Hi Spike,

I am not a psychiatrist, but I would bet my bank account that you
*don't* have schizophrenia. The reason you see schizophrenics talking
to themselves is usually because they are responding to hallucinated
voices, and you've already said you don't hear voices.

There have been times in my life when I've done something similar to
what you've described: talking to myself (without hearing voices),
rehearsing things I would like to say (or have said) to someone, or
narrating what was going on around me, as if writing a novel. This was
pretty much automatic behavior, in that I would often "catch myself in
the act," having been unaware I was doing it, or be caught (and
startled) by someone else because I was so intensely involved in my own
thought processes that I didn't realize they were there. That can be
embarrassing. Sound familiar?

For me, the problem turned out to be a combination of generalized
anxiety, social anxiety, and low self-confidence and self-esteem,
combined with too much isolation and a little bit of depression. I
wasn't very comfortable around people I didn't know well, felt
self-conscious in public, and didn't spend a lot of time with other
people because I didn't think I had much to offer. I don't know if
that's what's going on with you, but my understanding is this is not
uncommon, especially in young people. The self-talk seems to be a way
of distracting ourselves from situations that cause anxiety, and then
it can become habitual. If that's your problem, you're not crazy. :)

The good news is, it's treatable. You may want to consider going to a
psychiatrist or other mental health professional for an evaluation. If
you don't have insurance or think you can't afford treatment, you can
go to a community mental health agency and be seen on a sliding fee
basis, sometimes for free, depending on your financial situation. If
you're in college, most campuses have counseling services available to
students at no cost.

Whoever you see may recommend therapy, which can help a lot (and often
quickly) and may also, although not necessarily, recommend some kind of
non-addictive medication. I would strongly consider following whatever
advice you're given.

Your concerns are understandable, but I really don't think your sanity
is in jeopardy. Hope this helps.

marcia

I am out of my field here and so I can get things mangled up but here
it goes.
My sister is a teacher and she has books on learning and how people
learn.
People incorporate some physicallity in learning. Hearing, touch, and
sight are stimuli that can help in such learning. There is usually one
that predominates over the others.
You might be using hearing as such and you might be better able to
learn and memorize using auditory stimuli. Thinking out load is also
using your auditory stimuli. The more hearing, tactile or sight one
uses the better one is at remembering and learning something.

If I remember the experiment correctly, one is asked to remember or try
to dig up a distant memory by asking questions. The person asking the
question looks at the person for physical clues as to how the person is
trying to remember. If he moves his eyes to the one side towards one
ear then he is relying on the auditory memory. If he looks up towards
the ceiling and to the side then he is using his visual memory.

Conversely if one wants to remember what somebody said then one can
intentially  gaze to that ear to reinforce that auditory memory and the
same holds true for visual memory like what was your wife wearing
yesterday type of question.

You not being a native English speaker like I am not then things can
get pretty confusing because there is also a language center located in
the brain. You are still learning to speak.

The rest is pretty normal as far as saying things out loud when angry.
I can be alone and just scream out "sh.t", when I make a mistake.

There can be psychological elements superimposed on these things but
that is out of my league.

Find a nice girl to sleep with, never eat any junk food do not try totalking
with priests or psychiatraist, if you have one sack him and dischage
yourself it his method of killing you, go to a scientolgist who can help
you.

Never go anywhere near any churches of the christian variety leave the area
and change you name and appearance bank account and never contact them ever.

Never admit to hearing voices or having thoughts or entering into any
philophacal (thinking about thinking) debate or about meta physics (The
physics of physics).

It is normal that if you want to work a route to a place nearby called a
plan you need a map.  A rat can both map and plan when it solves a maze.

This pause for thought is the assembly of the data base of the stored
experiences data structure that consitutes a plan. My computer does this, so
can I. My program was written by evolution and is hard wired, but that
program is no clever that I can use plan ti make my computer plan .... (so
help me god) I am a person, my personality made my computer plan is my
planning computer a person? (meta physics)

Chris.