Talking to One's Self

I would like to take a moment to explain something. This is something that I had to explain to my mom because she didn’t understand. That is, the fundamental difference between talking to yourself, and talking to someone who isn’t there.

I have done the former on many occasions. On so many occasions have I done the former! I have never once in my life lost touch with reality to the point where I did the latter.

When I talk to myself, I move my mouth but I don’t speak out loud. Though, I think sometimes I whisper, or something, because sometimes people can hear it in the other room. At least, they did at one point two years ago.

See, I asked my parents once if it was normal to think like you were having a conversation with someone, even though there wasn’t anyone else there. They said that it was normal. That’s all that talking to yourself is. You are having an imaginary conversation. Sometimes you explain certain things to no one. Like I will explain certain aspects of the delusional experience or the like. Sometimes you rehash things that have happened. This is usually when you are a little more out of it, I haven’t done this in a really long time I don’t think. The difference between talking to yourself and what my parents told me was normal, that is thinking like you are having a conversation with someone, is that with this you move your mouth a little bit to the words you are thinking. That is the only difference. When I have done this, I have always been well aware that there was no one else there. I have been well aware that it was a ONE SIDED CONVERSATION. You never get any sort of responses to anything you say. I repeat, it is no different than thinking like you are talking to someone. Except, you might move your mouth, and you might gesture sometimes.

I hate it how sometimes other people think they somehow know better than me about what’s going on inside my head. I’m the one who spends every moment of every day inside my head. I know what I am thinking. My sister tries to tell me that I was talking to someone who wasn’t there, because I was leaning over in a certain direction and moving my mouth. If I recall correctly, it was less that I was leaning towards someone, and more that I was leaning away from my family to hide it. At any rate, I remember this incident, we were at a restaurant, and this was a time when I was rehashing stuff. So I actually wasn’t even having a conversation.

Why do I do these thing? I do them without thinking about them. They are unconscious. I lose a certain amount of control. I can regain control if I focus on it, but then I will slip back again if I stop focusing on it. That is, if I am somehow excessively wired. These things only happen when I am excessively wired.

Okay, so now I will discuss talking to someone who isn’t there.

I have seen many a person at the psych ward do this. You’ll notice that these are two-way conversations. You can tell that they are two way conversations because the person will say something to no one, pause like they are listening to a response, and then react to whatever it was that was said. Sometimes they will chuckle like the other person said something funny. One time I thought this one lady was about to strip. She started touching her clothes like she was going to take them off and she said, “but the music’s not right.” This lady had children who were older than me. She was an interesting lady, to say the least.

So anyway, this concludes my discussion on talking to one’s self. These are things I don’t do anymore, but it pisses me off when people act like I was once so psychotic.