Over-analyzing past events

In another thread - about talking to ourselves - the topic of negative self-talk has been mentioned.

Some of us suffer from this compulsion to remember the most awkward, humiliating or simply irritating scenes or happenings of our lives. And, of course, we are convinced that all of it was our fault.
And, we recall the event a hundred or a thousand times, saying to ourselves "why on earth did you say THIS?", or "why did you do THAT?", or "what a stupid, pathetic, ridiculous IDIOT you are, a NORMAL person would never say such a thing!", or "...and you are surprised at EVERYONE laughs at you?" and so on.

Even if the recalled situation, in reality, was probably not such a horrible or unforgiveable one. Sometimes everyone behaves stupidly. Sometimes everyone says something inappropriate. This does not mean that THEY are stupid. This does not mean that THEY are inappropriate.
But we often feel like this. "Why did you think you could say something that is not stupid?" - "You ARE stupid. You ARE inappropriate."

I wonder if many other avoidants have this habit of self-torture?

Yes, absolutely, my whole life. If I let myself. I try to associate the old memories to a feeling of utter boredom, so they become duller. I've found it is best not to fight the memories when they want to bubble up. That only gives them more power.

Oh yeah, I have experienced it myself: trying to avoid these painful thoughts (and yes, I do see the irony in using this expression) just makes them even more stubborn.

Have you ever tried to figure out what can help against them?
For me, trying to see the happenings objectively can help.
Not always, but if I am not too desperate, I can understand that there are others who act stupidly, not only me. And, they seem to not worry too much about it. They do not punish themselves multiple times for only one "bad" thing they had done earlier. So, why should I continue doing this?

I over-analyze everything. The only way I know to somehow avoid it is by isolating myself so that I don't have any new material to obssess over. And even then, my mind helpfully drags out some old memories. I mean, why not torture myself over tripping over my own shoelaces when I was nine? Here we go, let's relive it in slow motion! And again!

Irmtraud wrote:For me, trying to see the happenings objectively can help.
Not always, but if I am not too desperate, I can understand that there are others who act stupidly, not only me. And, they seem to not worry too much about it. They do not punish themselves multiple times for only one "bad" thing they had done earlier. So, why should I continue doing this?

Yeah, I like to do that as well. But more often than not it's like going in circles. I remember something - all those nasty emotions are coming back - I try to be objective and estimate whether it was really that embarrassing - I usually decide that no, it wasn't such a big deal, let's get over it - five minutes later, I remember it again and so it goes on. It stops only when I exhaust myself so much that I don't really care about anything.

I do it too. My therapist is forever telling me to stop analysing the crap out of everything. I don't mean to do it- it's just one of those thought loops I get stuck in. Lots of "what if's".

I have lost friendships because I figured out why someone was acting in some way toward me, and it wasn't accurate, and I was told that I must not really know them at all based on my analysis.

I've also been told I probably have a touch of PTSD because of how I can't let thing in the past go, I keep going over them and over them. And I never get closer to closure, instead I find new ways to blame myself and make myself feel worse. Even good things I've done in the past eventually become completely humiliating to me.

@Volatile: yes, this is a big problem for me too, but your way of expressing it gave me an ironic laughter! Thanks for that. No new material to obsess over, yeah
My mind does the very same thing: helpfully dragging out new memories.

Re-living it in slow motion - well, this might be off topic - or not so off? There are certain "comedies" or "fun shows" in the TV which are far from funny. At least, for me.
When people laugh at others' awkward experiences - like, a small child goes on the street carrying balloons, by accident he falls, and every balloon is destroyed, so the child begins to cry - WHAT is so funny in it? Or, a teenager plays volleyball, and the ball hits her - oh, so funny, let us repeat it to the viewers in slow motion! "WAAAHAHAAAA, how amusing!" - but I cannot see why these scenes are funny for certain individuals.

And, there are two games that can literally make me hysterical.
Activity is the one, Balderdash is the other. I really cannot understand why others find them funny. hanks, I have enough experiences about behaving like an idiot, saying stupid things and making myself completely misunderstood and being laughed at. They say it is just a game and one should have fun - but does "having fun" mean "now, you can feel yourself EXACTLY AS awkward as usual, and now, you can collect EXACTLY AS MUCH experience of failure and being ridiculous... but hey, now it is not serious! Now it is just a game! Ha-ha-ha!"
I cannot laugh at others either. It. Is. Not. Funny. To. Make. Fun. Of. Others.

@Lilyfairy: yes, it would be better to stop over-analysing everything... but could someone please explain us how on earth to do - okay, to not do - it? Telling "stop analysing the crap out of everything" to an avoidant, in my humble opinion, is exactly as useful as for example telling "Stop hallucinating!" to a schizophrenic person.

@Inverse: this sounds very familiar! I always try to figure out what a certain person meant by saying or doing certain things. (Somehow, it is difficult to imagine that others are not so careful with their words and deeds. Somehow I cannot believe that they really did not mean anything special, they just did not think twice before they said something the way I - we - do.)
Yes, it is pretty likeable that you have PTSD related issues. Maybe some kind of complex PTSD thing? If you cannot help but keep repeating them over and over again, this is a sure sign of trauma. And, if you cannot gain strength from the good things that you've done - again, very familiar... the word "humiliating" hit something in me here.

One more thing I have been thinking about: we know that nothing happens without a reason, no-one develops this over-analyzing tendency "just for fun".
I assume many of you had to experience that even an innocent word can be - and will be - used against you, and/or that you had to guess, even the untold things; you had to understand that "you were bad", without having been told what "crime" you had committed.
I think this might result in constant hypervigilance and over-analyzing. (Something that makes us feel "even worse". At least, this is how I feel: "over-analyzing is a bad thing and I do it all the time ERGO I am bad, irritating, boring" - and so on. Anyone else?)

Irmtraud wrote:@Lilyfairy: yes, it would be better to stop over-analysing everything... but could someone please explain us how on earth to do - okay, to not do - it? Telling "stop analysing the crap out of everything" to an avoidant, in my humble opinion, is exactly as useful as for example telling "Stop hallucinating!" to a schizophrenic person.

I've started with the things that I write out for my therapist each week for therapy- I write out thoughts and things I want to say because I often can't communicate them verbally. So for me it's trying to write out the thought- the plain, simple thought, without getting caught up in the spiral that it all turns into. Sometimes I can manage it, a lot of the time I can't, but I'm starting to see what he means. It's going to take me a while to get there. But yeah, it feels a bit like someone asking the impossible.

Analysis is kind of like math--- if you have a number that is constant and you add another specific number-- it has to equal the same number every time.

This is what I agonize over.... I have this "ideal situation" where I wish for a group of truly kind, loving friends that have my best interests at heart all the time...

but this is my "math equation":

I don't talk to anyone very often about personal things or show interest in their lives very often + going out with acquaintances seems like a scary waste of time and I over-analyze every response I make and every nuance of the other people around me = I end up exhausted, and my phone is silent and nobody invites me out

And here I sit in my situation-- where thankfully I do have a good husband and kids that want me around-- but I still want more....

For me it's a bit different. Rather than thinking "how could you say THAT" or "no normal person would say THIS", I don't know what I did wrong. I think if I ever knew what it was that I said that was stupid, it would be easier, it could be fixable, but instead I feel a general feeling that everything I say or do is regarded by others as stupid and revolting.

So for me analyzing looks like: dammit, surely they think I was talking stupidly a minute ago! *feels intense shame* Surely they're disgusted!

No idea how to battle this, really. My therapist is always trying to explain that what I think and what others think aren't the same thing, but I can't see the alternative. This feeling of everyone's attention being glued to my faults is too strong to battle it with an idea that maybe they think differently or don't think of me at all. One if a strong feeling, another is a weak theoretical idea.

There was one shocking event, related to this topic. A young pretty woman, with cute face and nicely done hair and modern elegant clothes came to our group therapy. She was asked what her problem was, for our benefit, as she doesn't usually visit the group and we don't know her. Guess what? That pretty woman with nice haircut and elegant clothes thinks that everyone regards her as disgusting! I was blown away. It's so ridiculous. I wonder if we here are all like that.