AIBU to ask whether constant mental chatter is normal?

[blubberball]

To ask is your brain like this all the time? Is this normal? With a couple of songs playing in the background as well

https://youtube.com/shorts/jewuMZEX3jQ?si=4Dg3vBnUQt7LhTi1

I know the video says ADHD brain, but what about neuro typical brains? Is this just life and what having a brain is?

I have this, I do not have adhd, it’s just normal brain.

Oh and if people say they don't have it it's 99.9% likely they're just not aware of it.

I have this and I’m autistic - it’s horrible and absolutely exhausting.

God yes, my brain is going all the time. Remembering things, worrying about things, thinking of my to do list....don't do music though. I do see images though and rerun conversations in my head. I had an interview last week and I must have been through that 100 times, thinking of the things I did well and all the other things I'm sure I didn't. It's exhausting. Dh seems to just watch the Repair Shop and never think of anything.

We had this conversation in the car recently. Me and both kids are like this. All perfectly normal. My husband's brain is silent but very visual. Also normal.

Yes, it's absolutely incessant. It's like having 50 tabs open at once on my browser. I'm not ADHD although I probably have traits (my son is, and his mental chatter is at insane levels 🤣). My husband doesn't have any internal dialogue whatsoever. When I used to ask him what he's thinking, he says 'nothing' and genuinely means it. I spent a while thinking he was lying to me haha. It was a revelation that not everyone experiences this.

I’m 40 now and I remember in my teens and 20s thinking/discussing how I could have more than one conversation at once in my mind

always got songs on repeat

but I tend to find its racing, worse with stress and hormones

I tend to block a lot out with scrolling/music/podcasts/tv

suspected I might be adhd for a few years now

Same. I can't visualise maps, location, or how things work. My husband knows if we're facing east. Or which way to go home from somewhere we've never been to before. He can put together complicated things with ease and can build stuff. I haven't even got a sense of direction. But his mind is silent. And I envy him that! My kids are just like me. I think his kids are more like him

I think it might explain why I prefer reading to watching TV. When I read I am thinking about / imaging what is happening, what they look like etc so I get absorbed in it and it takes my mind from other things. Watching TV doesn't do this in the same way.

Mine can and that’s when I realise I need to sort it out. Literally on a sort-it-out drive as we speak! Cannot believe the progress I have made in a week.

That's interesting... I'm (monkey mind) a reader. My husband (silent mind) is a watcher. I'd rather read a set of instructions, he'd rather watch a you tube video on how to do it. I will read newspaper articles online, he will watch tik toks. I will read a book for pleasure, he will watch a film. I hate having to watch stuff and he really dislikes having to read lengthy things

Mine does this too- it’s normal

Yes, my brain never shuts up. I don’t have ADHD.

I have arguments with mine, it’s exhausting.

Yes - same here. He always has radio / TV on - not happy with silence like me. He sorted our thermostat the other day by watching a Youtube video. I have to be in the mood to watch TV and actively have to WANT to watch something. I don't like background noise / stuff

I have a silent mind except I can sort of hear what I’m saying/thinking but only one “voice” and that’s me.

very few pictures.

it’s always been that way.

Ah on further reading it seems that chronic pain and dissociation can mean that you don’t experience this.

i don’t experience this and never have to my memory but I have had chronic pain since an early teen which is over 40 years now.

the chronic pain has definitely had an impact on my memory and I’ve got a MH diagnosis now aswell due to the impact on my brain.

That's me too! Takes me ages to watch a one hour programme as I keep having to rewind because my mind has zipped elsewhere with lists, conversations, and more lists, it's far to busy to just watch. Rarely music though. I hate watching YouTube on how to fix a blind or whatever.

Same. Pretty sure I don't have ADHD.
The songs are annoying as it's usually one or two lines on repeat, sung in my own voice and slightly out of tune.

Yes I have to watch programmes over and over. I only really watch documentaries and re play them several times or I dont know whats being said!!

A TV licence is great value in my house!!!

Also I find, that despite my busy mind, I need lots of slow processing. So I cant stand tv that moves too quickly, I cant follow it, to much flitting around from picture to picture and clip to clip.

Me too! The only time I went for a massage at a spa I found it totally not relaxing because my brain was doing exactly that 😭

Yeah that’s my brain. Mostly at 3am. NT as far as I know.

Me too, I once asked my husband what goes through his head, and he said he has no constant inner voice and can simply think of nothing, I was astonished… I thought everyone was like me. My head is like some kind of chaotic jungle!!!!

It's always going on in my head. Songs, an ongoing back and forth conversation with myself, worries, and sometimes another background song underneath. I can't switch it off and I struggle to get off to sleep because of it, usually awake til 2-3am regardless of what time I got up or whether I napped during the day. I'm diagnosed autistic.