"Quiet" inner voice?

[nemo_really]

I recently stumbled upon a New Scientist article on the "inner voice", the unspoken, internal voice that most people hear when we think.

Apart from general curiosity, the particular reason I find it of interest is something that happened to me when I was about 15-16 years old and I wondered if something similar had happened to any other TBIers?

After a reasonably normal childhood in which my "internal" experience was a vibrant, colourful, noisy place, about 3-4 years after my head injury I woke up one morning and it was like every light in the building had been switched off and everyone had gone home and taken the furniture with them ... except the curtains, which they had thoughtfully closed. Apart from everything seeming dim, dark and almost colourless, I'd also lost touch sensation, drive, emotions (apart from fear) and, appositely, my internal voice had pretty well gone - the expression "I can't hear myself think" was literally true.

I kind of kept going on inertia and intellectual rationalisation, rather than true (e)motivation, and slowly improved over a few years, but never to the pre-event levels.

For a variety of reasons (primarily, I think, the intellectual assessment that it might not be good for future employment prospects and a family tradition of extremely stiff upper lips) I didn't go to the doctor's; I just went to the local library, read up on psychiatry, reckoned depression seemed to match some of the symptoms, shrugged and carried on. In fact, I never mentioned it to anyone until my memory and attention problems were diagnosed about 14 years later, and all I remember getting then was just another shrug.

Anyway, enough of me, anybody else had anything similar happen? If so, what explanation (if any) were you given for it?

https:/dur.ac.uk/hearingthevoice/

[Hidden]

Hi

You might be interested in a link someone put up on one of these threads. I'm sorry I can't be more helpful but I can't even r'mber the name!! But it was an american neurologist who suffered a stroke 'my stroke of insight' I think the book was called, but there was a TED talk, I think you can see it on You tube.

Anyway she describes losing the inner chatter of the brain, and I think it's the right hemisphere. She talks about connections between the 2 hemispheres being disrupted etc as well.

Anyway if you can find it you might find it interesting!

[nemo_really in reply to Hidden]

Thanks for that. I found this link to a Dr Jill Taylor, who seems to fit the bill ...drjilltaylor.com/book.html

I'll have a look for her TED talk when I get a chance.

[Tortie14 in reply to Hidden]

Jill Botte Taylor is the person who describes her own stroke so powerfully.