What to do about distracting mental chatter?
anigbrowl: You have not gone nuts; that's when you give the voices greater priority than your external sensorium. But such symptoms could (at worst) be a sign of schizophrenia or Tourette's syndrome (particularly the profanity and involuntary vocalization).There is much good advice above. Have a chat with a psychiatrist - call a few of them in your area to find out what they charge, and pick one you that sounds busy but pleasant. Don't feel bad about trying another if you leave the first meeting feeling unsatisfied in some way, that's not unusual. Setting some time and money aside to visit a doctor and having their number handy can be a good stress-reducer in and of itself. There isn't a pharmaceutical 'magic bullet' for this, by the way. Your brain chemistry is as individual as you and your thought processes, so whatever therapeutic approach you adopt, if any, will require some experimentation and patience.Meantime, don't stress too much. Learn about the voices if you can: do they have persistent identity? do they respond to question or challenge? do they remind you of anyone? If you set aside some quiet time and just listen to the chatter, does anything of substance emerge? Having some experience with this, the best analogy I can make is that it's your regular dreaming process but with the volume turned up so that you can still hear it from the next (waking) room. I'm sure you can think of coding analogies too. Doesn't mean you're broken, and it's not necessarily a one-way thing either. It may just as well tail off in its own time.Also, another vote for The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes; Daniel Dennett is also worth reading, and so is Stanislaw Lem.