How do you refer to yourself in internal monologue?

Discussion in 'Braaaaiiiinnnns...' started by wixbloom, Feb 28, 2015.

  1. wixbloom

    wixbloom artcute

    Once, me and some friends ended up discussing this and the resulting anedacta was really interesting. Keep in mind the 3 people mentioned here are NT with no mental illnesses to speak of, and that I'm the only one who grew up in an abusive home environment.

    I, for example, have my internal monologue structured like a dialogue between two "Lus":
    "Lu, what are we going to have for dinner?"
    "I honestly have no idea. Your choice."
    "What I really want is to order pizza, but we're trying to save up so that's not a good idea."
    "We can always go to the supermarket and buy the good frozen kind, it's tasty and still cheaper, plus it'll work us an appetite."
    "Okay that's great let's do that."

    I thought this was really weird. I mean, I'm a weird person. I sometimes like to pretend I'm my badass RPG characters when I need to Suck It Up and Get Stuff Done, and I deal with my anxiety by imagining a younger me who's actually feeling anxious and a current, present-day me who is strong and stable enough to help them. I'm a Hero of Heart for a reason.

    BUT THEN I found out one friend says in his internal monologue he refers to himself in the third person:
    "William is tired, so he probably should go to bed if he wants to wake up early"
    "William just did something stupid."

    And even weirder, another friend says she has something of an alternate persona called Mai, and her "inner monologue" is a dialogue between her and Mai, an entirely different person.

    And that made us curious: what do other people structure their own internal monologues like?
     
  2. rorleuaisen

    rorleuaisen Frozen Dreamer

    Mines a combo. I switch between [name] and "we" a lot.
     
    • Like x 1
  3. Allenna

    Allenna I am not a Dragon. Or a Robot. Really.

    I use third person a lot when referring to myself (and do refer to myself as kiji). If I'm being down on myself I use second person.
     
    • Like x 1
  4. Deresto

    Deresto Foolish Mortal

    i don't really tend to think in a conversational way, but in more of an abstract? kind of like those people on tumblr who talk with only gifs, but more complex. there are a lot of sound effects, and i have that thing where i can memorize a sound and play it back in my head (echoic memory?), and even use clips of someone's voice to build them saying something they've never said in my mind; i use it to talk in my head sort of like bumblebee from transformers.

    i recently learned that not everyone can use their heads like a built in mp3 player once they've heard a song about 5 times and it still weirds me out.
     
    • Like x 1
  5. Starcrossedsky

    Starcrossedsky Burn and Refine

    I actually talk to myself in second person a lot? Though it tends to be the form of second person where the actual "you" is omitted - eg "nobody cares, Nai" is my general phrase when I say a thing and no one pays attention to it.

    I also "we" out loud with some frequency (oops?) just because I think it sounds better. Also, slightly related in that in my writing stuff, the only thing that really comes as words is dialogue, and everything else is a "seen" action that I have to try and describe in words. I write in every perspective, but given the infinite choice I tend towards second (HOMESTUCK RUBS OFF OK) and a particularly stylized form of first-and-third that verbal-mimics what comes out of Japanese novel translations.
     
    • Like x 1
  6. Kaylotta

    Kaylotta Writer Trash

    Mostly I experience my inner monologue ad first-person, with occasional switches to third-person, mostly if I'm berating or mocking myself (seriously or not). That being said, I do frequently have conversations with myself - but I don't think about it as being two versions of me, just...talking to myself.

    "Do you answer your own questions when you talk to yourself?"
    "Of course! How else would I get an answer!"

    (There is also the small matter of my brief flirt with a possible multiple personality disorder thing when I was 15-16, but, um, that's a really long story and maybe I'm not quite ready to get into that can of worms just yet...)
     
    • Like x 1
  7. TwoBrokenMirrors

    TwoBrokenMirrors onion hydration

    If I'm thinking about what I'm doing, it's usually first person, though occasionally I'll have 'conversations', where I don't really see it as being two bits of me and I don't always even fill in both bits, I'm just going 'Come on now, you have to get up. Don't want to? Tough, you have to'.
    What I will also do though is start narrating as though I'm writing what I'm feeling or seeing in a story. In exactly the language I use when I'm writing stories, if not slightly more purple actually. And to be honest? It actually really gets in the way of really experiencing emotions, sometimes. I don't do it voluntarily and I don't always do it, since I don't tend to do it when the distancing would actually be useful because my emotions are running around shrieking, but, like... i was very unhappy when I had to send my boyfriend back up to scotland on friday, and i started mentally narrating being sad, and it immediately made it feel stupid and fake and awkward. But it's very hard to stop.
    I will also, when very distressed, write long explanatory screeds in my head as though I was writing them to Seebs, although I did that before I found his blog. Just detailing how distressed I am and why and why it seems awful and hopeless. It actually tends to calm me down.
     
  8. rorleuaisen

    rorleuaisen Frozen Dreamer

    xD glad I'm not the only one! Sadly it didn't calm me down :c Mine just kinda built up until I wrote something down. Sometimes I sent them to Seebs, sometimes I didn't. (Stupid social anxiety!)
     
  9. TwoBrokenMirrors

    TwoBrokenMirrors onion hydration

    @rorleuaisen
    Aaah that sucks. Mine do tend to wind me up to a bit of a peak, but once I've peaked my brain gets too tired to maintain the 'aaahh ahhh everything is terrible aaaah' and I either go to sleep or calm down into a manageable grey state.
    I only very rarely get to write them down, it's actually very hard to get them to come out on paper. I sent one to Seebs once and the act of sending it calmed me down to the point that when he published it and commented on it, I read it back and cringed at how hysterical i sounded...
     
  10. rorleuaisen

    rorleuaisen Frozen Dreamer

    @TwoBrokenMirrors mine tends to circle because I had so many brain problems at the time, so I just kept coming back and reiterating the same things over and over.

    And I call it "late night submitter regret" xD Sometimes I have the self-control to just keep it as a personal writing... But not as often as I'd like!
     
  11. seebs

    seebs Benevolent Dictator

    Mostly first-person, occasionally third-person seebs, occasionally third-person he, very-occasionally third-person she.
     
    • Like x 1
  12. TwoBrokenMirrors

    TwoBrokenMirrors onion hydration

    @rorleuaisen
    You have no idea how repetitive I'd get if I submitted something every time I was distressed enough to write a head-screed. xP They all boil down to either 'I am piss-scared of the future' or 'my head is forcing me to overthink an element of my identity that doesn't need this much overthinking', basically.
     
    • Like x 1
  13. kmoss

    kmoss whoops

    I'll bounce stuff off of myself all the time, like

    "dude! ok, so if this happens, then...yeah, yeah, ok, so then...exactly! and then this can happen and this rrrrrrgh this-is-so-cool", which is probably a word for word internal monologue for when we were starting planning over in the hogwarts AU section of this forum.

    I seem to have, personally, a very excited, golden lab kind of voice, and a pretty mellow, calmer voice.

    But yeah, "you" implied phrases, a lot of out loud back n forth when I'm alone, and I refer to me as "dude" pretty regularly.
     
  14. sicknastyspades

    sicknastyspades Most Rad.

    I don't generally use "I" in my internal monologues unless I'm trying to word something for the sake of other people. left alone don't tend bother pronouns, prolly due drop words habit of in general. My internal monologue isn't a conversation, it's a semi-coherent running string of words.
    I mostly use pronouns if I'm out of my comfort zone or otherwise trying to do something difficult. Which ones depends on my state of mind: negative gets second-person ("goddammit SS you worthless fuck-up piece of shit just do the thing already and stop whining"); positive gets first-person plural ("c'mon SS we are the king of everything we can totally rock this thing like a boss"). No idea whether this indicates anything interesting or if it's just a quirk.
     
    Last edited: Mar 1, 2015
    • Like x 1
  15. Kaylotta

    Kaylotta Writer Trash

    Interesting! I am a similar way, but when my self-talk is positive it is usually first- or second-person singular.
     
  16. unknownanonymous

    unknownanonymous i am inimitable, i am an original|18+

    Usually in first person, I think. Sometimes I switch to third person (with either she or they, and my name). And a bit of second person too. I also think I do the narration, book-like thing.
     
  17. Codeless

    Codeless Cheshire Cat

    Usually I, or not pronoun at all. As in. "Go shower!" "Guh, dun wanna." Both coming from me. I used to refer to myself as she, like I´m narrating, but since i am unsure of pronouns this tends to lead to a mental error message and than i have to start the thought over.
     
  18. Acey

    Acey hand extended, waiting for a shake

    First-person pretty much all the time. Like, you know how on TV, characters have their inner monologues essentially being them stating their thoughts as though they were talking to someone else about themselves? That's how my inner monologue goes. There might be the occasional third-person comment ("Dammit, Acey, get it together!" for instance) but it's mostly just first-person.
     
    • Like x 1
  19. Aya

    Aya words words words

    I use either "you" or "we". I also have the tendency to call myself a bunch of pet names in my internal dialogue, particularly when agitated.
    • Okay, now the only thing left on this form is the part about our educational history. Which semesters did we take off again? When did we transfer?
    • Good job, sweetheart, you're going to be on time. You didn't miss the bus or anything. Now let's go inside.
    • You should probably leave M alone for right now. He knows he can IM you if he wants to talk.
     
    • Like x 1
  20. swirlingflight

    swirlingflight inane analysis and story spinning is my passion

    Tends to go one of two ways.

    1., I'm thinking in story, with a train of thought devoted to "how would I tell someone else about what happened." Then I think in first person, with the tonal and word choices like I might use if I was defending my choices or expressing enthusiasm about accomplishments.

    2., I'm giving myself feedback on what I'm doing, with a train of thought of critique or criticism imitating friends, or parents, or long past teachers. I've managed to go with the cadence of Scorpius from Farscape, and it was entertaining enough to improve my mood. Then I think in second or third person, with fondly exasperated things like "Ky, you know this is a terrible idea and it's going to go horrible in all the ways, /let's do this," or dismissive seething using my full name, all too often borrowing my parents' vocal patterns.
     
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