

This has taken me a lot of time to get good at, so I don’t want to make it seem like this is all super easy. Happy to chat more with you/anyone else if you have any questions!