From a teen in the U.S.: I came across this website when I was searching up why am I talking to myself and why I create imaginary people, scenarios, and places. It made me realize that I may have an issue with me and don’t know about it. So I’m here to ask for help, because I need to know what’s wrong with me and what I can do to not continue this whole talking to myself problem.
I’d like to say that I started talking to myself began throughout my elementary years till this day. When I’m alone I’ll just pretend I’m talking to a group of friends or living the life I strive to have. It’s so weird, because I’ll just create these scenarios and act like I’m actually doing those things.
I just want to know why I’m making up these scenarios and why I’m pretending to be someone I’m not. None of my family knows I talk to myself or that I’ve been doing it. I don’t wanna tell people I do this, because they might think I’m crazy when I don’t do anything and just want to know why i do this.
Maybe you have an “issue.” Maybe you don’t. Without talking to you, I can’t tell you if there is something “wrong” or if you are a creative, sensitive person who has a rich imagination.
When a young person tells me about talking to themselves, we think together about whether it is really a problem. As a few examples of when it isn’t an “issue”: Some people talk themselves through their day. It’s a way they track all the many things they have to do and come up with solutions to problems they have to solve. Others started talking to themselves out of loneliness. This is particularly true for kids who are only children and/or who spent their years before school out in a rural area. It’s also common in kids who moved a great deal. And then there are the kids who are bored with their life as it is. Not seeing ways to make life more exciting on the outside, they create a much more interesting life in their heads. Yet another group of kids are those I see as novelists in training. They love coming up with stories and regularly change up scenarios in their imaginations to see how their characters will manage them. The reasons for self-talk are as varied as the people who do it.
A habit or behavior or thought is only a “problem” if it interferes with social or occupational (at your age — school) functioning. If you have a few good friends, get along okay with your family, are involved in an activity or two, and are doing okay in school, it may not be a “problem” to be solved. If, on the other hand, you are spending so much time enjoying your scenarios that you are neglecting your school work, isolating from people, and feeling alone and lonely — well then we would need to see what goes on in your life that leads to your preoccupation. We’d then start looking at what changes you could make to find the real world more interesting.
If your self-talk continues to bother you, I do suggest you see a counselor for a session or two to help you decide whether it is a problem or just one of your interesting quirks. A counselor can learn more about you than I can deduce from a short letter. The two of you will decide whether you could benefit from therapy to make some changes in your life — or not.
I wish you well.
Dr. Marie
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