Day Twenty-Two: Brain, Little Voice, and Me


Have you ever been in one of those relationships where the person is highly intriguing, passionate, and overall seems like a very likeable gal, but for some reason, you can’t stand to be around her? That’s the type of relationship I’m currently in. Only it’s not exactly with a person….. It’s with my brain!

Brain and I, we go a long way back. Yet, I’m still trying to figure him out. Sometimes I try to understand Brain more by comparing him to other brains.

For instance, just the other day, I asked my husband, “What are you thinking about?”  He responded, “Nothing.” And I said, “What? You’re joking. Really? Absolutely nothing?”

He thought (or did something) for awhile, and then answered, adamantly, “Nope. Nothing.” Now, by this time I’m laughing, in that annoying I-do-know-better way, wanting to knock my knuckle on his head, and say: “Hello, in there!”

Later, I asked my eldest son, the same question. And his answer mirrored his father’s. “Well, what were you thinking about a few minutes ago, then?” I queried. “I don’t know, Mom. Leave me alone. Nothing important.” (He’s fourteen.)

Now, get this. When I asked my middle son, “What are you thinking about?”, he gave me a thirty-minute dissertation. Can you guess which one has Aspergers?

I didn’t bother to ask my baby-boy, Robert; he was too busy securing plastic wrap over a clear plastic cup that he’d carefully filled with the blood he’d collected from his bloody nose. He was saving the blood for future science experiments. I easily guessed what he was thinking about.

Movies are interestingly-annoying with Brain. There are times I  have to press the pause button on the remote during a film, because I’m so excited by the fact that I was actually enjoying the show for five minutes strait without brain interruption!

This is a super big explanation mark deal in my book, because usually when a movie is playing, some 99.99 % of the time, LV (Little interior Voice in my head) and I are carrying on an entire conversation.

I noticed today that LV is starting to have a full personality. Which causes my stomach to rumble, somewhat in fear. Because I fret I may end up with yet another neurological disorder. And there’s only so many LV and I can keep track of.

I picture LV like Laverne, from the show Laverne and Shirley. Like Laverne, LV has letters monogrammed onto her tight sweater (LV), and she’s totally clueless that her sweater is too tight. So she looks like a loosey-goosey, even though she doesn’t mean to appear that way. She’s like me, when I wore those glossy yellow shorts, during freshman class physical education, that were way too short; yet, I hadn’t a clue why the boys and girls were calling me those names. I’m picturing Rudolph the reindeer crying. I’m fine. Santa and the elves loved Rudolph.

Not to should on LV, but she should have a question mark right along side her LV monogram. It’s all about inquiry with that chick. Here’s the typical repertoire of clauses she choses from, while I attempt to watch a romantic, carefree comedy:

Is this the director’s first movie? I wonder how much that actress got paid? Do you think Shakespeare knew actresses would be idols one day?  Is this a box office hit, for real? Wow, nice hair; maybe I should get my haircut. Look, did you see her pause for a whole fricken five minutes to let the other person talk?  How does she do that? Is that normal? Is that what I’m supposed to do? Oh my goodness, do you think she realizes what the plastic surgery did to her face? That can’t be her? Is that her? Should I pause the movie and ask? I want that table wear. Is that materialistic of me? The blue is so pretty. What color is that? Cobalt. Cobalt is a strong sounding word…

Which leads me back to the whole: I wouldn’t want to be my brain’s friend argument. Not that LV is my brain; my brain is mostly a man. LV’s more like the cute cuddly ambassador of my brain. And I have no idea why my brain is not homogenous, probably because he/she has a right and left hemisphere, but I feel invaded by one side—if you must know.

You might have noticed, beyond the rambling, that I used the word  fricken, earlier. That’s because LV doesn’t like to swear, beyond crap and poop head. She does have fun turning harsh “bad words” into less offensive words that sound dorky. Oh, and she does call our little female labradoodle the B-word, only because that’s logical. She also calls the dog spastic-colon!

LV kept me awake last night. Her and the caffeine I had after the noon hour. Anyone, who’s had that can’t sleep ‘cause I’m caffeinated experience, knows the agony.  Now add LV to the picture. Well, I’m twisting and turning in bed, illogically trying do to the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different outcome; even thinking if I fluffed the pillow just right, I’d suddenly slumber, when bam! Smack out of nowhere, a parade of words and numbers start drumming in my head.

They were in a row, all these words and numbers, flashing at me, like the letters and digits in the television show The Electric Company.

I just made a whammy of a flashback-connection: I loved Electric Company because the show was all about words and numbers! And all these years, I thought I liked the show for the Gorilla and his bananas.

Here are some of the words I saw as I tried to fall asleep:

Pretty Sure, Maybe, Kind of, Almost Certain, Could Be, Probably, Perchance, Most Likely, We’ll See, Perhaps

LV, obviously awake from the caffeine as well, was trying to figure out how to assign a statistical number to each word to determine which word/phrase indicated a more likelihood of occurrence. For instance, when parents say, “We could be going to get ice cream later,” is that a more probable chance than parents saying, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to get ice cream later.”

LV reasoned Pretty Sure earned a 95.5% and Could be was very open to interpretation, perhaps a 51%—dependent upon tone of voice and inflection.

LV was going on and on with this theoretical rhetoric, until she concluded that all the words are ambiguous and confusing. All this while I’m side-kicking my husband for snoring and shoving my earplugs into what had to be my eardrums.

In the television series House, during one episode, this genius-type male patient is deathly ill, and the reason for his sickness turns out to be cough syrup. He had been drinking (and hiding) a large amount of cough syrup to stop himself from having complex and profound thoughts. Primarily, he wanted to stop the thoughts, so he could stay with his hot babe of a wife (who was clueless-brained) without being bored to death.

LV is reminding me of this episode and encouraging grape-flavored cough syrup. Like that’s even a feasible idea? Like I said, LV is not the type of friend one chooses. No offense LV.

I had another thought, but I can’t remember now—probably, because LV is upset.

I did want to share that I realized something about music and my relationship to music. A song was playing on the radio this morning, and immediately I became lost in my mind. Which makes me wonder, if I should be driving.

The experience was similar to stepping into a music video, only without all the sexy clothes and makeup, and weird body movements that ooze of I’m cheap, (or maybe drunk).

While I was one with the song, (Ommmmm), I was still me, but had Santa Claus powers enabling me to magically stop time. In the musical experience I visited everyone in the entire world who was sad and lonely. I saw myself stepping into strangers’ homes and staring into their eyes. I saw myself releasing mass amounts of pain and misgivings, and lifting many in spirit, so they could recognize their inner beauty. It was amazing! In moments like that, when my brain enables me to be in the music, I forgive him/her for all transgressions.

One more thing, before I head out to pick up my son and take him to Thai food… Can you hear my tummy cheering! Thai food! Thai food! He (tummy) is wearing a cheerleading skirt and looks completely (avoiding totally) dorky.  Oh no, I think my tummy is forming a personality, too.  Shootness, I just realized all my internal organs have genders! Please Google that and tell me if that’s another neurological disorder. No, don’t.

I better stop myself now, before I make this the longest post in blog history. (Thinking of the end of the Rudolph song: You’ll go down in history.) Have a good one. I’ll be chowing down on Pad Thai and assigning Sir Names to all my internal organs. I’m thinking the most of me is masculine internally. What’s that mean?

15 thoughts on “Day Twenty-Two: Brain, Little Voice, and Me

  1. I read this post this morning and wanted to comment but was on my phone. Truly, you have a lot of dialogue going on in your head. I don’t know how you do it! When I was younger, I had a lot of similar dialogue with myself but not to this degree. Nearly, every night when I wanted to go to bed and the LV would go on, I would literally perform an exercise to let my mind go blank. It’s a very difficult task because even when I tried to do it, I would think about the normally autonomous functions like breathing and the rate of breathing… etc. As I would do the exercise nightly, I would challenge myself to deeply exhale and closing my mind make the effort to go blank as a form of relaxation, to de-stress and help me sleep.

    Your post stuck with me though, and this afternoon, when I was doing homework with my son, he verbalizes his own little voice and was talking softly nonstop in a stream of consciousness that brought me right back to your post. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. 🙂

    1. LV is better on some days; much worse at night when I’ve had caffeine. LV does get exhausting. I see the same thing in my son, and it helps me to understand him well. For this, I am so thankful. We took an hour walk together, and he processed aloud the whole time. He said, “This was a great walk.” And I explained to him how verbally processing truly helps. My two best friends moved last summer. I used to walk with one almost daily and she always let me process, which helped tremendously. I’ll have to take up walking with another friend. I am so happy that my rambling actually resonated with you enough to see a connection with your son. And glad you found the post interesting. That’s interesting that you had the dialogue when you were younger. I do know many ways to relax: meditation, breathing, toning, yoga, etc…but when I have a major stress (Dog passing) LV gets much worse. I Know I need to start again, with relaxation. Thanks again for the dialogue. I’m glad yesterday with your son is all over with. My heart goes out to you. ~ Sam

  2. Ok…I have read about a third of this post and now my brain is thinking of something else.
    Sorry, when that happens my dyslexia kicks in and then my loops start up.
    I get ya, totally relate to not understanding how people don’t have any thinking going on.
    What is with that? It’s just not normal….LOL
    I have about 7 loops of thoughts constantly on the go.
    It’s only when I shutdown completely they stop and when that happens I can’t stop crying.
    It’s way too quiet without all those connections going on.
    I’m off now see ya.
    Love and hugs.
    Lisa. xx 🙂

    1. This would be a hard post for anyone to read with dyslexia, as I ramble about in all directions. (Like I do in most of my posts. lol) Hope your loops are calmed down. Have you tried Gaba? My son and I are taking it in the morning. Natural amino-acids. Nice to see you again. I see a shutdown in my future, too. So tired. Hugs again ~ Sam

  3. I love this post, I too have a constant internal dialogue going on. I have found that people aren’t too happy if, part way through a conversation with them, I figure out the answer to my maths question. There’s always 2 parts of me – one listening to the conversation and the LV is working on the maths. The worst though is figuring out the answer just as I’m falling asleep… have to start all over again! Love your blog though 🙂

  4. Laverne? 101? You talk a different language!

    Anyway, reading between the lines I’ve been wondering whether your diagnosis is flawed. This choice extract could indicate RID: “I wouldn’t want to be my brain’s friend argument. Not that LV is my brain; my brain is mostly a man. LV’s more like the cute cuddly ambassador of my brain”. :/

    “That’s because LV doesn’t like to swear, beyond crap and poop head”. Interesting. Same here, my logical side says swearing just isn’t necessary and my emotional side says it’s gross. I wonder if this is an Aspie trait too. (At least I’m getting marginally closer to understanding what a ‘poop head’ is. Are you sure it should be spelt unhyphenated? ‘Poop-head’ looks more complete and unified to me).

    *Raving Insanity Disorder

  5. PS Why can’t we edit these comments? Once posted they disappear into the æther (nice word!) beyond my grasp! Anyway, the main purpose of this PS is pedantic. I forgot to add the * after RID. Sorry about that. My short-term memory’s crap – to put it bluntly.

      1. It’s OK Sam. I wasn’t complaining. It was just my pedantic sense of humour/humor taking me over. I’m finicky* about asterisk etiquette 🙂

        * fussy, petty-minded

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