Constant mental storytelling

I'm surprised how common this style of self-talk has turned out to be.... It's certainly helping me feel like less of an oddball and for me, too, the remaining frustration is that it has the flavor of obsession, especially in the sense of loss I feel when I'm in the midst of "switching people." I for one am wondering now what goes on inside the heads of people who don't do this.... but almost would rather not know, almost.

I went thru this. I think everyone ruminates, especially after an intense interaction, but some more than others. If it becomes obsessive and you have trouble being present, i dont think it's healthy. I consider this an adverse or negative side effect of therapy. This risk should be covered as part of informed consent.

The design of therapy provokes this. You spend an hour with someone who is unusually attentive and then, bam, you are alone and sometimes after an abrupt ending. This is one of the reasons i will likely not do therapy again. Too disruptive. Too much like being an addict, waiting for the next fix.

For me the extremes of intense but brief intimacy followed by long separation began to feel mildly traumatizing. Intrusive thoughts are a common feature of trauma. For me, not pleasant.

Just going to add to the chorus of voices that do this. Ironic that when we feel most alone we are also doing what so many others do! Since my T passed away last year I have been between figures of this sort. Usually the transition from infatuation to infatuation (which this always involves) is fairly natural and seamless and I think this is the first time I have gone a whole year without it. I'm finding other difficulties in that without it nothing in my life seems to have any cohesion or meaning and I feel adrift and without direction.

You are not alone, for sure. Being an only child, I grew up in the early sixties describing and doing my own cooking "shows" or describing how to "shows" before they were popular. I would be out of all the adults' way, telling and talking in the tub for hours. I don't do that for a living now, but, wouldn't it have been great if one of the many adults I was around suggested that long ago?
I, too, do this to "hash things out"........

I do this, but in my case the conversation is usually with my daughter's PDoc. I think it's because he is older and seems like a father figure, a father figure that I wish my father had been like but wasn't. Additionally, in some phone conversations when I was really struggling with my daughter's hospitalizations and diagnosis, he talked me through some major panic attacks.