Thank you, I know a few people who could use this article, I guess I will send them a link so that they can ruminate on this instead. :D
I guess there are different ways how people perceive their own thoughts. Going from worst to best, it’s
something you are
something that happens to you
something you do
The first option is worst, because the people who are stuck here will actively resist changing their destructive thought patterns, because changing their thought patterns would feel to them kinda like dying. With the second option, at least the person can wish that their thought patterns change, even if they believe that such change is beyond their control. The third perspective makes it seem obvious: if it’s something you do, well, then it’s something you can stop doing, right? Of course, that is easier said than done, so without proper strategy this can lead to the mistake of underestimating the problem.
I like how you provide both the biological and the cognitive perspectives. Let me add a third, (armchair) psychoanalytical perspective: it seems that as you ruminate, the focus shifts from criticizing what you did, to criticizing what you are. (I mean, it is right there in your example.) That doesn’t seem like an accident, but more like the thing that makes rumination so persistent.
Mistakes happen; character flaws are (assumed to be, especially by hostile voices) permanent. The fact that you happened to make a mistake once is usually unimportant in long term. So why would you waste so much time contemplating it? I think it is the idea that the fact that you made a mistake is evidence of some deeper character flaw that makes the thoughts so difficult to stop. I mean, if making mistakes is a pattern that will follow you through your entire life, then it would be rational to spend a lot of time fixing the pattern. (The only problem is that the rumination actually fixes nothing; it just keeps criticizing.)
I am just guessing here, but I would propose a threefold defense against the dark thoughts:
The mistake probably wasn’t as serious as you imagine it. In most situations, a week later the only person who remembers it will be you.
A mistake could be a part of a pattern, but is the pattern really as strong as it seems to you now? Do you really make the same mistake in 100% of situations? Or maybe only in 50%? Are you sure the number is fixed? Maybe it keeps getting smaller, but occasionally the dice fall the wrong way.
The worst case is, maybe you actually are imperfect. So what? No one is perfect. (Not even the person your hostile voice is based on.) We all sometimes try, and sometimes fail. That’s life.
We could go deeper and realize that the true purpose of criticizing yourself is not fixing yourself (which should be obvious from the fact that it has never worked in the past, and yet you keep doing it), but appeasing the hostile voice, by admitting your lower status. You are fighting ghosts.
I thought about your comment for a few days, especially the line “You are fighting ghosts.”
That’s probably more true for prisoners than most. To be locked in a cell for the rest of your life, wondering, ruminating, if things could have been different...
How lucky the rest of us are to merely ruminate over a lost love, or from upsetting a friend.
For prisoners, their mistake was serious. It’s not just in their heads. They’re haunted.
Thank you, I know a few people who could use this article, I guess I will send them a link so that they can ruminate on this instead. :D
I guess there are different ways how people perceive their own thoughts. Going from worst to best, it’s
something you are
something that happens to you
something you do
The first option is worst, because the people who are stuck here will actively resist changing their destructive thought patterns, because changing their thought patterns would feel to them kinda like dying. With the second option, at least the person can wish that their thought patterns change, even if they believe that such change is beyond their control. The third perspective makes it seem obvious: if it’s something you do, well, then it’s something you can stop doing, right? Of course, that is easier said than done, so without proper strategy this can lead to the mistake of underestimating the problem.
I like how you provide both the biological and the cognitive perspectives. Let me add a third, (armchair) psychoanalytical perspective: it seems that as you ruminate, the focus shifts from criticizing what you did, to criticizing what you are. (I mean, it is right there in your example.) That doesn’t seem like an accident, but more like the thing that makes rumination so persistent.
Mistakes happen; character flaws are (assumed to be, especially by hostile voices) permanent. The fact that you happened to make a mistake once is usually unimportant in long term. So why would you waste so much time contemplating it? I think it is the idea that the fact that you made a mistake is evidence of some deeper character flaw that makes the thoughts so difficult to stop. I mean, if making mistakes is a pattern that will follow you through your entire life, then it would be rational to spend a lot of time fixing the pattern. (The only problem is that the rumination actually fixes nothing; it just keeps criticizing.)
I am just guessing here, but I would propose a threefold defense against the dark thoughts:
The mistake probably wasn’t as serious as you imagine it. In most situations, a week later the only person who remembers it will be you.
A mistake could be a part of a pattern, but is the pattern really as strong as it seems to you now? Do you really make the same mistake in 100% of situations? Or maybe only in 50%? Are you sure the number is fixed? Maybe it keeps getting smaller, but occasionally the dice fall the wrong way.
The worst case is, maybe you actually are imperfect. So what? No one is perfect. (Not even the person your hostile voice is based on.) We all sometimes try, and sometimes fail. That’s life.
We could go deeper and realize that the true purpose of criticizing yourself is not fixing yourself (which should be obvious from the fact that it has never worked in the past, and yet you keep doing it), but appeasing the hostile voice, by admitting your lower status. You are fighting ghosts.
I thought about your comment for a few days, especially the line “You are fighting ghosts.”
That’s probably more true for prisoners than most. To be locked in a cell for the rest of your life, wondering, ruminating, if things could have been different...
How lucky the rest of us are to merely ruminate over a lost love, or from upsetting a friend.
For prisoners, their mistake was serious. It’s not just in their heads. They’re haunted.