'I have fights with my estranged parents inside my head'.
June 2025
This is called ‘rumination’. This is where we get stuck ‘thinking’ about past (or future) events, replaying them repeatedly inside our mind. Trying to ‘work it out’ or ‘solve the problem’.
The thoughts often come saturated in the abundance of emotions that would accompany those real-life events and so, they affect our mood.
These stories I play in my mind always come with an intense urge to defend myself.
I imagine the critics (my parents), their words sharp as knives, and I prepare my counterattack. I rehearse my responses, and the conversation rages on in my head, a verbal sparring match with an invisible opponent.
Before I know it, I'm fully entrenched in this imaginary world. I'm showered, dressed, and brushing my teeth on autopilot, my mind still locked in this fantastical debate. The stress and agitation build up, like a rollercoaster reaching its crescendo. When I find myself looking out the window completely disconnected…. I'm left wondering. Why do I feel so angry and agitated?
Next, I find myself projecting this stress onto the people I care most about. My husband and kids. Stomping around the house, giving short-sharp-snappy answers, unable to engage fully, seeing everyone else as some kind of problem or obstacle.
I realise, something needs to change.
I think it’s them (of course!)
But it’s me.
My rumination gives me a sense of control. If I can ‘fix’ my parents (or myself), get them to understand my perspective, or if I ‘solve’ all the problems, then I get to escape all of this grief, confusion, sadness, and feelings of rejection and inadequacy. All the ‘not worthy of love’ stories. The ‘I’m bad and wrong’ narratives.
All of that will “go away”, if I just think long and hard enough to find solutions. (It won't).
While I’m caught up in the ‘thinking’ (ruminating), I also get to avoid reality.
The reality that I have already tried to fix this. The reality that my parents aren’t willing to try. And the reality that many people will not make the changes we need to feel respected and cared about within the relationship.
That’s a damn painful reality to accept – and rumination helps us manage those feelings in the short term (‘I can fix this!), but in the long term it’s causing problems in my ‘now’ family. And that matters more.
So what now? I’m hurting!. I can’t just ‘stop thinking’, right?
This is where the skill of ‘untangling’ comes in. See article here.