Guest Essay: Listening to Voices; Hay Otra Voz

Editor's Note (Michael Sedano): 

Nicki De Necochea contributed her first La Bloga Guest Column in 2021 (link), as a Caregiver of someone living with Alzheimer's dementia, Nicki's mother. La Bloga-Tuesday welcomes this essay on self-talk. Nicki lives After Alzheimer's and it's hopeful that this essay has no obvious connection to those years of living with dementia.

Some psycholinguists claim the limits of one's language are the limits of one's world. That might be so, of spoken, linear speech. Inner conversations occur at the speed of memory, everything all at once and better than a movie. De Necochea identifies the phenomenon as a tool for personal good. Because some readers may find the subject ambiguous, De Necochea offers what I call an apologia by way of prologue, offering context and disambiguation.

Nightfall

By  B. Nicki De Necochea

Apologia by way of Prologue

Quietly Loud. Since childhood, I’ve been aware of my brain’s gift of personal power to use my inner voice to survive and flourish. Without permission, a choice presents itself, quietly. But loud, an inner voice that directs, redirects, uses, or discards, my innermost thoughts. 

I remain in awe that “the voice” provides a running daily monologue and unsolicited commentary throughout my day. It’s an opinionated mini-me in my head, insistent on giving perspective or critique. 

My self-talk can be optimistic and supportive, or negative and self-defeating. I focus my innermost silent conversations, self-talking about the beneficial and positive, calming fears and bolstering confidence. 

I’m aware my inner-talk can be a personal tool for good, or a weapon of self-punishment. My thoughts can encourage, discourage, or keep me safe from stupid compulsions, and even teach me to listen to hidden messages for self-soothing. It’s a voice I take for granted and can silence or ignore – as needed. Humans have been empowered with this powerful mind-trick. It’s a miracle of evolution. 

It's a choice to give this noiseless voice its strength or embolden or scold it into submission. This inner voice, my self-talk, combines conscious thoughts and likely some involuntary beliefs and biases to encourage me to interpret and process daily experiences. It can save or destroy, reassure, or nurture. 

That said, I use it in my writing as well. Nightfall is a short conversation about acknowledging this quietly loud voice exists. 

NIGHTFALL 

At nightfall when the day has been exhausted and my mind and body its mirror, my voice is stilled, and I give in to restful acceptance of my inner thoughts. 

They begin like a diagnostic imaging on my state of mind, stopping to better assess the tender places of confusion, turmoil, or chaos. 

What an intriguing human gift to be able to talk in silence to oneself. This is when the conversations are formed that are only for me to hear, and they are none that I can share for fear of the dark shadow’s misinterpretation. 

These words whispered on the vapor of each breath held-in, are protected in silence from their being carelessly scattered by any unworthy breeze. 

There are the painful ones, and the truthful ones, although some can be vengeful and misguided. They are the feelings and thoughts that allow me to be authentic in my disappointment, or in sadness and self-doubt, without any need to apologize or protect myself from being revealed. 

Resolute, although sometimes like a living mosaic; broken, crushed, mended, and reinforced. These are my mind’s whispered truths, laid bare for mending when night falls. 

What feels broken is gathered up and soothed by a night stream of calm. By breathing-in perspective and breathing-out serenity I am stronger and more courageous in the night’s assessment and inventory of my state of mind, with no distractions or busy denial. Then, after gathering the good shards of wisdom, my thoughts and self-talk transform into a mental photomosaic of hope and healing-pain, cauterized by gratitude. 

I’m transformed again. 

After nightfall, there is better discernment, a clearer path and another more useful manner of mental discourse and presence. The creation resulting from my mind-talk is a new frame of awareness, and acceptance. 

In nightfall, words are the quietest they’ve ever been -- transformed into a healing dream and if I’m blessed, the same ones are not recalled when the night goes down on my soul once again. We are at rest. 

B. Nicki De Necochea

〰

Swallowtail Foto Gallery

Michael Sedano

When I was living with Alzheimer's Dementia, my camera took on a role like B. Nicki De Necochea's use of her inner self, except I used the viewfinder to empty my thoughts and concentrate on framing and focusing something interesting occupying a small portion of the landscape and nothing else.

After Alzheimer's means change, lots and lots of changes. One thing that doesn't change is respite found at the end of a chunk of optical glass. Nowadays, of course, I'm no longer working to ignore or forget. Alzheimer's offers little room for hopeful stuff. Now, I'm working to memorialize sightings of Swallowtail butterflies. Memory is futurism, sabes?

Swallowtails are "commonly seen" in certain locales, as if seeing a swallowtail is a ho-hum routine event. I hope never to become so jaded a swallowtail won't give me a bit of healthy tachycardia.