[ArcheM]

I have a very persistent habit of mentally recounting episodes from my life when I (or sometimes even other people) acted awkwardly, such as unintentionally making a cruel or inappropriate remark or action. My self-talk then turns into self-abuse, even if the thing wasn't actually done by me. It's gotten so bad that I couldn't bear to take a shower today and had to take my laptop with me to have something playing in the background to distract me, which is obviously not ideal, since water + laptop, although this time nothing happened.

Hoping someone here has advice.

I feel like it gets better when I'm working on a creative problem, but I just can't have an appropriate creative problem on demand.

[CobolCapsule]

I constantly obsess over things i have done, or heard others comment about something i thought pertained to me. It turns out to be something i just can't shake for a while, or get out of my head. Usually it pases with time, but sometimes comes back and starts all over again. Eventually it will escape my head for good and not bother me anymore. Time seems to be the only advice i can give you though. Something else will eventually distract you from it, and it can take over your thoughts.

[ArcheM]

The problem is, my "thoughts" (not to imply that I don't consider myself sentient, but to use the generic word for this particular phenomenon) don't really go away. That is, I can become completely miserable over something that happened 10 or 20 years ago (which is almost as far as my memory goes). I keep telling myself that nobody except myself even remembers that incident at this point, but it doesn't help... On the other hand, it only lasts a moment at a time, but in that moment I manage to become extremely upset. Time seems to play very little role. Such a weird thing.