Talking to self and inanimate objects

Ok. This is normal to some degree, right? People talk to their pets and don't expect an answer per se. Maybe a word of encouragement to a plant. Or "what on earth did I come in here for?" No problem.

Here's why I ask. If the above were all I did, it wouldn't phase. I've recently become aware of just how much I talk to myself and inanimate objects. I've always known I've done it to some degree, but only in moderation, and I mostly reined it in when anyone else was around. But the awareness has dawned that I do this almost constantly. And other people being around doesn't seem to slow it much anymore. I'd be embarrassed, except I suspect I'm fairly often not aware of it. Catch myself sometimes, but realizing just how much I do it, I suspect there are many times I don't. Pets, sure. Teddy bear. A lot. Laughing to jokes that are only in my head and saying rhymey random goofy things. But really, who needs to talk tell Mr. Pillow, "There you are! All fluffed up!" (like that sort of thing, or telling a tool that it is being "uncooperative today" or de-crystalizing those plastic honey bears and making a 'honey bear hot tub' complete with bobbing and conversation) as a running dialogue? (Um, monologue. They don't answer. Thank goodness. But that doesn't mean that I won't give them a voice and "make" a conversation. Do that all the time. Wow. This looks even worse written out. Good grief.) Ok. Honey bear hot tub is funny and amuses me. It's the stupid stuff with no point, not even amusement.

WTH is this???!!! I know I'm isolated now, but even when I did see more people (like when I was working) I did it too. And I'm quite shy and often say nothing at all. Any ideas? Seriously. Please. I don't want to do it, but can't seem to shut up. (And ideas of how to shut up are fine, but I'm most curious about *why* I do this or what it might be associated with.)

(Edited to note that I don't do this on busses, almost never in stores, but more familiar places like home --constantly-- and work -- quite frequently or outside, especially to plants. And animals of course. But that's normal.)

I don't know. I do it too. I even talk to earthwoms and save snails from being run over by cars. I talk to things I am working on, to rocks I have tripped over... I guess I just can't shut up. HUGGS!

Thanks, lonegael (and good to see you again!). Heh. Yeah, the rocks. That reminds me. I apologize to posts and stuff I accidently bump into. So I guess I do it more in full-on public than I realized.

Isn't the term Personification?

For example: The window winked at me. The verb, wink, is a human action. A window is a non-living object.

Or I wonder if it has to deal with disassociation?

But don't feel bad. I have conversations in my head. Sometimes I'll have half a conversation in my head with my husband, then actually start the conversation half-way in, when I actually talk to my husband.

In therapy, I have a hard time looking at the therapist the whole session, and I noticed in the last session, I spent most of my time talking to the empty chair on the other side of his office. hmmmmm....I wonder if he picked up on that.

I make up stories about tiny people who live in the bathroom and do things like mountain climbing up the drain chain in the sink. Sometimes I even turn on the water so that they have more of a challege. Sometimes they are scientists who are trying to discover the "habits of the big people." Their conversations happen in my head.

OMG, I am certifiable...LOL.

Am I crazy enough to have killed the thread?

I definitely talk to myself out loud. Have whole conversations sometimes. Other times the conversation will start in my head and then I'll reply to one part aloud...usually an emotional punctuation of thought and then my partner will say, "What?" And I'll say, "Oh nothing, just talking to myself." He's used to it by now, but I have been known to say in the middle of a grocery store, "If I were a cookie, what aisle would I be on?" I don't really mean for anyone to hear, but it helps me to think and I don't care if anyone hears. People put up with a lot of strange behavior in a grocery store. It's a solitary mission they're on for the most part, so they keep to themselves. Maybe they avoid the aisle I'm on. Ha! Fine by me. I talk to my stuffed animals still sometimes. Like, "Whaddya think about that, Grover? (my stuffed mountain goat)" Definitely I'll talk to any pets or animals. I read somewhere that the whole hearing voices and talking back to them occurs in the speech center of the brain, not the auditory center. That's what the meds are trying to target with schizophrenia. I don't feel harassed by talking to inanimate objects or the conversations in my head, though. I find it therapeutic. It's a lonely world. Why can't we have a conversation whenever we want one? Who says another person has to be involved. We all have an inner sense of wisdom and we can learn a lot from ourselves.

Oh BNLsMOM, you are a woman after my own mind(!)

Hmmm, QA, I never really thought about it as personification, but maybe there is some of that. Stuffed animals for sure... names, personalities etc, but to my thinking, that's normal (well, you know, pretty much, just more unusual in an adult, ya? )
I "switch tracks" without warning in conversation too. Wouldn't worry about the therapist/chair thing. You were *looking* at the chair, but you were not *talking* to it.
There's no associated trauma, and I know who's who and what's what, so it doesn't seem to be dissociative at all (though it did make me read up on it!).

I think the most perplexing/troubling things about it for me are:
1) How much I do it.
2) What makes me carry on with so much useless chatter? (Not amusement as noted earlier, which is, of course, useful.)
3) How often don't even realize I'm doing it.
4) I'm not actually talking *to* anyone. So why can't I just shut the heck up?

Ahhh, thinker22, your post came in while I was editing this. Good points. Hehe, "If I were a cookie..." I say that all.the.time. Those things *are* more "thinking aloud", as you point out. Come to think about it, those sorts don't bother me so much either. It's the "useless" stuff that unsettles me. Ahhh, the lonely part. You know, there may be a correlation in pure amount and frequency of chatter with times of greater isolation. I still do it quite a lot regardless, but it probably does go up in those times. (And being rather the loner, there is no time that isolation is *not* a reality for me, though it can be greater or lesser.) Hmmmm.

Oh! And BNLsMOM too (it takes me for.e.ver writing posts!). No worries! Besides, thread-killin's my job...

Isn't all this normal.... we just have active imaginations
BNLsMOM, love the little people!!!! that is so cool, reminds me of how I tried to convince my year 11 biology teacher that the nutrients in plants were really moved about by an army of little green men who climb up and down the inside of the stems on ladders...
thinker 22: I do the same thing, it doesn't matter where I am, but I have a song that goes with it!!!!
My mom talks alot to whoever is around her (it drives us all crazy) she talks to her self if no one is there and she's apparently sane!
In my opinion, it much better to talk to inanimate objects and animals than annoying your family by babbling crap!

I talk to my PC, to my phone, to my food, I say "excuse me to our pets" etc etc etc...

I think it's personification and imagination at it's best.

It doesn't freak me out in the least, b/c I've done it for as long as I can remember, and always credited it to my active imagination... I do it ALOT, with or without company, and if someone thinks it's weird, then boohoo I'm weird, build a effing bridge!

Guess all I really wanted to say, was, "I feel ya"...

I talk to myself and to inanimate objects all the time. It's just part of who I am. I don't care if others hear me, or what they'll think if they do.

Yup - ME TOO!!!
Lol
Thinker - i can totally relate, especially the conversation in the head, which becomes a full-on, out loud conversation.

I'm just assuming it's part of me -take it or leave it!

I do this somewhat, mostly its conversations in my head that come out half way like some of you or talking to the animals. Also ANYTHING I am trying to accomplish something with. I notice I do it more when I'm in a manic state as opposed to my usual depressed state. I also have conversations with the other representations of self I have developed (though Im not sure it would qualify as DID as I never feel I am completely someone else when I am one of my other personalities) Those guys do argue a lot though.

I find myself having one personality chatting it up with another quite regularly as they all have differing views on things and also using the others to talk myself into and out of things as well...

Thanks, all! With all these insights, I think that if I can just curb it a bit, it won't annoy me so much.
This sounds like a great strategy actually, Denise! To be able to look at things from different viewpoints is a VERY useful skill and one often lacking --which produces so many conflicts, you know? If we could all do this, it would be a great thing!

Yeah, I think the active imagination theory is a good one. All those in favor?
Yeah, little green dudes on ladders. Were their names Xylem and Phloem by chance? Heehee, that's a fun concept. Tell you what though. The more technical side of photosynthesis was the only plant thing I studied that really gave me fits. Got any little dudes to explain that one for me?

So yeah, I think the recent realization of just how much I was doing this and how unaware of it I was kind of wigged me out a bit. Good to know I'm not alone. Still, I'm going to try to get a bit of a handle on it...

No I figured they were just a theory so my theory was equally as valid! (ok, so now I see the flaws but back then I was only 16!)
Your on your own with photosynthesis, but there are pretty little letters and numbers with arrows in a circle to help...

i think talking to things and yourself is perfectly normal unless you have another disorder i feel it is the creative imaginative mind that can have these conversations and make the remarks without being considered crazy. and even if it is a little "crazy" is it so bad really