Can't Keep My Mouth Shut - Rumination after a Toxic Relationship - You're Being Punished TWICE

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Toxic breakups are harder to recover from than normal, it's just fact, sadly. What makes it even HARDER, is that you might end up stuck in a rumination loop that starts to damage your mental health. Let's delve into what this is, what it does and how to get over it.  ​For more awesome content to read including beauty, fashion or dating & love features, please do head over to my digital platform www.nixalina.com. Don't be shy, come say hai! Head over to my Instagram or Tiktok to slide into my DMs.

This podcast contains strong language and discussions about relationships, sex, and love. It may not be suitable for younger listeners. This is the Can't Keep My Mouth Shut podcast, and I am Nixalina. Hello, it's me, Nixalina. Welcome to another episode of Can't Keep My Mouth Shut. Thank you all for tuning in. Thank you all for coming back. If you're new here, welcome. I hope you really enjoy this episode. Today, we are discussing rumination, specifically rumination after a toxic relationship and the fact that you're being punished twice.

You're going to be like, Nix, what is rumination? Or maybe you've heard of it before briefly but you don't really grasp what it really means. Basically, layman terms, rumination is obsessive negative thinking. It basically is repetitive thoughts and repetitive thought processes that you cannot get out of. It's extremely detrimental to your mental health. And also, So rumination can be so bad that it actually affects your daily life. You ruminate, shall I say, obsessively think so much about something that has happened that you struggle to focus at work or you can't be present when you're doing pleasurable activities.

You ruin your leisure time because of your rumination. You can't sleep at night because of your rumination. You're always tired. you put yourself into like almost a physical fatigue mode because of your brain and it's like almost addiction as it were to this thought loop now why do you end up with rumination after a toxic relationship. So basically, toxic relationships and the breakups are harder to recover from than normal, healthy breakups. It sounds odd. It should be the other way around. Actually, no. Often, with toxicity, you've probably had an extremely

sad and abusive side to the relationship. You also might have had some betrayal in there, you're being lied to, some really unhealthy stuff that you've been on the receiving end of. And when you break up, albeit whether it's your decision or their decision and that toxic relationship ends, you enter into a rumination phase because your mind is kind of showing you that there's an emotional injury there that needs to be healed. So you replaying scenarios in your head on repeat is almost a coping mechanism. So sometimes it can offer temporarily relief to the anxiety or depression that you feel when you think about these events because you're trying to make sense of it, you're trying to understand it and of course you're trying to

prevent any of it happening again in the future. The reason people suffer from rumination, and let me make this clear, not everyone does. People can leave toxic relationships and then just cut off and move on. But those that do ruminate, it's usually because they have perhaps attachment issues. There's codependency there. They were trauma bonded to their abuser. There's perhaps a level of love addict, a love addiction there. And then there's also that want for revenge on karma if there's been a huge injustice in the relationship. And because of all of this, what I've just cited off, you get a lot of intrusive thoughts. They play on repeat. that then becomes a habit your brain believe it or not is actually getting some mini dopamine hits

when you ruminate as well so your brain almost get gets addicted to that that doesn't stop it won't stop you can't solve the dilemmas and the issues of the past you can't make sense of it you can't fix it you can't change it and you go in in that loop the really rubbish effects of rumination is apart from the fact it basically pulls you out of your life. It can worsen mental health conditions that may already be there or have just began. It creates a horrendously negative aura and a negative mood. It can increase risk for behaviors such as, I don't know, poor eating habits, substance abuse, you know, because you're trying to self-medicate or help yourself through this. It also increases your blood pressure. There's a risk of high blood pressure and of

course, lack of sleep and fatigue. How shit does that sound? It is awful. And why I've called this episode is simply being punished twice is because that is exactly what rumination is. You are being punished twice. What's happened to you to cause this extensive rumination, this obsessive thinking is probably a very traumatic event. It might be a singular life event in that relationship because also rumination can happen. I'm not talking about just relationships with rumination. It can be something like that's happened to you as a major life event. But obviously, because of what I do and what I've been through. I'm focusing on the recovery of toxic relationships. So for me, as an example, when I always give you my personal examples, I ruminated,

I'm not kidding, for the best part of 15 months, maybe a bit more. It was hell. I would never wish this on my worst enemy I absolutely wouldn't and what I was ruminating on was trying my brain was trying to process how I ended up in that situation how I managed to become attached once again to someone so horrible someone so dark and nasty how I didn't see the red flags. I ruminated on why. I kept thinking, why? Why? Why cheat on me? Why do this to me? Why? Why? Why? And how do you not care? In my head, I'm like, he doesn't give a flying fuck. How is he so broken? How is he so empty to do this to people? How is he so abusive afterwards? Because it's not like I called him out cheating and then it was like, you know, sorry, hands up. He was

fucking abusive. He blamed me for it. So my brain is just trying to understand the man in front of me who I think is a fucking monster. I was also trying to get out of being heartbroken, which of course makes sense when you've just gone through a breakup. And with heartbreak, it's standard procedure that you reflect and you think back and you try and meddle your way through your healing process. That's normal. Rumination is a fucking kick in the gut because it doesn't end. And you just feel yourself either talking about them all the time or thinking about them all the time or making yourself feel sick thinking about what they've done. You replay those traumatic events over and over and over. But I remember when I was on the balcony in our house and he come home

and I just discovered he'd taken someone to a hotel room three weeks after he proposed, I replay that over and over and over and over and over and over again. Because it's almost like you try and feel like, you try to make sense of it, then you're trying to think of how could I have done better? How could I have changed this? How could I have avoided this? Because the pain is unbearable. rumination usually comes because the pain of what you've been through is too much for you to take

and I am not too proud to say that it was too much pain it broke me and I couldn't handle that much damage and that's where the rumination stemmed from now now we know what it is which is a fucking beast right um the question is how do we stop now I've told you my rumination was like about 15 months it sounds an insane amount of time to be so fixated and stuck on someone so incredibly horrible but it's a process of which I had to sit through and I was trying my best to help myself through it, embracing the fact that it's going to come, whatever I do, and knowing it's part of the healing process. And honestly, it is. There's nothing wrong with you if you ruminate in that way, but there is a point where you have to go enough is enough,

and you have to start helping yourself. So if you find yourself in this space, things that help from a personal experience and from just expert advice in this field, is kind of a lot of the stuff that helps you heal anyway so we're going to start with say journaling journaling your feelings writing it down get it out of your head get it out of your mind put it on paper so it kind of like you release it from your body is a really good easy free way to try and relinquish rumination you've also got meditation and breath work absolutely standard procedures for helping you with anything really. Meditation helps with fucking anything. You just got to commit the 10 to 15 minutes a day to do it and silence your bloody brain while you do it,

which is the hardest part. But honestly, slowing your breath down, meditate, focus and bring your brain always back to something else that isn't the rumination. Focus on something else. Focus on good things in your life. Focus on yourself. You're trying to retrain your mindset at this point. Distraction also helps. Very easy. Distract yourself. When your brain is going, why did he do this to me? Why did I deserve this? How could he be such a fucking evil person? Look at something else. What can I read? What should I watch? What food should I cook? Should I go out for a walk? Constantly distract yourself when you find yourself spiraling into that negative thought pattern. It's difficult to do it first because your brain wants to be stuck in

that rumination. But if you manage to pull through with the distraction on repeat, then the distraction part becomes the more stronger habit, as you will. Which basically lends to my next point, which is a conscious habit of change. So when you get there, if you're doing stuff on repeat, whilst it feels like a slog at the beginning and it will and your brain's going nope I want to think about that time they fucked someone else behind your back no I want to think of the humiliation you've been through no I want to think about how abusive they were in that email they sent once no I want to think about them with their new partner and how easily they moved on from you your brain's going there if you can go up I'm going to look at something else I'm going to do something else I'm going to

think about something else and you stop in its tracks eventually it becomes the mode um where your brain will naturally go into you also need to uh rebuild your self-esteem i would love to also suggest therapy if um if you have if you can afford it there's also always free tools online and free options of therapy and support groups online you need to rebuild your self-esteem rebuild who you are before this happened to you and learn how much it really wasn't your fucking fault and get that confidence back that you had before this toxic person. You also need to learn your triggers of what sets you off with the re-rumination, what sets you off with this negative spiral and this, you know, awful intrusive inner thoughts that you have.

and you need to learn the triggers to then develop coping mechanisms to help you out of it. If honestly you ruminate for, people ruminate for years. If you're getting really stuck, 15 months is probably way too long. Well, it is too long. It just is. But I had a lot of stuff that happened in that relationship that was continuously being resurfaced. So even eight months into that rumination, he comes back and tries to get back with me. So that almost set it back to square one again. So it's not like, it's like I lost the first eight months of the healing because ta-da, he's back on my doorstep, right? So then I almost had to start again. So you say 15 months, but it's actually not. But that's how long my brain has basically been in the

horrendous rumination phase. But if you go on too long, you do not know how to get yourself out of it, you're really struggling. There is, of course, the medication side of it, which you can go and speak to your GP about, go and speak to a doctor and a professional and see if they can actually help you just to get yourself out of this space. I hope this episode has helped. I'm sorry if it is something that you're dealing with. Like I said, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It's absolutely awful because you can't escape your own brain. You can't run away or get a vacation from your mind and also you're usually ruminating on stuff that's been done to you that you never deserved which makes it even worse like i said being punished twice you never you never

deserved any of it you didn't deserve to be treated so poorly you didn't deserve to be left that broken by someone who firstly is like never deserved you in the first place and also is a broken soul themselves. They're just going around causing so much damage, like a damaged tornado. And you were stuck in it and got swept up in it. And that sucks. But there are ways to heal and move forward. I hope this episode has helped. Like always, if you need me, always, always, always open to speak to you and help you. You can slide into my DMs on Instagram and TikTok at nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A. And I'll see you all next week.

Thanks for listening to the Can't Keep My Mouth Shut podcast. Produced and hosted by me, Nixalina. I'm recorded in the Splice Cast Studios in Singapore. I'm available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google and all major podcast listening apps. Do subscribe to enjoy a new episode every Monday evening. Please do give me a five-star review. It helps other people also find my podcast.

For more content and features to read, you can check out my website, nixalina.com. That's nixalina.com. I'm also on social media. Simply search at Nixalina, N-I-X-A-L-I-N-A to find me. Don't be shy. Come say hi. Thanks for watching!