Me, myself and I?

Random question, do you have an internal voice/monologue/dialogue? If yes, do you refer to yourself in first person singular (I), first person plural (we), second person (you), third person singular (she/he, name specific), third person plural (they)?

I'm interested to see what people say as there seems to be a spread amongst my friends.

  • Interesting, I hadn't considered that a voice could be a specific someone else. 

  • Yes, I do have an internal voice that usually makes its presence known when I feel I have done something silly. For example, the other I went to make myself a cup of coffee, and my son a cup of tea. However, I ended up putting the spoonful of coffee in my son's mug. Immediately, I heard that internal voice (my voice) say, "Oh, you idiot!" 

    Since my dad died a few years ago, the internal voice will sometimes be his. This generally tends to be when my mother has said or done something that has caused me stress. What I hear will be something along the lines of, "How do you think I felt? I was married to the woman and shared a house with her for more than forty years!"

  • I wondered if it was a neurodivergent thing but after talking to my friends it seems to be random, with no particular correlation between neurodivergence Vs neurotically, types of neurodivergence, gender, or anything else that I could see.

  • Yeah the dialogue between them is a whole other aspect isn't it.  You've really got my brain going on this one, what a great thing to ponder on. 

  • No, that absolutely makes sense. I've so far categorised mine as my depression/anxiety self, logical/rational self, and an instinctive self. I'd viewed them as facets of a whole but perhaps they're more distinct than that considering my use of first person plural for my internal monologue. Not to mention my internal dialogue at times between them.

  • It's really fascinating isn't it? Recently i'v been looking into a lot of psychology stuff (started from my own therapy work) about things called schema modes. Basically at any one point we can switch between different "modes" characterised by types of thoughts, feelings and behaviours, such as "healthy adult", "critical parent", "vulnerable child", "healthy child" amongst others. Maybe these could be seen as different facets of our "self". So maybe when we are thinking in "we" terms, it's we in terms of all of these different selves that make up our whole self. 

    Apologies if none of that makes sense, I just find it really interesting. 

  • I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with it all now, I think I may be thinking about thinking to much Joy

    Personally, I appear to mostly go with "we", though an occasional "you" slips in for the self critical thoughts much like you. I'm now wondering whether the pluralism of thought means anything.

    Joy

  • This is a great question! I switch between these depending on the situation or thought. Most commonly I'd say I use the first person singular. I'll use a mix of "I" and "we" if i'm trying to stoke myself up to doing something (e.g. "I/We can do this!"). Now that I think of it, I tend to use second person "you" mainly only if I'm criticising myself (e.g. "You're so stupid/You need to do better/ You've screwed up") which i find interesting actually. I rarely use third person or name specifically. 

    Thanks for this question it's really got my mind thinking!  

  • My internal monologue is a mix of "I" and "you" when referring to myself. 

  • Usually the voice of those I knew who said, "I think the World of ye!" Only to demand I hold myself prisoner at home.