I have yet to meet someone who has skipped the process of rumination (myself included). And while rumination is a natural process, it is far from a helpful longterm solution. In fact, it can push against everything we need to do to truly move forward.
What is Rumination Anyway?
In the context of trauma, rumination is when we think about what happened to us over and over again. This can look like:
Spiraling into depressive episodes where you can't stop thinking about what happened to you.
You find yourself using defining statements about yourself or your life from this story such as, "I am not lovable", "I always get hurt".
Repeatedly sharing intimate details of your trauma story inappropriately (i.e. oversharing).
Repeating the same stories with your support team (friends, therapists, etc.) without any intention of taking additional action.
There is an impulsive component to rumination. You don't sit down with a cup of tea and an intention to ruminate. Rather, in the quiet moments of your day you may just find yourself remembering something painful and before you know it, you're pulled into an episode of rumination.
There's Nothing Wrong With You If You Ruminate
Before we get into the reasons why it's unhelpful, I think it's incredibly important to note that your impulse to ruminate serves a purpose (more on that in another post). Shaming yourself for a habit of ruminating won't make it stop. You have been coping with the tools you have, so how about you just give yourself a high five for doing your best!
Rumination Prevents Healing (Especially Somatic Healing)
Now that it's all settled that you are not in trouble for ruminating, let's talk about why I'd like to empower you to shift away from this unhelpful coping mechanism.
1 – It Pretends to Be Helping Us Solve the Problem
This is best illustrated using a hypothetical example. Let's say you keep ruminating over how your mother was constantly criticizing you as a child. You tell your friends about how she would body-shame you in front of extended family. You mull over the times she brought up her own achievements to downplay yours. Over and over you share or think about all the examples you have stored away of her being psychologically and emotionally abhorrent to you.
When we do this we often tell ourselves we are trying to figure out the problem. The underlying motivator is "If I can remember all the details of what she did to me, I'll know why I'm so miserable now." This is a false promise. Spiraling over the details of the memories gives us the illusion that we are problem solving.
In somatic trauma healing, the "problem" (in this example) would include working to create safety in your nervous system when there is a risk of criticism. With an upbringing like this, you may have significant problems feeling anxious, being unable to take healthy risks, having problems with self-esteem, etc. These are the problems. The impulse to ruminate about what happened is a problem-solving imposter.
2 – It Keeps Us Out of Our Bodies
Rumination is the ultimate intellectualizer of trauma. Somatic trauma healing (the category of trauma treatment currently most recommended by the Trauma Research Foundation) posits that trauma exists as imprints in the body and nervous system. Common physical expressions of trauma are:
Muscle tension
Overactive response to threat
Chronic stress
Chronic fight, flight, or freeze/shutdown
Pain and fatigue conditions
Anxiety, panic, and depression symptoms
Working with these bodily experiences is the root of somatic trauma healing and allows us to engage directly with the nervous system. When we ruminate we actively disassociate from our bodies. We enter an intellectual fantasy of either the past (what happened) or the future (how what happened is going to impact the rest of our lives). It can also lead to "what-if" fantasies – spiraling around how your life could have been better if such-and-such never happened.
This endless loop of intellectualizing strips all attention from our body's experience.
3 – It Reinforces Pathways of Nervous System Dysregulation
Ever watched a horror film and felt ready to jump out of your own skin? Current research suggests that our brains can't tell the difference between experiencing something directly or indirectly (imagining it, watching it, etc.)
So while rumination doesn't help resolve any trauma, it can certainly reinforce it. Re-experiencing these terrible moments of your life in a bottomless pit of attention can feel like it's happening all over again in your nervous system – reinforcing the trauma responses that have led to a chronically dysregulated nervous system in the first place.
If we are serious about trauma recovery we need to sideline coping practices like rumination – acknowledging that they exist and will come up from time to time. Then lovingly setting them to the side and replace them with more effective ways of engaging with our story.
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