Diagnosed ADHD here. I just have this constant low-level music video / hurricane of ideas / songs / designs / trajectories going in my head. Started high-school at 11, university at 15. Played tennis competitively to provincial level.
That's a really crude approximation ... will try to clarify. I do have an internal monologue, but often I'm not speaking to myself verbally. As I'm writing this, I'm hearing it in my own voice, in my head. EDIT> "hearing" is approximate because I don't feel anything in my ears, and it's different from hearing a recording of my voice. I don't feel my ear-drums moving, e.g. I just have the very clear sensation that I am speaking these words, and I can even feel them on my tongue, although my tongue is not moving. <EDIT
When I'm thinking, but not writing, it's more visual / tactile. The impressions of ghostly visuals, but I'm not actually seeing anything, just feeling that they're there. Like I can feel and spin a cube in front of me, but I'm still seeing the monitor, not the cube. I know where all the vertices, are though.
Often have that anxious feeling in the chest like I want to blurt something out, but am keeping it in. So ideas fly in, but too fast for words. Words are much too slow for thinking. But a feeling of um .. ah ... er .. um is about the only internal vocalization I can get as these ideas crash and pull in different directions.
I often have to explicitly speak out loud or monologue to give some momentary permanence to my thoughts. Otherwise they just kind of get whipped away and tattered in this mental hurricane.
And yet, I can just happily sit and look out a window, but I'm experiencing some combo of really, really, looking at things and bouncing around in my head.
Speaking of not really understanding how different other people's experiences are -- my vision is starting to deteriorate now that I'm in middle age. It's so crazy to me not to be able to see everything. Like, people would tell me that they can't see my face without their glasses, but I had no real appreciation of of how different this would be. I'm bummed out that I can't see individual hairs from across the room, lol.
That's a really crude approximation ... will try to clarify. I do have an internal monologue, but often I'm not speaking to myself verbally. As I'm writing this, I'm hearing it in my own voice, in my head. EDIT> "hearing" is approximate because I don't feel anything in my ears, and it's different from hearing a recording of my voice. I don't feel my ear-drums moving, e.g. I just have the very clear sensation that I am speaking these words, and I can even feel them on my tongue, although my tongue is not moving. <EDIT
When I'm thinking, but not writing, it's more visual / tactile. The impressions of ghostly visuals, but I'm not actually seeing anything, just feeling that they're there. Like I can feel and spin a cube in front of me, but I'm still seeing the monitor, not the cube. I know where all the vertices, are though.
Often have that anxious feeling in the chest like I want to blurt something out, but am keeping it in. So ideas fly in, but too fast for words. Words are much too slow for thinking. But a feeling of um .. ah ... er .. um is about the only internal vocalization I can get as these ideas crash and pull in different directions.
I often have to explicitly speak out loud or monologue to give some momentary permanence to my thoughts. Otherwise they just kind of get whipped away and tattered in this mental hurricane.
And yet, I can just happily sit and look out a window, but I'm experiencing some combo of really, really, looking at things and bouncing around in my head.
Speaking of not really understanding how different other people's experiences are -- my vision is starting to deteriorate now that I'm in middle age. It's so crazy to me not to be able to see everything. Like, people would tell me that they can't see my face without their glasses, but I had no real appreciation of of how different this would be. I'm bummed out that I can't see individual hairs from across the room, lol.