Do You Get Lost in The Psychology Sauce and Self-Diagnosing?
The Fine Line Between Self-Inquiry and Unhealthy Rumination
With so much information out there on what is good or bad, what is right or wrong, and how we should be or shouldn’t be, it’s very easy to fall into self-diagnosing traps, ruminating our mental anguish until we feel stuck and broken.
Yesterday was one of those days for me. As a writer who likes to make sense of things, I struggled with some writing in the morning and began to doubt my abilities. This then triggered me to think there was something wrong with me, which sent me on a wild goose chase for answers.
Next thing you know I’m on a CPTSD/PTSD reddit thread, relating people’s stories back to myself, thinking about my past and feeling confused because nothing makes sense. I eventually crashed in a heap of demotivation and hopelesness, hours lost to the hands of rumination.
My experience yesterday reminded me of the importance of catching ourselves in these moments of self-diagnosing: When is enough, enough? When is rumination not helping us?
The Difficulty With Self-Diagnosing In A Spiral
Mental health is grey and it’s complex. It’s not usual for clinicial psychologists to misdiagnose their patients with the wrong mental health “disorders” before a correct diagnosis is made, with implications on patient treatment.
When we fall into spirals of self-diagnosing we become the clinician, only a really stressed out one. Under this stress, it’s difficult for us to think clearly and we’ll likely hyperfocus on the immediate problem, biased to our anxieties that claim something is terribly wrong with it.
There may indeed be a problem, but trying to find a solution when panicking is a recipe for endless rumination. I went to sleep yesterday teary and feeling hopless, but after a good nights sleep I felt much better.
I no longer seemed broken, because my mind was clearer and not consumed by anxiety.
Being Aware of The Unhelpfulness of Self-Directed Rumination
We need to be aware of when we’re triggered and fall into spirals of self-diagnosing. The ideal is that we can step outside of that spiral when it’s happening, and regulate ourselves back to some sort of mental equilibrium.
This is easier said than done because our brain, as the problem solver it is, will try and resolve the stress by urging us to think about the stressor more but if rumination worked, why don’t we feel any better for it?
This isn’t to say we need shouldn’t think about ourselves, but we should be mindful of when we’re getting stuck in spirals of self-directed rumination. If I could go back 24 hours I’d urge myself to get out of bed, get off my phone, and go and take a walk to disconnect for a little while.
Instead, I was stuck in bed; glued to my phone, feeling stressed out and demotivated to move and causing myself harm by feeding into thoughts that told me I was broken, disordered, and unfixable.
Thank you for reading todays article. I am Joe, and I write thoughtful, weekly content on personal growth and relationships. You can subscribe to for updates on when I post here (!).