Some people have a narrator, others don’t, but what happens when you’re used to a monologue and then it vanishes? 

Gradually, over the past few years, I have lost my voice. My inner voice that is. She was a loyal and trusted lifelong friend to me; a good bitch, for the most part anyway. She would give me a pep talk or a talking to when I needed one. She was my internal computer processing unit, the voice of reason to silence unhelpful or anxious thoughts, the filter who saved my arse more times than I care to count, the friend who caught me just in time and said “No, you really, really shouldn’t say that”. She was someone I listened to, someone I relied on, someone I trusted with, well, everything. 

Without me really noticing over the past few years she’s gradually faded away, like a spouse who no longer wants to be in the marriage. Now she is barely more than an inaudible whisper, at best. I don’t know where she has gone to or whether she will come back, and I can’t help feeling lost and forlorn. I had assumed she would always be beside me, or rather inside me. The French exit has me shook.

When I was a child she was a constant and chatty companion, sleep the only thing that silenced her. In fact, there were some times during my childhood when it felt like she was my only friend, my only confidant. Some people have a quiet and serene internal narrator, my girl was not. She was Erin Brockovich with a megaphone. I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times where I wanted her to shut it.

I have always been someone who enjoys time alone and who enjoys my own company, but I now realise this is because I always had her with me. I was never truly alone. Until now.

According to studies by American psychologist Russell Hurlburt – who pioneered investigation into inner thoughts and feelings in the early 1970s – around 30-50% of people regularly think to themselves in an inner monologue (in a functional way that is, not as a mental disorder). Which means that at least 50% of humans don’t experience an inner voice. I was gobsmacked when I learned this, only a few years ago. I assumed everyone had one. What on earth do people do without one? I wondered. And does this explain why some people I know don’t think before they speak?

I’m sure people who don’t have an internal monologue are equally shocked to find out that some people do. You mean there is a voice that speaks inside people’s heads? If you don’t have one, it’s bonkers to think that they exist. If you do have one then vice versa. What’s weirder is that some people’s inner voice has an accent that differs from their actual voice, or, in some instances, it sounds like a famous person or a fictional character. If there’s someone out there who has Alvin or one of his chipmunk brothers narrating their every thought then I pray for them. My internal chatterbox was simply my own voice, sadly not Sir David Attenborough’s.

In 2024, cognitive scientists Johanne Nedergaard and Gary Lupyan coined a term for those who don’t have an inner voice – anendophasia. Instead of using internal speech, those with anendophasia typically process their thoughts through visual images, or through emotions or sensations. But, from what I can tell from their research, anendophasia largely pertains to people who have never experienced an inner voice. This isn’t me. 

Alarmingly, with the quietening of my inner voice, I have started to process my thoughts aloud at times and what was once safely locked inside my head is now escaping at random intervals. At this stage thoughts are only making a break for it when I’m alone, but I fear it’s only a matter of time before there’s an audience present. Unhelpfully, with no inner voice to shut it up, my subconscious is beginning to fret that I’m prematurely morphing into one of those seniors who routinely speaks aloud to themselves.

I am desperate to understand where my inner voice has gone and why. I suspect I’m not alone in this dilemma of the disappearing diatribe but I’ll be damned if I can find any reputable research into people who have lost their inner voice. Along with plenty of unhelpful comments on Reddit, the best information I can dredge up is that, although uncommon, it can sometimes disappear due to the likes of hormonal shifts, stress, fatigue, or trauma.

It’s fair to say I have been a bit stressed lately (show me a Kiwi working in the arts who isn’t) and, due to being smack bang in that coveted landscape of perimenopause, I’m also experiencing plenty of hormonal changes and fatigue. Perhaps my brain is simply waiting for the fog to clear before my inner voice can safely lift off again? I hope so. I miss her, desperately. As the great philosopher Phil Collins once wrote…

How can I just let you walk away?
Just let you leave without a trace?
You’re the only one who really knew me at all.

I sincerely hope it’s not against all odds that she will come back to me.