My friend is hearing voices

[ll24]

My friend is hearing voices which are trying to convince her to commit suicide. How can she make them stop?

[ILADVOCATE]

She needs to see a psychiatrist as soon as possible. I am recovered from schizoaffective disorder. Schizoaffective disorder is schizophrenia with a mood disorder. When the psychosis occurs only during mood changes it is classified as bipolar with psychotic features. Its hard to say what specific psychiatric disability your friend has and it would be important for them to report all symptoms because they may go from depressed to manic at other times and need a mood stabilizer not an anti-depressent in addition to an antipsychotic. With depression suicidal ideations are common when its more extreme before treatment. But "hearing voices" that is auditory hallucinations is standard for schizophrenia so it could be schizoaffective. But I am a consumer not a diagnostician and regardless no one could make an online diagnosis especially second hand. But there is no question that if your friend has this problem then they should see a psychiatrist. You could call your local NAMI hotline to obtain some information for a referral but anyone who is suicidal should seek help as soon as possible.

[always hopefull]

she needs to see a psychiatrist Urgently , i dont mean to put the worry on you but she could be in serious danger to herself and others, there is only so much you can do as a friend but in this case professional help is needed, there is no time like the present so get on the phone and call your local hospital who will advise on steps to take, please make sure you do this before she can become any harm to herself, and in the end your friend will thank you for saving her life,
keep me posted,
S

[drifter0213]

i hear peaceful voices -drifter0213

[ILADVOCATE]

Interesting because I have schizoaffective disorder and before I was recovered when I was manic I'd get voices that were telling me how wonderful everything was when I felt elated. However, despite being recovered as regards psychosis I still need a mood stabilizer and when I got back on one recently (the last one I was taken off of because it gave me suicidal ideations, I don't act without my psychiatrist's or neurologist's directive)
I realized that because of mania and grandiosity I had wildly blew things out of proportions but because I have schizoaffective regardless of how good the antipsychotic is I need a mood stabilizer as well. Of course now if things get out of hand, having recovered from the psychotic angle there is an "autopilot" in me. One time a year ago I was writing someone an antagonistic e-mail in a manic state (that was completely off mood stabilizers and a poor decision, I would never do that again) and it went on for pages. Some voice in me which I ended up speaking said "no!" and I just clicked "off" and the whole message disappeared and another voice said "you felt better just in writing that but you never intended to send it right?" and I said "yes of course".
   Same thing with any suicidal ideations from the pain and spasms of my physical disability. I would be flooded with thoughts to overwhelm them on why I wanted to live and they would stop. The auditory hallucinations (voices) and delusions went away after my recovery with glycine but there were moodswings until recently. I never acted in bad judgement but as to what I was worrying about and getting stressed I said to myself "I blew that way out of proportion" so besides neurological issues, as for psychiatric, I still have to keep track of moodswings though its been much better lately.