Do you have an inner monologue?

[goldenorbspider]

Mine never shuts up. I'm curious those that don't what do you have instead? I'd love just to see images but does that get annoying sometimes as well?

Yes, but I have a dissociative disorder so I think that is probably the cause of it. They can speak different languages which is really fucking irritating because at times I cannot understand what is being said.

I find it really, really strange that some people have quiet inside their heads. I spend a lot of time talking about this in therapy. My therapist assures me that some people do have silence inside their heads, but do have a conscience too which they do (sometimes) listen too.

I’d like to be a bit more inner. I keep saying things to myself like ‘I’m safe’ and ‘I’m a good/bad Mum’ (it varies).

I have words and I see images (really handy when I'm writing as I can 'play' scenes over and over) and there is pretty much constant music playing. The voice gets louder when I'm stressed about something. I often dream vividly.

I don't know if DM had a voice, but I know one of her professors at university in the 40s thought she had an unusual mind because of the way she 'saw' the week ahead ie in sort of diary form, but not straight lines and in colour.

Yes I do and I agree very much with a PP who recommended doing something. I sew, bake, do jigsaws, paint. They all make me concentrate so hard that the voice goes away. I’d highly recommend finding something to do, which you enjoy and you can get fully absorbed in.

I have one, she used to have a name like Mrs Sensible but that wasn’t the greatest name as “she” could be pure evil. Sometimes “she” would say a word that would trigger an image and I’d have a nasty reaction to it (I found my dad after he died) so it took some time and counselling but now she’s really quite cheery and positive. Mrs sensible does need to have subtitles on tv at all times so she can count the words but that’s a whole other thread I hope my experience gives someone hope, if your voice/monologue isn’t very nice, there is help available and it can be turned right around.

Quarantined alone for the foreseeable so I'm kind of greatful for my internal monologue. She's all I've got right now 😂

Yes.

There's a whole, constantly running, director's cut commentary track playing in my head. Sometimes it fades into the background , drowned out by more pressing matters that need my attention. Other times it just chunters away being not very interesting, but sometimes (and I love this when it happens) it gets louder and very insistent and I have to write down things it comes up with. Sometimes it's just one-liners - my inner monologue definitely thinks it's a stand-up comedian at times - other times it dictates whole stories. It's mostly verbal but when it gets hold of a pencil it does some terrific doodles.

Yes I do, always have.

@sociallydistained I said this to my psychiatrist. How are people doing self isolation or shielding for so many weeks if they have a quiet head? That prospect completely disturbs me.

Does anyone else have more than one commentator though?

If someone says "summer" then I will smell fresh cut grass, feel a bit like the sun is on my skin and feel really calm. If they then said "winter" right away I would get a sort of tingly cold feeling.

My DD confused the hell out of me the other day. She was practising a piece of music and I was helping out the best I could by reading the music as she played and keeping a mental note of when she was messing up. (I'm not very musical but I can read a smattering.) After a pause and a quick "You took that bit too fast.. Didn't give that rest long enough... that should be three beats..." type post mortem she said, "Right I'll go back and try that again. I won't play the first bit because I was ok on that. I'll start at the pink bit."
I looked at the black and white music. Grey pencil notes. No colours. "What 'pink bit'?"
"That bit!" She pointed with her bow. "That bits pink then it turns yellow and the rest of that line's blue..."

She found if baffling that I couldn't see the colours.

People is weird.

Does anyone else have more than one commentator though?

I have characters who I go and pull out from time to time to see if they've done anything interesting since the last time I talked to them. Occasionally one of them will tell me a joke I've never heard before.

@TheSandman Usually completely inappropriate jokes that you then spend the next several weeks trying to erase from your brainwaves whilst everyone else inside your head just wants to tell them to the World by any chance?

I’m so confused about whether I have an internal monologue like is that just thoughts before you say/do things or is it like Bridget Jones narrating her life?

Nope.

IM: You are such a fucking liar.

Yes I certainly have that. I would say that with depression it essentially functions as a symptom if how bad the condition is. Fir example, prior to having depression I was actually very positive, and as such the inner monologue actually helped massively in motivating and helping to think how to improve when things didn't go so well.

Since I've had the illness, about 3 years now, its acted in the opposite way, almost like having a sadist controlling your emotions. Certainly in my case because it had been so positive before depression, it actually stopped me from recognising I had a problem, as I believed, and still do, all of the warped depressive thinking it comes up with. The upside for those currently in a low patch is that it does change with how well under control your condition is.

Wow, deep stuff there.

@TheSandman Usually completely inappropriate jokes that you then spend the next several weeks trying to erase from your brainwaves whilst everyone else inside your head just wants to tell them to the World by any chance?

Not often. Why?

@TheSandman - that's how it is when I get told the jokes...

@HonkersVonFlapperson That sounds... uncomfortable. No, most of my gags are benign enough to tell my kids. Usually after I've consciously polished them. Sometimes I have to set things up a bit for them.

Mostly I just draw/write the buggers to get them out - otherwise they just endlessly loop and get annoying.

Maybe you could try that to exorcise yours. Write them out - then bin them.

Occasionally one of them will tell me a joke I've never heard before.

^^ I would love that! Mine just makes me relive uncomfortable moments

Mrs sensible does need to have subtitles on tv at all times so she can count the words but that’s a whole other thread

^^ is it just subtitles or will she count anything?

I have multi-layered thinking. There's images, there's an inner monologue, there's a constant earworm. There may be more than one string of each, I'm not sure. They're all there all the time, but one may be more foregrounded than others, depending on what I'm thinking about, and I can focus on just one line of thought when I need to. Mostly when I need to; if I am particularly worried about something, it will keep coming up to the top whatever.

I think in different ways for different things - a lot of it is words, but maths- type stuff is more images, though I think the inner monologue is still there, saying things like, "that's not balanced." The inner monologue has different voices, depending what I'm thinking about. I do try to shut it down when it's my mother, though, as that's usually negative, unless it's about gardening.

It's difficult to know how I really think - the mechanics of it, I mean - because thinking about how I think changes the thinking through being observed. I need to sort of creep up on thoughts from behind before they realise.

I like lieing in the bath and letting thoughts just drift around.

I read somewhere that if you visualise your self sitting on a park bench and just watching the thoughts walk by as though they are people this can drown out what the thoughts are saying.
Mine are chatter but when I am down it's "I hate myself and I am ugly and I don't want to be here"