5.08 /// Talking to Myself: My Lifelong Habit...

Ever found yourself chatting with your stuffed animals or imagining you're a hero in an action movie? You're not alone! Join me in this engaging episode of Infinite Prattle as I share my lifelong habit of talking to myself and how it has been a creative outlet and mental comfort. From childhood adventures with animated toys and pretend radio shows using a Hitachi ghetto blaster, to my adult musings about possibly having ADHD and experiencing hyper-focus, self-talk has always been my trusty sidekick. Discover the comforting and sanity-maintaining benefits of these quirky conversations, especially when solitude strikes.

Tune in to hear about my imaginative coping mechanisms that might just spark your own creativity. Whether it's reenacting scenes from "Die Hard" to unwind or practicing Oscar acceptance speeches, these little acts of imagination have provided me with an escape and a way to keep my mind active. Reflect on the therapeutic value of self-dialogue with personal anecdotes about talking through tasks, laughing out loud at TV shows, and social interactions in cafes. Plus, I'll share my recent musical pursuits and the possibility of returning to acting, all while emphasizing the importance of creativity and self-talk in our daily lives.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Talking to Myself
• 8:24 Private Conversations With Inanimate Objects
• 12:39 Imagination and Self-Talk

Transcript

Stephen: 0:01

Hello, welcome to another episode of Infinite Prattle. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Today I'm going to be talking about talking to myself, and there's a thing I still do, so stay with me for that. Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. Unscripted, unedited trattle on everything Hosted by me Stephen, listen, like, share, subscribe and enjoy the show. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Thank you very much. If it's your first time, welcome, welcome, welcome. And if you're coming back, still triple welcome to you very much. If it's your first time, welcome, welcome, welcome. And if you're coming back, still triple welcome to you too.

Stephen: 0:48

Um, it's been a bit of a busy week for me at work. Things are ramping up the project I'm working on it's only three months away from from coming to fruition very, very busy. So doing stuff like this really, really helps me. So thank you very much for listening. It really boosts me when I see people listening to the show. Um, yeah, so thanks. Um, yeah.

Stephen: 1:10

So today's episode is going to be about talking to yourself and I'm and I don't mean in the sense of uh like, kind of almost like schizophrenia and and people with, like mental disorders, because I kind of like get that in a way, and there's no disrespect to them. You know, some people do have issues and they talk out loud. They can't help it. I do it consciously, um, and I don't think it's due to some sort of disorder. I think it's just how my brain works and I've always done it, and I think it's a product of, um, my vivid imagination, liking to hear my, my, my, my, my, um disposition to liking things heard out loud, uh, rather than just in my brain, although I have a lot of thoughts in my brain and think things through in my brain. I like to like vocalise things, and also I probably liked talking out loud when I was a kid, like playing with toys and stuff. So I'm going to explain. I mean, I suppose, whatever way you do this, if you talk out loud, just in general, I don't know, is it affecting someone else? If you're doing it really Walking down the street, talking to yourself, I don't know. But when I lived alone, I used to do it a lot more. To be honest, when I'm alone in my house, I do it, and I'm not sure that Sarah's caught me doing this or not. She may be able to tell me. Maybe she'll listen to this or I'll speak to her after as well as it, uh, and she may inform me, as whether she's heard me chatting shit to myself.

Stephen: 2:50

Um, but when I was a kid, you know, like most kids, you know you make characters. My brother was older than me so we didn't really necessarily play together all the time, especially not with like action figures and toys and stuff like that. So I had a lot of uh like. I used like miniature things and I still do so. So I like micro machines and and military sets and I used to mix my toys together like like kids, do you know?

Stephen: 3:08

Um, and I used to make, make stories up and rate things and do people's voices, and stuff was very, very, very um, animated and I'd set scenarios up. But I'd get really into it to be fair and do all the voices and you know so I'd like play a commando character and be like oh my god, you guys are gonna go over there, go around the back, oh my god, there's enemies incoming and all this, and probably really get into it. I mean, I must admit I bet my mum and dad listened to me and thought, oh my god, he's. I think they probably thought that's brilliant, but it's a bit disturbing at the same time because of how much I used to get into it, but I'm still like that now. If I go around one of my friends house and play with the kids, I still get into it and you've got to be enthusiastic, haven't you? Let's face it, and when you're a kid you kind of block out the world. You get very much into what you're doing and again, I still do that.

Stephen: 4:03

Now. If I'm up in this room and I'm in the process of fiddling with I don't know, like music software or video software, or doing podcasts, or editing something or working on a logo or tidying or messing with my Lego or anything, sometimes I can go down a black hole and time just disappears for me. You're very much into, I think, what the ADHD world calls a hyper-focus. And again, I don't know whether I have a touch of ADHD the more and more I see it on social media. I think I do, but I'm not bothered about having a label tagged to me or anything like that. It's nice to know your own mind, isn't it? So yeah, so I used to hack things out when I was a kid and one of the things I used to love doing as a kid was radio shows.

Stephen: 4:51

So I used to pretend I was a radio DJ and I would have one cassette lined up with music on and the other one would be recording too. And I had a really good ghetto blaster. My brother-in-law's got it. Actually at the moment I need to get it out of him because it's a collector's item. I had this tubular Hitachi ghetto blaster so Michael need that back, he needs to get my display and it was a great cassette player. It had a double cassette radio on it and everything and it had a built-in microphone, which was really cool.

Stephen: 5:20

So what I used to do is I'd press record on the record deck and I would like pretend to be a radio DJ terribly, pretend to hide guests on, pretend to interview them, do the voice of the other guest and then I'd play music that I'd record off the radio from the other deck and play the music and I'd introduce the artists and stuff and sometimes I'd record there's one of them, it's still on a cassette that I've got. I'd record there's one of them, it's still on a cassette that I've got and I'll have to try and digitise it and maybe play it on the show once before. Put it on the show for you because it's hilarious. And I've loaded the Dizzy game for the Amstrad 64 in my brother's room and I used to love the music for it, um, so I recorded that and I'm introducing the music and then I'm like speaking with her going yeah, let's get dizzy. Terrible. Hilarious to listen back to, though, and I recorded that on the end of the turtle soundtrack that I had on cassette, that I recorded off the cd that someone had up the road from me.

Stephen: 6:23

Um, so, yeah, oh, I've always been like very vocal with play, uh, and and imaginative, and it takes me into adulthood as well. You know, I I like pre-go through conversations that I'm gonna have with people in my brain, and if I'm alone, I'll do it out loud. Uh, so I can kind of like rehearse almost. Um, I have quite a lot of anxiety over speaking, and you wouldn't think it. Um, speaking in public, you know that I'm going to say the wrong thing. I think it kind of surprises people, you know, when someone kind of as confident as me and kind of outgoing and likes a bit of attention. You know, I've been on stage and stuff when I was a kid and loved it, never really got nervous, but like I also super nervous about it as well, and, um, I think that kind of rehearsal thing that I do in my brain just takes some of the pressure off me and I do it now Like if I'm in the house on my own, I'll just be, I'll sing to myself, I'll talk I have to make noise generally and it came out a lot when I lived alone.

Stephen: 7:26

So I bought my first house 20 years ago. I'm old, I'm old, um, so I moved in when I was 21. Uh, took a few months to go through, as all these things do. So technically purchased the house at 20, moved in a few weeks after my 21st birthday and, um, yeah, I lived alone and at the time I just got the job on the railway. That meant I worked alone. So I was alone in the signal box and I was alone. It's in my house, um, so, yeah, to kind of almost to keep myself, I mean, I think talking to yourself seen, seen as something like insanity, like I touched on at the start, where you know, maybe you've got, you know, some sort of disorder like schizophrenia, and I think it's, I think it's like stigmatized that you must be a bit, you know, ill or mental, coin a phrase um, if you, if you speak to yourself, whereas I've always thought speaking to yourself is kind of like just vocalizing your thoughts and sometimes, especially for me, I'm sure it helps loads of people.

Stephen: 8:24

I'm sure you might be thinking that's thinking, yeah, if you say something out loud, it's like an affirmation is the word I'm looking for and it kind of makes it more real to you. So to vocalise is to understand, I think, for me. So I still do it now. But when I lived alone I used to talk through stuff. So I would laugh out loud watching TV. Because when I lived alone in my own house, in my mum and dad's house, I kind of laughed watching TV. But it was kind of knowing that someone else would hear to try and trigger an interaction potentially. I think I don't know. When I lived alone I used to laugh out loud and I used to vocalise. While I was laughing I'd be like, oh, that's so, because he's just done that and oh, that's funny because he's just done this. And I would talk to inanimate objects like so I had like some cuddly toys or some action figures out and that sounds really sad, but it's a way of keeping yourself sane.

Stephen: 9:23

I would go for weeks without seeing some people. Uh, like a couple of mates lived in crew but you can't always see each other and when they started moving away, cool mates moved away due to work or university and, um, you know, shift work and stuff. I was doing shift work. Someone makes doing shift work. My dad was still at work at the time. Um, my mom, my mom lived in ireland, so my brother lived in shrewsbury, which he still does.

Stephen: 9:47

So there was sometimes like weeks where I'd go from actually seeing anyone I knew and the interaction I had was with pretty much strangers or people in shops. So it was almost a way of keeping myself kind of sane and I would have conversations with people around the house, but it was more like a conversation with myself. I knew the things weren't real, don't worry, wasn't like that far gone. I think that's where it kind of crosses the line, if you're, if you're kind of seeing things as as interacting with you back, whereas I knew what I was doing. It may sound bizarre, but and I I'm not, I'm not that I'm embarrassed to say, um, I don't think I do it with people around because I feel like that's it's something I do when I'm in private.

Stephen: 10:34

I feel that Sarah may have heard me do this, because sometimes when I'm in my room I talk things through, maybe not have a full blown conversation with inanimate objects, but I do talk things through so I'll be like, right, that thing has to go there, that measures this much, that can move to there, that can do this. I've got to do this. Next, I've got a podcast. I'll turn my computer on so I I talk things through so I don't forget. I think more than anything, um, and it makes it more real and stick in my brain and um.

Stephen: 11:02

But when I used to live alone, I used to like act things out so not just in the conversations of things I was doing. So I sometimes come home and talk about my day, to like download Um, because I didn't have anyone to kind of do that download with um. So I'd come home and go, oh, I did this today and and I'd kind of like make up questions in my brain to be asked so, oh, how was your day? Oh, yeah, my day was all right, thank you, yes, I've done this, this and this. Oh, yeah, it was good. Yeah, yeah, proud of myself for that, blah, blah.

Stephen: 11:31

And I would be told like I've got like a teenage mutant, ninja, turtle, teddy bear that my mom bought me years ago and I've got like my teddy bear from from when I was born. When I was born I was very, very young, maybe four years old, um and yeah, I would talk to them and it was comforting and it changed from being like imagination thing to being like a, I suppose, a comfort thing. But I still used to do the imagination thing, so like I'd sing in the shower and such things like that, or I might see someone on tv that would inspire me to like act something out and pretend I was an actor or pretend I was an action star. And I think I think I've gone through this before about how I get to sleep at night, about, like you know, think sometimes if I'm really struggling to get to sleep, then I pretend I'm bruce willis in die hard and, weirdly enough, me pretending that I'm rescuing people from terrorists relaxes me and I go to sleep really quickly and that sounds ridiculous. But it's like giving myself a story and that story, literally I go to sleep instantly. You can ask my wife, it's, it's mad and that's how that's the story.

Stephen: 12:39

Sometimes I use like the whole, like imagine yourself on a beach with like nice, you know blue skies and like the waves and blah, blah, blah, and sometimes that does it for me like more meditative, but most of the time I'm literally thinking I'm I'm bruce willis and die hard, or die hard too, or a combination or my own version of that. Uh. So sometimes I'll imagine that I'm in the marrakesh airport when we went to morocco and something kicked off and I had to save the day, and, um, I still imagine myself doing that and then, like I might be having a shower or just getting dry and I'll, I'll play out me accepting my oscar. Um, there, a scene in Friends that had this I think it was Rachel, I think it was Pratt's Monica, and Rachel were practicing Because, I think, was it Joey up for an award? I presume it was Joey, because he's obviously a TV star and he was up for an award, he was practicing his acceptance speech. So then everyone else had to go practicing their acceptance speech.

Stephen: 13:36

And that's basically what I do, and I'd sometimes pretend and this comes back from my childhood pretend I was being interviewed for a radio show or a tv show. And I still do this. I still still do this. Um, it doesn't make me cringe, it makes me smile because I'm glad that I still have that childish ability to to like put myself in that mindscape, and sometimes I do like monologues, like I'll like sometimes make shit up but like pretend I'm in a situation I need to like act really, really, really well I'm, you know I'm a gangster, or you know I'm a, you know I'm a superhero, and this this again might sound ridiculous to you, but try it. You know it's very, very cathartic. Uh, it gets your brain going, it makes you think and just sometimes, if you've been alone for a while, just hearing someone talk, be it yourself, about something that relates nothing to your own life, for me really helped, especially when I lived alone.

Stephen: 14:34

Um, I am a very social person, don't get me wrong. I love my own space, but I'm very social and that's why I used to go to the coffee shop all the time. In one of the episodes I talk about my cafe Nervosa ie the one from Frasier and I used to go to a cafe in Crewe called Rimney's and that was my little glimpse of I sound like a right sad bastard, but you can't always rely on your friends to keep you company. You know they have their own lives and doing shift work. Obviously, sometimes I used to get days off in the week, so like they would only be able to see me, say, like six o'clock at night, so I'd still have the whole day to fill in.

Stephen: 15:13

So I'd be alone all day and going somewhere like a cafe and just watching people, um, in a non-creepy way, and just being around people is is really, really helpful and it's just good for the soul, I think. And you see, you meet people, you talk to people, you talk, you know, to the, you know the people that own the place and and I think that that itself really helped me. I think it's healthy to have a good imagination. I think it's good to use it, it's good to get that creativity out of you. And, yeah, it's, it's, it's something I I do to this day and I've been, I've been toying with the idea of like doing kind of like some role play and like an episode of this podcast is me doing the role play.

Stephen: 15:56

I may do that, I may record it and see how it goes and, if I feel comfortable that, I may share one um, because it's something always in the back of my mind, like I used to do like acting, say, acting in the loosest sense, but I used to be in school productions and stuff when I was, when I was growing up, and it's always something that's been in the back of my mind, like doing music. And now I'm in a band uh, two hands technically, and one of them bands is looking at getting gigs. So it's really cool because I'm kind of doing the music thing. Finally, um, maybe not the aspiration of being a rock star, like I thought maybe like 10, 15 years ago, uh, but you never know. You never know when things take you. You know the band's pretty cool, like they're all talented, talented blokes.

Stephen: 16:34

Um, and I've been recently thinking, you know, all this monologue stuff and all this kind of like imagination stuff, like maybe I could channel it into into acting again. So it's something I've been thinking about. Um, I don't think I've vocalized this to my wife yet. So, um, but all this, all this like imagination I have, I feel like I could put it to better use rather than just fucking role playing in the shower or just talking shit, um, but I think it really helps, like, even if you're not like doing the role play stuff and you're not imagine yourself winning an oscar, I think, just to like vocalize, like goals and targets or what you're doing, talking to yourself.

Stephen: 17:15

Um, so for me I always leave the. I always leave the, the toaster on letaster, on the George Foreman grill thing on. It hasn't got an off switch, it's just literally if you turn on the plug it's on and I always leave that on. So when I turn it on I go right, that's on and then when I finish what I'm doing, I'm like I have to flick it off and I say I verbalize what I'm doing. That's a well-known psychological technique for making sure you're doing a process. So I've kind of taken that from some work stuff. But it is helpful if you talk things through and also if you do get overwhelmed, which I definitely do.

Stephen: 17:49

And if you look to this room, the last time I recorded a podcast I think I mentioned it on last week's there was Lego on my desk where I'd been sorting Lego and there was random shits I needed to put away. It's all still there. I have done nothing. It's all here, still in front of me. I'm okay with it because you know I have a plan now. I've formally. It's taken me a week when I formalized a plan. I've done some stuff in the garage in the meantime because can't stick to one task at any one time. So it's all good.

Stephen: 18:19

Um, I, I'm fine with it, you know, I'm fine with it and that's, that's just. That's just what. You know what we are sometimes. But, yeah, I mean, I don't know whether this is a normal thing. I don't really think I'm mental now, um, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way. Uh, I don't know why I have to keep saying that. I feel like people might listen to this and think I'm being harsh for people that do.

Stephen: 18:43

Do you have things? I mean, you do see people walk down the street talking to themselves, and I do that as well. Sometimes I'll walk along singing. Definitely, if I'm listening to music, I will definitely sing out loud while I'm walking down the street. Pretend to play air guitar, and I really don't care. It's nothing. Nothing that's ever really bothered me, um, and I do sometimes think, oh, people, I bet people think I'm mad. But then it's like, yeah, well, maybe they just need to loosen up. Um, yeah, did you talk to yourself? Have you ever lived alone and found you did, and did it help? Um, and how good is your imagination? Could you sit and have a radio interview conversation with yourself? Oh, let me know in the comments. Um well, thank you very much for listening.

Stephen: 19:30

That's been a little bit of a delve into my the deep depths of my brain and imagination and I want to just go over it because I want to touch on imagination stuff again, because I did it in the first series and I've really gone back to it and it's a big part of my life. I love to be creative, I love to use my imagination and I am trying to push a book through. I am trying to get books out of me and I think that's part of it. Maybe that's what I need to do. Maybe I need to use a dictaphone to write my books, because I find it difficult sometimes to just sit down and type. Maybe that's what I should do Dictaphone it to myself and then type from the dictaphone.

Stephen: 20:08

Well, I've had an epiphany while doing this podcast. Amazing, see, talking out loud. It helps, you see. Right, I'll leave it there. Thank you very much for listening. Um, really, really appreciate, appreciate any support you can give. Uh, just a thumbs up is amazing, just to let me know you're out there. Um, yeah, and until next time. Uh, take care of yourselves and keep prattling on. You've been listening to infinite drattle. Thanks for listening. If you like this, go back and listen to some others, and please continue to listen. Your support is much appreciated. Please like, share, comment and subscribe, and I'll speak to you all again soon. Take care.