The Thing About My Internal Monologue…

An internal monologue transcript

The thing about my internal monologue is that it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop when you start talking to me, it just interjects and speaks over and responds. Had I been someone more impulsive, perhaps I would have said all the things swimming in my brain right to your face, and have been seen as rude. Instead, as someone probably a bit too inhibited, my default is to keep it all inside, and only after serious consideration does those thoughts get to jump out and meet the world.

I think this has led to two things. First, my working memory is pretty damn amazing. I mean, it has to be, if my brain occasionally wants to internal monologue while playing an unrelated background soundtrack (usually this carnival song) for no reason. No reason at all. Sometimes, when my internal monologue is quieter, it means I can hold a pretty cool number of thoughts in my mind and manipulate them all. I think this sometimes confuses people, because they see that sometimes I can do this but then find that I’m inconsistent and blame it on motivation. They don’t believe in this internal representation of such a strong internal monologue because they’re able to quiet their own, or theirs isn’t as unruly as mine, so surely my depiction is just an excuse, or call for attention. And perhaps that’s what built into being quiet at first. When most other people don’t share your story, you stop sharing your own, because you’re afraid that something is wrong about you.

Second, I’ve always wondered about how this relates to the mixed analogies that I get. These analogies and metaphors form the backbone of my odd poetry that resonates with people. It’s not just a succulent that grows, but it’s a succulent that’s suffering and going through a growth spurt as a last hurrah. The growth represents something darker. And maybe the coupling between this ordinary houseplant and my experiences is a result of me thinking or talking about one thing with someone else, and my brain, unprompted, flinging random visual images as distractions into my face because that’s what it does. Instead of being distractions, they become integrated and part of the story.

My internal monologue also doesn’t stop during lectures, and it’s horrendous. If a particular section isn’t intriguing enough, my mind will start wandering, and it happens quick. To keep it focussed, I learned to type pretty fast to take almost-verbatim notes. It drives some instructors crazy because they’re certain that I’m not learning the material properly if I’m not paraphrasing it. But the reality is, if you’re saying something and my internal monologue is singing Mary Had a Little Lamb, I’m going to need to immediately record what you’ve said in a different way to hold on to it, because if you’d asked me to repeat exactly what you said to me right back at you, I’d probably only remember the Mary Had a Little Lamb. In a way, I provided myself with live subtitles, because it has never been an option. And now, with online learning, I realize that subtitled lectures with full captions make such a difference.

The thing about my internal monologue is that it doesn’t stop. But, I’ve learned to live with it as if I don’t struggle with it at all, and even squeeze art of this sometimes unfortunate yet other times brilliant skill. Yet, I wonder, as we move forward and we hear more stories of others like me, others who aren’t exactly like me but benefit from the same support — how will this change education? How will this change how information is presented for leisure? There’s already the meme that people like to watch Netflix with subtitles so that they can hear soft dialogue over their chip crunches. How will this change how information is shared and communicated in meetings at work? I think specifically to people who insist on meeting in person, or insist on meeting instead of writing an email because it’s “easier”. Easier for whom? Is there truly one kind of human or can we start building empathy that different people have different strengths? That we can have some flexibility to support different kinds of needs?

I wonder.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and this brings you to the end of the internal monologue. ❤ PS, I PUBLISHED A BOOK 📚

Hop down the rabbit hole? 🐰🕳

^ by Jupiter Grant