Ruminating on paper

[RUtalkingtome]

In my latest posts I've been ruminating about a neighbor who's given me the stink eye a few times. Perplexed because we've only spoken once (two years ago) and it was brief and cordial. See my latest worries and musings if interested. Basically I've been afraid of the unknown -- and as an astute poster said, I'm "afraid of uncertainty." My worry has been a frenzied quest to understand what I may have done to draw the ire of this person.

healthunlocked.com/my-ocd/p....

The ruminations have been a burden on my wife of 40 years so I've gone to the keyboard to hash things out (ruminate) until the flames of an episode dim to ashes.

I make sure I have every detail of an incident to make sure I haven't done anything bad, and I weigh possible repercussions for what I think I may have done. When I see how foolish it looks on paper I move on.

I have fear OCD of being falsely accused and/or going to jail, fear of not being good enough, fear of being cancelled and fear of people spreading horrible rumors about me.

I went four months without an episode, I could breathe, I felt normal. The journaling put out little fires for me quickly. Then this one thing booted me out of the safe place I created with journaling, but it's been a little harder to reconcile this latest episode in my mind. More typing is required.

I wonder if anyone else in the OCD community has resorted to journals to chronicle their struggles, and does it help?

[deValentin]

I wrote down my thoughts and search results in regard to OCD for many years. When I used to reread my notes after few days, my past thoughts felt so remote and distant that I often threw my notes away so I wouldn't accumulate too much "useless paper" around me. I couldn't relate with "cold cognition" the same way as with "hot cognition".

Did it help? Maybe in the moment. At least it was what I felt. Then I realized it could become a compulsion in itself like making lists of tasks to perform. It appeases your mind for a while, and then you don't do what's on your list, and after a while you feel the need to make new ones.