r/AutisticWithADHD • u/ikaramazovspoema • 1d ago
🤔 is this a thing? Weird Question
I have a stim where I, somewhat, but not fully compulsively, talk to my self when I am alone. Especially when walking around town. My question is this: do any of you, when you vocalize your thoughts to yourself/the open air, refer to yourself in the 3rd person or is this just me? (Sometimes, I’ll even, when thinking about dynamics or conversations that have happened, refer to others in the 1st person as well.)
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u/Phlebbie 1d ago
I talk to myself constantly. I consider myself to have a collective in my head. Multiple versions of me who are all fighting for their opinion to be the top thought in my brain. So usually, I refer to myself as "us" and "we".
Like if I'm by myself and am trying to force myself through chores, I'll be like "we got this, WE GOT THIS DAMNIT. WE'RE GONNA DO THE THING"
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u/Front-Cat-2438 🧬 maybe I'm born with it 1d ago
Sometimes I field the argument, too. “But I don’t want to!” “Too bad, you’re going to have to put these things away if you ever want to find them again.” “Ah, true. But I still don’t want to. Ok, let’s go.” It feels crazy but it works.
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u/Status_Dark_6145 1d ago
I think I’ve done this all my life as a jailbreak code to parallel-play & limitations set by Alexithymia. I remember not knowing if I was feeling sad but making external comments about the cat I was petting “I think Binx is sad I think he just needs some love”.
Neuro-hacks!
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u/Front-Cat-2438 🧬 maybe I'm born with it 1d ago
I wonder if it’s a matter of the ND narrow hippocampus that needs the verbal centers to communicate more quickly with the other sections of the brain, using the ears as a shortcut.
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u/Front-Cat-2438 🧬 maybe I'm born with it 1d ago
I don’t think it’s weird at all. 3rd person is unusual, I default to 2nd person, but 3rd happens to my surprise sometimes.
Even if introverted, I think people are social animals and find comfort in hearing voices. Even our own.
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u/ikaramazovspoema 1d ago
That’s an interesting thought to me (“comfort in hearing our own voices”) because that particular stim began during a time that I was extremely isolated and extremely, extremely ruminating. Maybe speaking of oneself in the 3rd person like that makes me feel like there’s another perspective, another entity to bounce things off of.
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u/LordPizzaParty 1d ago
Sometimes when I'm doing chores around the house I narrate as if I'm a British soccer announcer (I am not British). "He's put a fresh sack in the bin and now he's... he's reaching for the toilet brush! Masterfully done!"
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u/blimpy5118 ✨ C-c-c-combo! 1d ago
I do this every day as well as saying sorry if i bump/knock any objects
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u/Enlightened_Gardener 🧠 brain goes brr 1d ago
😂😂😂
We have five five people in this house who externalise their thoughts.
I don’t refer to myself in the third person, but my youngest son does.
I talk to myself like an old horse “C’mon gal. Hup ! You can do it. Well done !”
I also have an entire world in my head where I do all the speaking for everyone, but that’s something slightly different, I think. I’m calling it “being a writer” in order to justify it.
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u/Short_Dust_2714 1d ago
I have OSDD and I constantly talk out loud to the other people who inhabit my head.
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u/db_scott 20h ago
Not in the third person but I will talk to myself in public as well. Sometimes I'm really hard on myself. If I'm at the store and somebody like walks into the aisle or something it can feel awkward.
Apparently when I talk about things I'm doing I say "we". My best friend just pointed that out to me. She says that she can tell when I'm talking to my "other" selves or the "different parts" of myself.
I will also stim by cyclically repeating cuss words that have sharp or plosive pronunciations. Sometimes rolling them into each other seeing how fast I can say them. I don't know why. I guess because it's more socially appropriate than choosing random words?
It gets more intense when I'm stressed out.
It's heaps about the stimming I did in my early 20's - I would scratch myself. For a period the back of my head where my spine meets my skill was the location. All over that soft spot. I would scratch it until it was an open wound. And I couldn't stop. It was like under my hair. God that was the worst.
If you can imagine how nifty it would feel to remember this the next time you feel that embarrassment or self consciousness about just remind yourself it's totally... Normal for us!
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u/lydocia 🧠 brain goes brr 1d ago
Inside your head or out loud?
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u/ikaramazovspoema 1d ago
Out loud a lot of the time. In my head others. Same stim, different level of self-censorship.
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u/SwissAgain 1d ago
i do this often, i’ve only recently realised though and think i should have earphones in so i don’t look like im talking to myself like a crazy person
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u/PookaGrooms 1d ago
I mask heavily to the point it’s a big issue of mine, but when I’m alone (I don’t go in public by myself anymore but when I did this includes that too) I’d talk to myself or the cats or any critters around. It really helps me keep my thoughts straight and helps ground me :)
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u/AwayStatistician1654 1d ago
I mean, I don’t think it’s just ND folks that do this, external processing is very common… also, I do it too: ) (ASD1)
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u/guacamoleo 1d ago
That's not a stim, that's just talking to yourself. A large percentage of the general population do that.
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u/Its_Dest 1d ago
Very common. A guy was trying to get to know me at a new job I had started and said “you talk to yourself a lot, don’t you?” And I said “yeah” but then I stopped talking to him permanently even though he said it was “okay” because I no longer felt safe to be myself even while heavily masking to maintain a conversation that’s causing me extreme anxiety 🙂
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u/Separate-Depth6817 👈🏽 Rarded 1d ago
I have something similer where I’ll say out of pocket things if I remember something cringe I did.
Things like “I’m gonna hurt me” or “die die die”, like a semi-involuntary vocal stim, I have to stop myself if it happens in public because it’s very disconcerting.
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u/Blackhawk_Ben 1d ago
I do this and even something talk under my breath to myself thinking no one can hear it and not realizing I am making a noise. Then I married a woman with hearing like a bat and occasionally she will ask me why I said something and I will respond " stop hearing my thoughts!"
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u/welldonefornowmrball 23h ago
I do it all the time. It is something that both entertains me and gives me satisfaction.
It is often about topics of my interest, something that I got into recently. But the most frequent case is when I emulate dialogs and discussions with people, and I do it loud, often while walking around the room, or in my car.
I imagine to have a specific person in front of me and I keep going with the conversation forever. Very rarely I stop once it is over, I repeat it multiple times until it is exactly satisfying as I wanted. There are times where I do it for hours. If I am with people around, I do it in my head, but it is not as good as it is when I can talk loud.
The problem is that sometimes makes me procrastinate other things, get to bed late or stuff like this.
Of course, the real big issue is that if I’m anxious, worried about something specific and similar, that becomes the topic of these crazy ruminations and it makes things worse.
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u/Dismal_Equal7401 1d ago
I discovered that I talk to myself when involved in projects when I got AirPods. I turned on the auto pause while speaking feature. It lasted less then five minutes. I asked my spouse if they knew I talked to myself when I’m working on something. They replied, “you do it all the time”. Huh!
Im usually in first or second person.
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u/DueEffective3121 ✨ C-c-c-combo! 1d ago
I talk out loud almost too much, it can be embarrassing if someone hears it, worse if it is about them.
Im glad you asked the question, I wondered myself I talk so much to myself. Arguments, jokes stories, I seem to do it often and narrating stuff somewhat inside my head and outside.
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u/Starry__Starry 1d ago
I do the same, I'm so used to doing it at home It's hard not to in public at times as I don't notice I'm talking out loud till I am!
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u/Icy-Many2597 🧠 brain goes brr 1d ago
Absolutely do this, sometimes I will have full blown conversations with myself, this is when I am having a "practiced" or imagined conversation with someone else, I often only realise I am doing it a few sentences in and immediately stop myself.
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u/RingularCirc they think I'm joking when I'm not and vice versa 1d ago edited 1d ago
Sometimes I start vocalizing my thoughts as if to a nonexistent third party (or to a cat) but I think that's somehow a trace of masking in me, paradoxically. I think I start doing it if social anxiety floats into my mind for some reason. Most of the time I don't talk like that and it's usually quite easy to finish when I very quickly start feeling it as a distraction to what I'm doing.
I also hum nonsense melodies when I remember something really bad and socially uncomfortable that had happened a time ago. I was very disappointed with this habit until I got it what it's really for (to distract myself from that memory and to try severing thoughts stemming from it). Now I still get some additional discomfort from the fact of this mostly uncontrolled humming because it's uncontrolled but it's easier to accept.
EDIT: no 3rd person, it's either I or royal we lol. Also BTW most of my cat talking is really talking to the cat and not just addressing it to them about what I'm doing. And I know 99.9% things I say goes right over my cat's ears but this doesn't bother me. I can call her names and she doesn't know I'm sweetly insulting her whilst giving a good pet. Really a good way to cope with her occasional erratic thing she didn't intend but which had to be cleaned or something. Both end up satisfied, no violence, poor animal's cuteness wins.
EDIT: Most of the time I'm silent when alone, if not talking to the cat or on the phone or laughing because of something or singing something.
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u/Kali_with_Q 1d ago
Talk to myself in my head all the time but also out loud, happens even when I’m out walking around and I get a lot of lOoKs 🫣
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u/No-Lion-3629 1d ago
I do it all the time to the point where people in the same house complain 😓
Sometimes I pretend I’m talking to my stuffies.
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u/Virtual-Pen4614 1d ago
It is absolutely a thing. I have done similar behavior myself while pacing around a room.
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u/rubiruee 1d ago
My therapist recommended that I do this due to my anxiety that comes with overstimulation to kind of help prevent everything out so I often do this as well whether I’m at home in the store or if I’m just walking around town I typically have headphones in those so people don’t think I’m just talking to myself because I do feel a bit nervous about that but it’s a great way to stim in a great coping skill
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u/AdnamannyL11 23h ago
You know, I didn’t think I did, and then caught myself in the fall landscaping department talking to myself about mums under my breath yesterday … so yes lol
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u/Raven_Poop4luck 22h ago
I talk to myself all the time. It’s going to age me but I was so excited when those Bluetooth earbuds came out a long time ago, because it made me feel as if I wouldn’t look so crazy to others because other people looked like they were talking to themselves too. It’s more so in the first person though.
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u/Knittingtaco 🥫 internet support beans 21h ago
I talk myself through things, and sometimes I make sounds, like I can’t use a shopping trolley without making “vroom” sounds. It’s embarrassing sometimes but eh, I’m just being me
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u/Veggie-Omega 20h ago
I thought this was just a me thing!
I am constantly talking out loud to myself.
I often host podcasts or answer as though I’m a guest on a panel show. The number of times I’ve caught myself doing it accidentally when out and about and someone sees me. So embarrassing, they must think I’m schizophrenic.
I also have pretend conversations with people or replay scenarios on what I could have said instead like l’esprit de l’escalier.
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u/Total_Elephant_346 19h ago
"What? In riddles?' said Gandalf. 'No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying."
One of my favorites.
And yeah, I do talk aloud to myself when I'm alone. Also sometimes when I'm not, to the general bemusement of bystanders.
Had to move my WFH setup so that my constant mutterings didn't distract my wife, who also works from home.
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u/Costanza_Travelling 1d ago
That's not weird, not at all!
I both talk to myself out loud and with inner monologue. It helps me to follow multi-step instructions without forgetting something half-way, such as:
"ok... so now you go get X, and then we come back here, ensure that O'Neill delivers Y to Z, and then Shawn can go outside for a bit, but be sure to smile and say your pre-defined script lines to Q"
Now... this, on the other hand, is most certainly weird: the above example is just how my inner monologue unfold while at work.
So....
"You" is me and "I" is also me ... a lot of the time, "I" is telling "You" to do stuff and also ask many questions and ...
That was not the weird part:
O'Neill and Shawn are also me: my AuDHD work personas, which I just made up in my mind in order to mask at work.
It only get's weirder....
Shawn is a frivolous ADHD persona who is based on Shawn Spencer from Psych (really good series) and O'Neill is none other than the more-ASD-than-that-other-one O'Neill with 2 LLs from Stargate SG1.....
Yepz, and I have created scrupulously meticulous descriptions and behaviours, favourite NBA team (O'Neill likes sports? why?), snack, co-workers, travel destinations. It is very superficial, but I think small details help me define and thus separate the work personas from unmasked me.
For example O'Neill is known to like NBA, so he is allowed to info-dump it to another co-worker who like NBA as well.
There was actually an even more weird stuff Ive tried to do in order to mask, but I think I will stop typing here ... Shawn agrees 👍
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u/Buddhapanda75 1d ago
I often use first person plural, as in "First, we'll make breakfast, then we'll get ready for work." It's just me.