Those voices inside me...

'Hearing voices isn't a good sign Harry, even in the wizarding world.' (Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets)

There is quite a stigma attached to the phenomenon of hearing voices. It is widely thought to be a symptom of severe mental illness but research has shown that it occurs commonly as a part of human experience. The idea of having an inner voice or an inner conflict is something which most people can relate to. Many of us were introduced to the idea of having conscience at an early age, if only by watching the Disney film Pinnochio! When making decisions we can feel quite conflicted at times and the ideas we are weighing up against each other can feel like a number of voices all trying to speak at once. Hearing the guiding voice of a deceased loved one is a frequently reported phenomena and in this case, hearing voices can be quite a comforting experience. A close friend of mine said that one day when she was under quite a lot of stress, she heard an intrusive, destructive voice but by the next day it had disappeared. She had no history of mental health problems and commented that while it felt like an unusual occurrence, she had the resilience and strength of character not to become overly distressed by it and so the problem did not escalate.

Whenever I have told other people about the fact that I hear voices, the first question they ask me is, "Are you schizophrenic?" They are genuinely surprised to hear that I am not. In truth, auditory hallucinations is a symptom that has been found to span across a number of mental health problems. For example, it is common for anorexia sufferers to hear a critical voice telling them not to eat and attacking any existing self-esteem. I've also heard experiences of some anorexics seeing a figure that represents their eating disorder. Voices can be very manipulative and controlling, having a pronounced impact on the sufferer.

I cannot pinpoint exactly when I started to hear voices and I think this is because I experienced them as a young child and they developed gradually over time. When we see the world through childhood eyes and are trying to make sense of all we encounter, we have a number of experiences and discoveries that forge together in our quest for understanding. For me, hearing voices was just one of many new experiences and simply merged amongst the catalogue of memories and encounters I was filing at the time. Hearing voices became such a regular and everyday occurrence that I concluded that everyone must hear voices as well and so I did not see it as being anything out of the ordinary.

By contrast, I can recall the first time I ever spoke about hearing voices vividly. I was 13 years old and was slumped begrudgingly in a stereotypical 'comfy' chair, sitting in front of two adults whose sole purpose of being there was to attempt to 'fix me'. I was at one of my many appointments with my psychiatrist under CAMHS and my stepmother, as ever, insisted upon coming along with me. I was in complete denial about having an eating disorder and was keen to convince others that I didn't have a problem so that I could be spared from these sessions of heavy interrogation. On this occasion, I was being prompted to explain why I refused to eat toast with butter on. I explained that even if I was to take a bite and have the food in my mouth, I would not be able to swallow it.

The psychiatrist asked me why this was and I replied, "It tells me not to."

To which he questioned further, "What or who tells you not to?"

I responded in a very matter of fact tone, "The voice in my head."

I said it as though it was the most normal and regular thing in the world. My stepmum gasped in disbelief. I suddenly realised that I might have slipped up on my 'nothing's wrong with me' act and was conscious not to reveal anything further.

I hear two types of voices: an internal voice and some external voices. I have heard the internal voice since the age of 5 and it seems to stem back to the time when I first experienced sexual abuse. It appears to revolve around a belief of not being good enough which arose as a result of the abuse. Over the years, the voice grew in intensity as I experienced many other negative and traumatic things in my life. One of the factors that I see as being behind my developing hearing voices was the emotional abuse I received from my father. People often underestimate the impact that emotional abuse can have, often rendering such suffering inferior compared to the other forms of abuse. However, personally, I have found that some instances of emotional abuse have affected me just as significantly as the other forms of abuse I experienced. I had a father who was extremely critical of me and just about anyone close to him. The reality is that if someone tells you something enough, eventually you start to believe it and so I did. A lot of things my father said to me became manifested as the voice. The voice I hear is a female one though. It can sound quite charming and comforting at times but it is unmistakably calculating and manipulative. I believe it to be largely integral to my anorexia.

It tells me...

~ you are fat and disgusting

~ you are completely unworthy and don't deserve anything

~ no matter how hard you try, everything will just fall to ruins

~ you are destined for failure

~ it shouts back at every compliment people pay me, telling me that they're lying

~ countless other critical and derogatory things

All in all, it is exceptionally negative and self-critical.

The other type of auditory hallucination I experience manifests itself as being a number of external voices. They started to develop from about the age of 7 and they are also related to sexual abuse, as well as other traumas. If I am to describe what these voices are like I usually say that hearing them is like being in an enclosed, social space with loads of people speaking all at once. It is like being in a fairly crowded pub where you can hear lots of people talking in the background. You know that all of them are saying something bad about you but you can't make out what they're saying because they're all speaking at once. There's also a sense that they're closing in on you and are after you. They are reminiscent of the type of environment in which many of my traumatic experiences occurred. Hearing them can make me feel quite paranoid.

The thing that I have always found most distressing about hearing voices is that they feel so real to me that I think other people can tell that I am hearing voices. A particularly bad episode that stands out in my mind occurred when I was working as a learning support assistant. There was one particular day when I was in geography class of thirty students and the whole time I was dotting myself around from student to student, I could hear over fifty voices whispering in the background on top of the usual classroom chatter. I came to a startling realisation: 'I am responsible for helping a class of thirty kids and I am hearing voices to such an extent that I can barely hear myself think!' That was my life at the time but I'm glad to say that it isn't like that anymore.

I have tried countless techniques to try to manage and cope with hearing voices, some of which others may find helpful:

~ Grounding Techniques - It can be really easy to get lost in the voices and lose sight of where we are in the present. It can therefore be helpful to try to use grounding techniques to refocus our minds back to the present moment. A simple grounding technique I have found helps is simply touching the material things around us, whether that be holding the arms of a chair, touching a table or grabbing a mobile phone. It can also help to do what I call 'focusing on the facts' - reminding ourselves of what day it is, what the time is and where we are situated in relation to the material things around us.

~ Drop the voices off somewhere - A friend who attended a course on supporting children in a school setting who have suffered trauma suggested this one to me. The idea is that when you are hearing voices, you think to yourself, "I am leaving the voice in the draw/cupboard/shelf over there, I'm then going to walk to another part of the room and the voice is going to stay where I left it." Personally, this technique didn't really work for me as my voices have a tendency to follow me but I like the idea and others may find it useful.

~ Distraction - Sometimes distraction can be a really effective way to take our minds away from what the voices are saying and allow them to pass. There are so many things I do to distract myself but usually it will be something I can do with my hands that requires little thought or concentration. I've recently taken a liking to doing jigsaws on an app on my iPad.

- Challenge The Voice - This is probably the hardest one but in the long run it can be the most worthwhile. If we hear a very destructive or critical voice, speaking back to the voice or doing the opposite to what it is telling us to do, can feel like the scariest prospect as it often provokes a bit of an internal battle. I have found that if I attempt to question the voice in my head, it only shouts back louder but I find it helpful to think that the voice is only getting louder because it is losing control. Challenging voices can be a very distressing experience so it is best to only do so when we feel strong enough and have a support system around us to ensure we stay safe. So often it can feel as though no matter what we try, the voice is always winning but now and again we have these small victories which can feel very empowering. I love it when I can say to myself, "I've won this one!"

When I was in inpatient care, a lovely support worker made a very insightful comment about hearing voices which really struck a chord with me because I believe it sheds a lot of light on the phenomenon. I liked what she said so much that I wrote it down...

'I've seen how things that happen to us in the past affect us in the present and these voices we hear often try to make us think that we were to blame for what happened to us. If we try to remind ourselves each day that what happened wasn't our fault, the voices will get weaker and eventually disappear but we won't even notice because by that point what they say won't matter to us anymore.'

I could certainly relate to this reflection a lot as I believe the voices I hear to represent the part of me that blames myself for what happened to me and believes that I don't deserve to get better. I think it is important to identify where the voices we hear arose from in order to be able to overcome them. In my case, I can see that I am not possessed by some evil entity, the voices are a creation of my own mind and I see them as being the part of me that is scared of getting better. Auditory hallucinations can be a symptom of psychosis but I have never thought this to be the case for me. I can see that the voices I hear are trauma-related and fuelled by anxiety. I only ever hear them if a traumatic memory is triggered and I become highly anxious.

At this present moment, I can't even remember the last time I heard voices although I would guess it was a couple of months ago. I never thought I would see the day but now I have and I didn't really notice. I guess when we are free from the voices and excessive negativity, our lives quickly become filled with so many more positive things that reflecting upon whether we've been hearing voices becomes unimportant. At least this has been the case for me.

How did the voices stop? I'm not entirely sure but they seemed to stop when I started taking antidepressants. Originally, when I finally agreed to take medication, my psychiatrist was keen to prescribe me antipsychotics due to the dissociative episodes and auditory hallucinations I reported experiencing. Antipsychotics have a number of unpleasant side effects and so I was reluctant to start taking them. Moreover, as I've said, I do not believe the auditory hallucinations I have experienced to be related to psychosis so I thought antipsychotics would be unnecessary. I stuck to my guns and decided to agree to only take an antidepressant. The antidepressant I take also has a slight sedative effect which means that it also reduces anxiety. Ever since it started to work its way into my system, I have found that it has taken the edge off my anxiety and has allowed me to employ the skills I use to manage my anxiety more effectively (I plan to write another post with some tips for coping with anxiety). As my anxiety has not reached such great heights, I have not heard voices. As much as I hope I'll never hear voices again, I know it's highly probable that I will at one point or another. I just hope that if I do, I will be in a stronger position and equipped with skills to ensure that the voices do not consume me in the way they did before.

If you suffer from hearing voices, I want to tell you that you're not crazy and you're not alone. One day you will be free of them. I used to never believe people when they told me that 'life will get better' but now it has for me and it will for you. I completed the drawing below a while ago to express some of my feelings surrounding my experiences of hearing voices...

The voice will grow into a butterfly,
And one day it will flutter off somewhere.
Then the two of us will be free to live in peace.

Some people have said that I shouldn't be so kind to the destructive voices that have been such a negative influence upon me. However, I see the voices as representing the defenseless child I once was, who was hurt, trapped and lonely and I don't think there is anything you can despise about a hurt child. Who's to say that something so damaged can't blossom into something beautiful? I had always hoped that as well as me finding peace in freedom from the voices, they would find peace in freedom from controlling me. I wonder if it could help others to use any means of expression they can to turn the destructive, controlling and manipulative voices they hear into something beautiful and free?

Much love to anyone who has taken the time to read this post.

The One Day Seeker