Hearing Voices

[PanickyPolly]

Can anyone help? I've heared voices for 15 years now and they are orse lately...just wondered why we hear them I asked my T and he said he didn't know. Does anyone know or have a theory?

[ann51]

I would guess one possible reason is chemical imbalances in the brain. Do you take any medication?

[PanickyPolly]

I would guess one possible reason is chemical imbalances in the brain. Do you take any medication?

No I can't take meds. That's interesting hough...down to chemicals. Never thought of that.

[ann51]

It has been found that chemical imbalances in the brain result in quite a few mental illnesses; that is why medication is prescribed.

[PanickyPolly]

It has been found that chemical imbalances in the brain result in quite a few mental illnesses; that is why medication is prescribed.

BPD isn't an illness as such though it's the result of abuse or neglect...meds can't help that. Still I guess the chemical imbalance could cause other things to go wrong. Or maybe the very disordered personality could cause chemical imblances...my thoughts anyway.

[ann51]

I believe I've read that there is some evidence of biological brain differences in people with BPD. Also, that changing actions can actually change brain chemistry. Pretty cool.

[PanickyPolly]

I believe I've read that there is some evidence of biological brain differences in people with BPD. Also, that changing actions can actually change brain chemistry. Pretty cool.

It's cool, except whe we hear voices! Do you get them Ann?

[hummm_mabbe]

I think that the voices are just another part of the brains way of dealing with the trauma and emotional injuries that gave you your illness. i think the more you suffered and the less coping mechanisms you were given as a lil chiddler, the more extreme the brains reactions are. This can be seen under an MRi as a 'chemical imbalance' - but to me this seems silly. When you observe someone getting sad or angry under an MRI, you see a chemical imbalance too. Movements of the chemicals in the mind ARE the emotions. I just think that in psychological illnesses, the state remains fixed because the brain is trying to deal with trauma it has never dealt with. Biopsychiatry has still not proven the chemical imbalance theory - its just been accepted into the wider conscioussness because of the popularity of antidepressants like Prozac and so on, which when you look at the real data are not actually any more effective than placebo. The HMOOGE ways that the studies contradict each other means that no-one can actually claim that the theory has been proven - but it DOES sell a lot of drugs and keep psychiatrists - who are very often leery of psychotherapy, in high wages. You might like to read a book called Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin - himself a psychiatrist of some years experience. In it he discusses how even conditions such as schizophrenia respond to genuinely empathc and caring psychotherapy, and yet what is actually given are drugs that cause brain damage (see tardive dyskinesia). The thing is, psychiatry has convinced us all that these illnesses are urely biological. They have studies that SUGGEST these things, and then they spend many millions publishing these suggestions so that we think they are the gospel truth. Unfortunately, they are not. They are only SUGGESTIONS - but you will see them presented as being as solid a concept as how the earth goes round the sun. This is politics and commerce and it keeps people sick. Rant over ...

I think the chemical changes are simply the gears by which psychological problems are seen in the brain, if you like they are the ON/OFF switches in the system, and the switches get flicked by the experiences of the person.

I think the voices are expressions of that. Do they criticise you? I dont hear voices, but if I let myself write and write, I can really lay into myself and sound like the girl from the exorcist. Do they talk about other people? I very often find myself thinking all sorts of things about others. IMO, hearing voices is just the next step on up the trauma scale - the brain has got to a point where, isntead of trying the tactic of crippling you with depression to make you face your past, it goes one step further and actually begins to intervene in your life. Its not directly helping, just like self-attacking thoughts in depression are not helping.

IMO taking drugs to repress voices, or using methods to suppress voices, actually shuts down something important the mind is trying to tell you. And dont just take my word for it. In the book Accepting Voices by Prof MArius Romme, he gives the experiences of thousands of voice hearrs who found that their lives changed utterly when they learned how to LISTEN TO and integrate their voices into their lives and - this is key - meet with people who also hear voices. The stigmatisation, which adds to the sense of being bad or different, is the difference between those who lead happy lives and those who.. well, dont. It was when people tried to shut them out or ignore them or suppress them with drugs that they got worse. If you look up the Voice Hearers network that wll be a good pace to start.

Hearing voices IMO is an alarm signal, and its saying "deal with the past emotionally and properly because its still hurting you now". My friend always finds her voices come on during sressful times. One of the sytmpoms of BPD is 'stress related paranoid ideation' - STRESS brings on a near-psychotic symtpom. So, why not have stress bring on another psychotic symptom - hearing voices?

Most physicians see voices as just a symtom and want to make it go away without considering the psychological implications of what they MEAN. That book by Romme really sets out a very different - and far more helpful - store IMO.

**puts monocle back in pocket** :)

[PanickyPolly]

Hmmm...Maybe...you should be a therapist. I think you had summed everything up there. Not much more I can add to it really other than for a while now I've had the suspicion that mental illnesses aren't just about chemial imbalances. I was given medication, varu=ious types since I was 16 (I'm 32 now) and none of them helped...a couple put me in hospital with supected brain disease, heart attack and stroke the side effects were so severe. The voices are a lot lot worse when I'm stressed too. They are someties critical of me of others o rjust talk amoung themselves about others or me. Sometimes they just come up wih nonsensical sentaces like "she's in bed with a hores head" or "where is the back door?" You name it, they say it.

[hummm_mabbe]

Hullo

Its really a new subject area for psychiatry, believe it or not. The problem, again, is that psychiatry just wants to find a biological cause and then stamp it out, whilst psychology wants to understand the emotional trauma and see the person as a human, not a robot to be fixed. There has been research inot 'sub-vocal speech' and work on making people occupy their mouths or listen to headphones etc - but all this does is blot out what the voices are trying to communicate about your illness.

Of course, they wont always say helpful things at all. To my mind, it is the same as listening to your body's own signals. Sometimes the body will tell you "I really dont like this person" but we may choose to ignore it and act like we do. That is actually stressful for us. Now whilst that is only a mild example, in emotional disorders this becomes the norm - we shut off what our subconcious is trying to tell us through our bodies. We pretend we arent really angry, or we dont mind being treated that way, or its ok for others to be mean because we are bad / evil. But our body very often will tell us something different, and then we have to work very hard to squash our true feelings away. The result is anger, depression and mental illness - especially if the emotions you are squashing away have to do with neglect or abuse.

One woman in the book actually made a daily appointment with her voices. She asked them to only talk then, but that she would listen at that time. This actually had the effect of stopping the voices coming up at random times. She listened to them, thought about them and acted. If she felt they were being unreasnable, she would still listen to them, but would say "im sorry, I dont think youre right this time but I will think about it". In my opinion - when you do this, you are having a dialogue with that deep part of you that is hurt and is desperately trying to deal with a world that upsets and hurts you. The voices are expressions of those feelings, and as your feelings are important, I think so are your voices. They are not guardian angels to be obeyed at all costs of course, Im not saying that, but what they are doing is trying to legitimise and express emotions that you may have had to bury since you were a child. If you have multiple voices, then IMO these are the different parts of the self, ones which are also seen in BPD. In BPD they can be identified as 'modes' - a punishing parent mode, a scared child mode, an angry child mode, happy child etc. In BPD these come out as ways of behaving and feeling. I think that with voice hearers they simply take on real personalitues. They are your FEELINGS - and feelings need to be listened to, understood. Emotions are trying to tell us about things that are missing or wrong in our lives - gaps in our emotional needs (which we may even be unaware of having) which appear to us as loneliness, fear, sadness, confusion and in the voices ay appear as critical, frightening or just plain nonsensical.

There are a great deal people who hear voices are not even diagnosed with any illness. They are not mentally 'ill' - they just hear voices. For some people it just happens, in the absence of psychosis. This suggests that hearing voices is a normal part of human experience, and not just a symptom to be drugged, electroshocked or in some cases, lobotomised (yep they still do that) away. And yet one of the very last things that severely schizophrenic pateints are offered is proper caring human contact, understanding, the opporitunity to be heard.

Because of this it makes perfect sense that those who find others to talk to about their illness, via things like the Voice Hearers Network, begin to feel better. Its also the reason why people need to find a good, empathic therapist, who they like and trsut completely. Not easily done - this is why the business of recovery from emotional disorders is not at all easy and can take years. But drugs, IMO, are nothing but a red herring on that journey, and quite a sinister one at that.

Accepting Voices by Prof Marius Romme - you really could do much worse than give it a read!

[Jackyl]

Voices can suck at times. I hate it. But I've lived with it for a while. I thought I just had an overactive imagination.

[ann51]

Uh oh, Polly, I think you misunderstood me. I do NOT think it is cool to hear voices. Let me explain what I meant when I said "changing actions can change brain chemistry". An example is a person with OCD who wants to check the stove over and over and over again because he is afraid that he left it on, but he just can't seem to stop himself from repeatedly checking, instead of checking only once. (And I did exactly this with my OCD, still do it a tad). Then he tries behavioral therapy to curb the repeated checking. In time, as he works on this and gradually decreases the checking, his brain chemistry changes also so that he will not feel the urge to check so much. That is what I meant by that being "cool". I hope you understand what I meant now; I sure didn't mean to upset/offend you. In no way did I ever mean that it is cool to hear voices. I do not get them myself but have known people who have. In fact, one of the ladies at the assisted-living facility where I work hears them sometimes and gets really upset.

All that having been said, there was a book written by a psychiatrist by the name of, I think, Scott Peck who talked about schizophrenia being the result purely of psychological issues, such as toxic shame and guilt.

[ann51]

I wanted to respond also to hmmm...mabbe's posts....WOW!! I have seen the book "Toxic Psychiatry" but never read it. Never heard of the one by Romme until now but really sounds very helpful.

[Gin]

When you observe someone getting sad or angry under an MRI, you see a chemical imbalance too. Movements of the chemicals in the mind ARE the emotions. I just think that in psychological illnesses, the state remains fixed because the brain is trying to deal with trauma it has never dealt with.

What a fantastic point you make there, humm mabbe. My question still remains tho: why are some emotions considered normal and others an imbalance? Doesn't make much sense to me.

[PanickyPolly]

Wow Hmmm...maybe...seriously have you ever considerd bcoming a therapist? And Jackyl...I thought tha too. In fact one of my T's said that was my problem...a overactive imagination..I ask you. Mind you he said that when I told him I was hullucinating apples. I think I'm going to be reading that book. Wha I do' get though is why they say nonsensical things...what part of m would be talking sheer nonsnse. The hurt, the critical and the angry parts I get but what of the "I can't find the salt cellar" coments?

[hummm_mabbe]

Wow Hmmm...maybe...seriously have you ever considerd bcoming a therapist? And Jackyl...I thought tha too. In fact one of my T's said that was my problem...a overactive imagination..I ask you. Mind you he said that when I told him I was hullucinating apples. I think I'm going to be reading that book. Wha I do' get though is why they say nonsensical things...what part of m would be talking sheer nonsnse. The hurt, the critical and the angry parts I get but what of the "I can't find the salt cellar" coments?

Hee you have some cute hallucinations I dont know really, but if you remember that the human emotions are actually generated by several different seats of consciousness of the mind, and that we have lots of random silly thoughts all the time, I suppose its possible that random wibble stuff will come out too! When that guy was talking to the voice hearing peepulz, he found it was good if they talked TO their voices and tried to understand what they were trying to say. I cant imagine what the lil guy looking for the salt is trying to tell you .. maybe its your brains way of saying "hey, you are not getting enough sodium?". Just like in dreams, the subconscious uses symbols. It may be that your mind is communicating to you in symbols at this time. Just an idea - I think the most important thing to realise is that its ok, and actually helpful, to learn to talk to them. This can be hard if they are abusive, which is why its a good idea to join up with others who experiecne it.

To Gin - this is where psychiatric diagnostic manuals come into question, and the biological basis of 'mental illness'. A set of emotions are called an illness when they are debilitating to the sufferer, when they hurt too much, when they stop us functioning. In the past, it was a case of trying to understand the emotional inputs that caused the problem. Freud came very close in early 1900 when he realised that his clients all reported sexual, physical and emotional abuse. When he worked with that, he got results. However, when he presented these findings to the world at large, he got the 'head burying reaction' which we still see now. "PARENTS ABUSING THEIR CHILDREN? PARENTS BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR MENTAL ILLNESS??? BLASPHEMER!!!". So Freud, out of fear of ruining his reputation, decided to bury his findings, along with his patients suffering, and invented Drive Theory (this is the one that came up with the Oedipus complex and so on - all of which are now seen as utter BS) - a theory which BLAMED THE CHILD.

As time moved on, the drive theory came into question. The work done by John Bowlby over a period of decades showed that trauma induced by abuse or subtle neglect could cause all manner of emotional problems, including personality disorders. But by this time, the "lalalala not listening" approach was more widespread. Organisations were set up to 'protect parents' against the OUTRAGEOUS accusations of their children.

Who are these organisations affiliated to? That’s right - The American Psychiatric Association. The APA. 95% of Americas Psychiatrists. The PEOPLE WHO WRITE THE DSM and who are funded by big pharmaceutical companies. Psychiatrists want a biological explanation for ALL mental illness. Why? Well one motivation would be that ONLY psychiatrists can treat that, which means their income is assured. The Chairman of the APA is quoted as saying that the remit of the APA is to "protect the income of America's Psychiatrists". And then on the other hand, it also allows those people who do not want to face up to the reality of abuse and neglect to say "see? it wasn’t my fault" - and instead allow their psychiatrists to give their children - already emotionally invalidated, ignored and possibly abused, and give them drugs with dangerous side effects that are still not yet understood. But yet new methods come along which seem to 'prove' the theory. Psychiatrists will point to the shrunken frontal lobes of the schizophrenic. They will point to the misshapen and overactive amgydala of the BPD sufferer. When its seen on a special machine, in a special hospital, operated by special people, us mere mortals go "wow, all of this must be the gospel". Try asking a psychiatrist "which came first - the emotional disorder or the change in the way the brain looks?". You will suddenly have on very confused and irritated psychiatrist on your hands, who will maintain that simply because its observable then it must be biological and therefore can be treated with drugs. He will have no concept of the human soul, and how PSYCHOLOGY and EMOTIONAL INPUTS might actually be the cause of the physical changes he is observing. Did you know that its now been shown that even the most popular anti-depressants are no better than placebo? What does this suggest to us about the role of hope and validation (because to be told 'yes you are ill and we want to help you' is certainly validating) in overcoming EMOTIONAL disorders? Does this begin to suggest why, after a time, the drugs wear off? In addition to the brain readjusting to get back to its PREFERRED (and in the mind of someone with emotional trauma, that preference is one of depression – a state which is trying to get the sufferer to look at what is causing her pain) state, after a while belief and hope wear off. The drugs poop out.

"Chemical Imbalance" is the pseudo-scientific term that psychiatrists want to give to enduring emotional difficulties so that people go "OOO A MAN WITH A PHD SAID IT SO IT MUST BE TRUE". Who really has the time to wade through the REAL experimental data, and read actual psychiatric textbooks before deciding on swallowing extremely psychoactive chemicals (some which in the case of Xanax have been proven to be especially damaging and yet the FDA still approved it) ? No one really. Except people like me who are a bit sad and like doing research

BPD has come in for the same treatment. Despite peer-reviewed studies showing the common emotional backgrounds of Bippideers, it is still rammed down our throats that our brais are different. We are 'born sensitive'. The studies showing that PROPER EMOTIONAL INPUT from sensitive, emotionally stable parents can counter-act any inborn sensitivity (see Bowlby) again meets with the "lalalala not listening" approach. Even well published "self help guides" on BPD include this claim - I would gamble because the psychiatrist who wrote it has to deal with families every day. Its easier for him to tell them their daughter has an inborn sensitivity than to question what the parents failed to do to accept their child for how she was, to learn how to give her the soothing she needed - and how to RECOGNISE HER FOR THE UNIQUE HUMAN BEING SHE WAS AND IS. Once again, by claiming its 'biology' - we can blame the child. Nothing has changed since 1901.

As an aside - ask a psychiatrist about diagnosing personality disorders. They will tell you that finding a 'pure' type - someone who is pure BPD, pure NPD - is immensely rare. Most people with personality difficulties in fact have a mixture of the behaviours and beliefs that are found in the DSM Axis II (thats the PD's) definitions. This suggests that there ARENT pure types, and that essentially a person isnt 'BPD' or 'NPD' - they have a set of coping behaviours, beliefs and emotional responses which have devloped UNIQUELY TO THEM due to their own UNIQUE but negelectful and possibly abusive past. But as long as the definitins are couched in the terms of disease, and as long as people can look them up on wikipedia and go "oooo thats me" - people can be convinced that they have an illness that can be treated with drugs. More and more therpies are coming out that can actually cure BPD and NPD. They have at their core an empathic, trusting, genuine relationship with a therapist. The studies coming out show that by filling in the blanks of emotional development that the peson got as a child, the 'illness' can be 'cured'.

Being listened to, believed and cared for, it would seem, is more powerful than any drug.

Hee I know a lot about psychology but I dunno about being a therapistey. I would get too burned out, my heart explodes when other people are suffering

Ross

[Warrior Princess]

On chemical imbalances: It's the symptoms that cause the chemical imbalance not the imbalance that cause the symptoms. it's sort of a cause and effect situation. Therefore if someone is prone to strong emotions or knows no other way to react to a given situation, they will have a strong emotion and out goes a chemical! unbalanced. Therefore medication alone isn't the answer. That can only help cover up and counter balance the chemicals that we are naturally producing due to our emotional reactions.

The key to sucess is to learn to manage those emotions and reactions. To be self aware, and know what our triggers and buttons are. To know when we are spiralling up or spiralling down and learn to intervene before it hits sky high or rock bottom. Just being aware is a HUGE step. Knowing when your in a very emotional mind vs a very rational mind. Know thy self! I can tell when I'm going down hill or getting too manic, so that being a bonus to me, I can do something to try and stop it getting out of hand. If getting too sad, self soothe, if getting too hyper, relax a bit and slow down, avoid caffine and take appropriate medication etc.

You can't really rely on just the meds. You have to know when and how to use them.

With the voices: A psychologist recently told me that they have determined that the voices we hear in our head are caused by our own voice boxes. When a person hears voices apparently their voice box is active and moving. Therefore you can block out voices by singing or talking out loud. Often we are our own worst critics so it's highly possible that the voices are our thoughts being spoken by ourselves.

I'm also not closed to the possibility that the voices are caused by something spiritual outside ourselves that simply use our minds and voice boxes to taument us. Kind of like we can use a computer keyboard to cause a computer to do things.

Reguardless of why or how, the main question is how to manage, stop them. I have found the best method for this is to not entertain them. Say no to their suggestions, ignore them, push the thoughts out, refuse the thoughts until your brain gets sick of you refusing it's signals and stops.

Hope this helps. I use to hear voices quite loudly but not any more. I hear the occasional "whisper" or a word here and there such as my name being called but I just don't resond or entertain them and they give up.

WP

[hummm_mabbe]

Hullo Painey

That finding you mentioned - about the voice boxes - is a perfect example of how psychiatrists take a very limited observation and turn it into 'fact'. Not to be mean to you - Im not - I am expressing my anger at the profession for trying to sell people this stuff.

The study that they did to look at the 'voicebox' thing was actually very limited. Firstly, the study was set up to test the voicebox hypothesis. They were LOOKING for proof of it (already a questionable scientific practice). They had a study group of people suffering from schizophrenia. Of the limited few (read 'small sample size' - another common weakness in any scientific study) that they could actually communicate with a COUPLE of them were found to 'mouth' the words subvocally. However also within the group were people that did not have subvocal speech, heard car horns and large groups of people, which did not translate into any voice box movement at all. This means that the findings were tiny - or in the language of the scientist, 'statistically insignificant'. Ive got the details of the study in a recent textbook called Neuropsychology - from Theory to Practice by David Andrews. But yet, those tiny findings became gospel and now you will hear it off your friendly neighborhood psychiatrist. Not only this, but we have been conditioned by our experiences with western medicine to belive that any illness is treated with drugs or a machine or by some physical intervention. With penicillin, kidney dialysis and physiotherapy these are grand ideas, but because of our acceptance of this we are further conditioned to belive that emotional problems should have a physical, biological basis and treatment path too. Again, its THEORY - theories of the people that have openly admitted that their purpose in life is to protect their income! If all of this seems too much to be belived, read Toxic Psychiatry by Peter Breggin - himself a psychiatrist of over two decades experience. The average person cannot be expected to investigate scientific findings in this way, they should be able to rely on those scientists to tell them the truth. Unfortunately, and as usual due to money and politics, this does not happen.

The psychiatry profession distributes unconfirmed, unproven theroy as fact amongst its own members and then that is what you hear from them. This is exactly like the chemical imbalance theory - which is STILL only a theory - it has not been proven but people talk about it as if it has. This is very, very wrong especially given that the meidcations they use the theory to sell often do not not work and often are damaging. In the US, extensive advertsing has helped further ram this theory home as fact, and now people believe that the chemical imbalance idea is as solid as newtons theory of gravity. Once again - it isnt. You can google around for days finding 'evidence' and studies that claim to support the chenical imbalance theory - but when you relly look deeply into the data and the findings, none of them do. The internet as much as anything else is also to blame for peddling this unproven idea as gospel truth and that, I think, is dangerous. What I am saying is actually backed up by textbooks on psychiatry - in those, they admit that these are only theories with limited positive empirical validation. But they know that the average person will not be reading textbooks.

The limited findings of that voicebox study were published far and wide - by virtue of the APA's adevrtising dedicated multi-million dollar budget - and now its presented as 'fact' - but its not. But no psychiatrist will have the guts to admit that his or her recommendations and practice are based on extremely shaky research. They have to put across an aura of being all knowing and having all the answers - the complete opposite to what any GOOD psychotherapist will have.

The much wider study done over thusands of people via voice hearers networks shows that voices are in fact important, and that voice hearers are able to lead far happier lives when they are able to interate their voices and talk to others about them. Basically - if you are distressed by your voices and try to blank them out, then you will feel worse overall. If you can talk to others in the same position actually about what the voices are saying, and also give the voices space to tell you what they are trying to communicate, dealing with them is much less probelematic. However, a psychiatrist will tell you that its a symtoim to be got rid of, and if you find them scary or problematic you will be inclined to agree. But in avoiding the pain they cause you, you just end up burying them and waiting for them to emerge another day - just like any emotional or psychological problem. Its worth noting that the dopamine theory of Schizophrenia is based on similarly shaky ground and comes under continued attack from the profession - yet brain damaging drugs that act on these systems continue to be prescibred, causing side effects such as Tardive Dyskinesia - the gradual loss of control over movement - as they go. The one thing a psychiatrist will rarely ever do is TALK to the person, truly and deeply, and see them as a human being. Incredibly, they stay ill, proving their theroy that schizpohrenia is an incurable biological illness. The EXACT same pronouncement made on BPD by the same people when their drugs failed for it, and which the new psychotherapeutic methods such as Transference Focused Psychodynamic Therapy and Schema Therapy are now laughing in the face of. Psychiatrists do not say "maybe be we were wrong" - they say "the patient is incurable".

The more and more I read about voices the more I think they are a natural phenomenon and that they are 'another 'peg' up the emotional trauma symptom scale. Once again, psychiatrists want to put a 'biological' label on it. If the voices are part of an expression of your illness, isnt singing over them and blocking them out just exactly the same as wiping out the problem with drugs, or simply hoping that the bad feelings will go away if you dont think about them? If there is an emotional root to the problem (and in the case of most schizophrenics, BPD's etc there is a history of neglect and abuse), how is drowning it out going to help anybody? It doesnt, but it does keep the psychiatrists in patients - and so, money.

It makes sense that on occasion its easier to blot the voices out, but on a grand scale, I believe that doing exactly what psychiatrists do - sing "lalalalala not listening" is what is keeping our two nations ill. I would listen to a psychotherapist over a psychiatrist any day of the week.

[fallen_angel1983]

Hi there

I always thought that i was alone when i first started hearing voices in my head it started about 3 and half years ago now my b/f had just split up with me and i tried to take a overdose i was staying at someones house as my Dad had chucked me out and had nowhere else to stay at the time i went to hospital and was walking to hospital and then all of a sudden this mans voice was in my head and since then i have had him there i also have a women who tells me not to listen to what he says but he is very overpowering and most of the time he is the reason why i have tried to kill myself 3 times and also why i self harm most of the times cause of that arsehole in my head i am not sure why he is there but he is but all this time.

Does this mean that i am really crazy? Or does it mean that he is just a fragment of my imagination he scares the hell out of me and he seems so real he is always there waiting to creep up on me when i am at my weakest i can always hear him there in the back of my mind chatting away telling me horrible things.

God i sound like a nutcase but for me he is there in my head and no matter what i do he will not go away.

[hummm_mabbe]

Some helpful links:

http://www.powerset.com/explore/go/Hearing-Voices-Network

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_Voices_Movement

The position of the hearing voices movement can be summarised as follows:

Hearing voice is in itself not a sign of mental illness

Hearing voices is experienced by a great many people, without becoming ill.

Hearing voices is related to problems in life history.

To recover from the distress caused, the person has to learn to cope with their voices and the original problems that lie at the root of the experience

Hearing voices is a common experience and even people with no history of mentall illness or distress report experiencing them. However, due to the stigma and fear that non-voice hearers often react with (often the hearers own families), the hearer can become extremely distressed, isolated and alone, which in fact makes the symptoms worse.

IMO there is no such thing as 'insanity' - there is only an increasing spectrum of psycholigcal trauma and the minds own natural way of reacting to that trauma (barring symptoms caused by damaging effects of drugs or brain damage).

You arent alone, you are not a nutcase, but it will help you if you can begin to talk to others who have the same experience as you. Thise links above hopefully will provide you with a start!

Ross

[hummm_mabbe]

Something else I just noticed angel,

You said that your voices started when your BF had left you and you had been thrown out of your house. You had just experienced two emotionally traumatic things on top of each other, and then the voices started.

Did you recieve the help you were entitled to? Did you receive emotional help and counselling, someone to prop you up and help you through your difficult emotional time?

[titanic]

I agree wholeheartedly with the anti psychiatry viewpoints, I too hear voices and do not believe it's due to a 'chemical imbalance.'

[wednesday]

On biology v's environment

My reading of the situation is similar to Ross's but with some complications. As I read it, our brains did not develop properly as young children because we were not given the right emotional input by our parents. As you say, we may have been more vulnerable to this than some others, but that should have been overcome by good parenting.

However, since our brains have not developed properly, can we really learn to self soothe properly, such that we are able to be happy enough? What do we do to get by before and during the therapetic process (which can take years)? I really don't know. I think that the self soothing part is not hard wired in but instead fear, insecurity and self hatred are hardwired in. We may improve, but we will always have to work to overcome this.

If I came off my medication ( I hate taking medicine) I would be in such a high state of anxiety that I would not be able to go through therapy. Much as I fear, hate and resent it, I have to admit that there is a place for medication in all this.

I do agree that psychiatrists push the biological theory but I think that mine did so to try to take self blame away from me at a time when I could not think straight, and knew nothing about bpd. He was the first to say that it was not my fault. I think that many psychiatrists are genuinely trying to further our cause and say to all the GPs, nurses etc, who hate us for self harming---it is not their fault. We may not have been born this way, but as adults we are at a biological disadvantage to others. There are things wrong with our brains. Being medicine free is an ideal that at the moment I cannot live up to.

[hoodbran1]

Can anyone help? I've heared voices for 15 years now and they are orse lately...just wondered why we hear them I asked my T and he said he didn't know. Does anyone know or have a theory?

I do have a theory, it has holes in though as i am no professional, but i also seek the answer to this question.

I think the voices/apparitions are meaningful and even though they appear to be scary and intrusive at times i think it's the result of a bridge to the unconscious you have developed, afterall we all as people live in an ego for the most part and clear separation happens when dreaming; consider the Dalai Lama, Carl Jung and Freud (some excerpts) from 3 mainstays of human experience having the same theme:

Lama: "There are those who, in virtue of concentration

are able to bring the subconscious into the realm of

discriminative consciousness and, thereby, to draw upon the

unrestricted treasury of subconscious memory, wherein are stored the

records not only of our past lives but the records of the past of our

race, the past of humanity, and of all pre-human forms of life, if not

of the very consciousness that makes life possible in this universe.

If, through some trick of nature, the gates of an individual's

subconsciousness were suddenly to spring open, the unprepared mind

would be overwhelmed and crushed. Therefore, the gates of the

subconscious are guarded, by all initiates, and hidden behind the veil

of mysteries and symbols. "

Carl Jung used for his source of data when he developed his methods

of psychiatry and therapy, that most fertile source -

the internal. Whereas Sigmund Freud

it was Darwin, classical thermodynamics, the Old Testament,

Renaissance cultural history, and most important, the close overheated

atmosphere of the Jewish family; Western intellectuals tend to dismiss

Oriental psychology. The theories of consciousness are seen as occult

and mystical. The methods of investigating consciousness change, such

as meditation, yoga, monastic retreat, and sensory deprivation, and

are seen as alien to scientific investigation. And most damning of all

in the eyes of the European scholar, is the alleged disregard of

eastern psychologies for the practical, behavioral and social aspects

of life.

Westerners do not accept the existence of conscious processes for

which they have no operational term. The attitude which is prevalent

is: - if you can't label it, and if it is beyond current notions of

space-time and personality, then it is not open for investigation.

Thus we see the ego-loss experience confused with schizophrenia.

It is much more astonishing that not everybody remembers his or her

previous death; and, because of this lack of remembering, most persons

do not believe there was a previous death. But, likewise, they do not

remember their recent birth - and yet they do not doubt that they were

recently born. They forget that active memory is only a small part of

our normal consciousness, and that our subconscious memory registers

and preserves every past impression and experience which our waking

mind fails to recall.

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I find reading to be extremely helpful in my recovery as I learn more about myself and how I have become attached to misery and perpetual depression as I struggle with the western educative authority of psychotherapy and it's dismissals in ancient ideas as if somehow the NHS can explain why we live in the first place with providing no solid evidence, thus forming 'disorders' and leaving the sufferer in some horrible state of confusion; Your voices may be more than they appear, work with them!

[PanickyPolly]

Thanks so much for your input everybody...it's give me so much food for thought. I also wonder...hoodbran...if some of the voices are from past life traumas...voices I knew in past lives as some of thm are American and I was an American in a past life and had a traumaic death. It's odd as some of my voices are British some American...I know what they are on about sometimes and other times I don't. I have great admiration for Jung so can wholly relate to how frustrating it is when western psychology dissses philosiphies from other cultures, from so cacled uncivilised races.