The talking cure.
My weekends are generally spent in a recurring cycle of inebriation, recrimination, and suicidal ideation. This is less worrisome than one would think; I rate it as a reasonable return on the damage I do to my ventromedial prefrontal cortex (or, as B.B. King might say, it’s my brain’s version of paying the cost to be the boss). Still, I’m rather troubled by a more recent development which happens on weekdays, when I am presumably less self-harming; I’ve started to involuntarily blurt out words from my internal monologue while in public. Now, I’m not having full-on conversations with myself aloud or anything, but I will find myself walking down the street and suddenly be aware that I’m giving voice to bits and pieces from the old ongoing mental conversation. Sometimes it’s something as simple as “Thursday” or “should’ve” or “those motherfuckers” but usually it’s more personal and plaintive, like “you idiot,” or “Oh, God,” or, most frequently, “Why?” I’d like to convince myself this is merely a symptom of aging or panic or distraction—I’ve got a lot on my plate—so, uh, that’s what I’m gonna do. Either way, if you see a badly shaven man with a distended gut and a laptop carrier slung over his shoulder meandering up the avenue with an unfocused gaze and what appears to be the world’s most boring case of Tourette’s, steer well clear: I’m already pretty busy engaging with the person whom I clearly think is more fascinating than anyone else I know.
