My inner monologue will not let me get to sleep. Usually, he just provides much-needed and extremely quotable comic relief, or he acts out entertaining “alternative universe” fantasy scenarios (like what would have happened if I actually said what I wanted to say when I was talking to her, or him, etc.).
Lately, though, monologue guy has developed a self-deprecating mean streak, and he refuses to just shut the hell up. To make things worse, tonight he chose to have a raucous party deep within my psyche. He’s brought along some friends, including inner turmoil, self doubt, angst, regret, and panic. Unfortunately, they have also decided that tonight is movie night, so they have dug out reels and reels of cringe-worthy memories to repeatedly show as twisted home movies.
I have kept these guys bottled up for so long, they have become increasingly restless. Emboldened by their successful escape from the depths of my soul a couple of weeks ago, they have since made repeated escape attempts. Fortunately, each time I have been safely alone within the confines of my home. After each attempt, though, considerably more effort is required to lock them back up, and the damage left in their wake is harder to repair. I just fear that they will choose an inopportune moment to make another such attempt and seize control—those I care most about will most certainly be caught in the crossfire.
I have been trying to distract the lot of them by watching a little TV, reading, surfing through other blogs; but I cannot concentrate on any of these things. It surprises me that they are actually allowing me enough peace of mind to write this blog post, although I fear that I may only be taking dictation from these guys, who seem temporarily bored by the home movies, and seem to have thought that it would be raucous fun if they tricked me into writing a ridiculous metaphorical blog post…
My advice is to keep writing. If they don’t leave in disgust, the inner voices will at least be temporarily stunned into silence, or so I’ve found. I have these little periods every so often myself, so I speak from experience.
Good advice. The writing does help, a little. Now if I could just sit down and write something novel-sized and publishable. I mean, I might as well put these voices in my head to work; let them earn their keep.
Upon re-reading this post, I felt that I need to make some clarification. I’m not really hearing voices in my head. I am anthropomorphizing certain aspects of my psyche in order to dramatize my inner conflict. As any of my regular readers would understand, I do tend to overdo it with the literary devices.
It would be far too pedestrian to just say that I had a panic attack, so instead, we have “Inner Monologue Guy.” :-)
well not mike I like the five dollar words, but I dont know what they mean-anthropmorphizing-my dictionary, well its pretty basic. Anyway, I just wanted to add that I to, do not think that Iam crazy; although my inner monologue would have me think that Iam. Which brings me to my next point “doing drugs does nothing to help this problem”-I tried that ave. Iam waking up from a nineteen year hangover, and now using the writing process to help me vent problems and frustration I have picked up from those years of quieting the inner monologue, with substance. I like your site Not Mike-keep on with it.
anthropmorphizing: ascribing human thoughts or attributes to beings that are not human, given the context it may not have been overly accurate use of the word as our psyche, by nature, is already an human attribute. But off the dictionary bable, i guess we all have the same thing then, i find sometimes the reason i can’t get to sleep, and have times when i “over dramatize my inner conflict”, to quote a very well written explanation, is that i’m connecting too much with the thoughts or feelings, or whatever we’re calling them. I read some very interesting stuff that says that generally people who have problems with depression and such also have a problem with over identifying with there thoughts and or feelings as they are but fleeting events in the bigger picture and do not define who you are as a person. This is the first time i’ve ever written anything down like this, it does help, hope this helps someone else too. Thanks MIke