Hi Anonymous

I’m glad that you had a good weekend, but I’m sorry to hear that you have been feeling bad again.

That is kind of you to say, but I think you have been helping yourself. You’re a very reasonable, insightful person and have put a lot of hard work into helping yourself through this challenging period.

I think it’s even possible to do nothing wrong and still hurt someone you love very much.

Repeatedly thinking about a distressing topic is called rumination. I’m wondering, before this did you ever experience rumination about other topics?

I have had some experience with rumination. For me, there is often a trigger. I wonder are there specific times / activities or stressors that lead you to return to these thoughts and feelings?

If you do identify a pattern, I find it can be helpful to focus on the pattern leading to rumination developing rather than the thoughts themselves.

Relaxation can be very helpful to de-escalate. I’m fond of yoga and meditation. I found meditation particularly useful for learning to emotionally distance myself from rumination. Do you have anything that you like to do to relax?

I think this may have triggered a subconscious  belief. The difficulty is that when you inherently believe something to be true, it can be very painful and take some time to change (we are the only ones who can ultimately change what we believe). You may have to repeatedly challenge this false beliefs that you are a terrible person because you made a mistake. Or because you chose to protect your relationship by withholding this situation.

Hang in there, I hope you feel better soon! 🙏