Today I had an encounter with a woman who verbalized to herself every thought as she thought it. She sat at her desk and moved around the room in constant-speech mode. Now, I don’t mean she talked to herself a lot; I mean she talked to herself nonstop. Let me repeat that: NONSTOP!
Now, to be fair, this was only off-putting to me because I was trying to read at the time, and her constant mutterings made that difficult. Other than that, there was nothing offensive, impolite, or what you might call “crazy” in her speech. She talked at a normal speed, and at a quiet volume, though certainly not at a whisper. Nothing she said indicated that she thought she was in a conversation with some other unseen individual; like I said, she was talking to herself. And, when she was talking to someone (in person or on the phone), the conversation was entirely normal with her leaving pauses in her speech to allow the other person to talk.
Here’s the sort of thing she would say (I made this all up but it gives you idea):
“Gee, I better call Emily to let her know the delivery arrived. I wonder if she’s there today. I know she said she was going to take a vacation this month. She wanted to see her folks in Florida. She hasn’t seen them in over a year. I wonder if they live near that sinkhole. That sinkhole story would be funny if that poor man didn’t get killed. I wonder what causes sinkholes. Maybe we don’t get them in New York because it’s cold outside. I should ask Emily about the sinkhole when I call her…” and on and on *and on! *
The woman obviously suffers from some sort of disorder. Anyone know what?
o rly? some people are just talkative; they irritate the piss out of me, but that’s the way they are. difference is I don’t act like someone who is different from me is defective.
I was in this person’s presence for about 90 minutes. It was in a reference library. She was a middle-aged reference librarian. Librarians usually try to keep the chatter to a minimum, yet during the 90 minutes I was there, NOT 5 SECONDS went by without this woman talking to herself. In 90 minutes.
Yes, I think she has a disorder. I don’t think she is “defective.” I think she has a disorder.
Could be as simple as a habit that she developed as a little kid when learning to talk and then string words together. Then, for whatever reason, no one taught her to stop. And I only say this as its not a “social norm” to go around talking to yourself.
However, with all the headsets in use today, if she were not in a library you’d never know.
Or, you could put the cart-before-the-horse and say she as Asperger’s or some other symptom.
I talk to myself all the time, no one answers, so I’m told its OK.
The behavior certainly isn’t normative. In order to be a disorder, there would have to be extra information like: Can she stop verbalizing at will? Is she not able to think without verbalizing?
At this point one can only guess at a disorder… though… I would say the guess would probably be correct.
I can’t find it now, but I could swear I remember a thread where the poster complained about one of his coworkers talking to themselves all the time, and got piled on for it. People reacted as if he had told a disabled person to just get over their disability - how DARE he?
But that was a while ago, and the only similar threads I see now are not so judgmental. So never mind.
This is a troublesome issue for me, because my boss does it and it makes it hard for me to concentrate on my work (especially programming).
I used to know a guy who couldn’t count to himself. The only way he could count anything was to verbalize. AFAIK, it only had to do with counting; otherwise he was fine. I wonder if this could be related to the OP.
I would have said it’s a reasonable guess that she cannot–what other explanation is there?–except that the OP also reports she is a reference librarian, and I can’t imagine that a person with such a disorder would be employed in a library.
This kind of makes me think of the stereotype of the sexually repressed librarian. Instead of releasing her pent up frustrations in a night of wanton lust she rattles on endlessly about the mundane details of her life.
