Hearing Voices

[paranoid_cataclysm]

I thought of a question that interested me... how many of you who hear voices hear them from inside your mind, from outside of your mind or both?

[Xila31]

darlenedaisy: oh yeah, I worry people are out to hurt me too when I am walking. You're not alone. I try to look at people so that I can identify them. >.> Also, when I'm driving I worry the people in the cars behind me are getting mad and might ram me from behind.

paranoid_c: Haha.... yeah, that's funny. Maybe it is good I couldn't answer that phone. O.O I don't really want to talk to whoever would be calling.

[darlenedaisy]

Wow, what a relief to find this site and find others who are experience this stuff too.

I would never admit it before, but I hear people whispering mean things about me, they are on the other side of the wall, or door, and it is just awful the things I hear.  I think there really are people talking, but my mind creates what they are saying, and it seems so real.

Then, with paranoia, I feel people are following me, the people are real, but I think I am going to be stabbed or killed at any moment, I am in terror inside, and panic. One time I almost clobbered a guy with my purse....if he had taken one step closer, he would have got it !!!

I sometimes have to close my curtains, because I have this same paranoia that re-occurs....these people are out to kill me, and watch with binoculars, into my windows.

When I get normal again, I know it is not real, but it seems so real when I am in it !
After when I come down, I feel so ashamed and  embarrassed, I hate feeling so out of control.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

ILADVOCATE -
I was wondering out of curiosity since you brought it up, did the psychiatrist say exactly how people who hear the thought coming as if from an external source commenting on them don't respond well to treatment?  Does the medicine just not work as good or does it work physically like it should but just the symptoms still present themselves anyway?

Xila31 -
I had a funny thought (not being serious with this, of course) that maybe if you were able to pick up that phone you heard that maybe there would be voices on the other end of the "call" and that's why you haven't been hearing voices all this time because they got impatient and gave up after the first try.  Those of us who didn't get a ring from them on our internal phone just had the voices rudely bust in the door to our mind.  

[Xila31]

That's really interesting to think that if you truly think the auditory hallucination is separate then it is harder to treat. I wonder if that is why some of the more sever cases of violent schizophrenics end up where they do, (such as that one that believed his dog was talking to him.)

It also makes me wonder what my phone means. Because I thought it was outside of myself for sure, and I thought it was separate and not a thought in my head. But it wasn't commenting on anything, just ringing.

[ILADVOCATE]

Before my current recovery the auditory hallucinations I had were thoughts and I recognized them as such. What I did not realize was that they were highly delusional in nature. I also vocalized them in that I would repeat random phrases in a manner that had aspects of echolalia. As regarding what I heard it could be music or phrases but it was generally in itself a "comment" on what was going on. Right now if I were off a mood stabilizer I would exhibit delusions and perhaps exhibit some auditory hallucinations. That depends but being a person with schizoaffective disorder I do require a mood stabilizer in addition to an antipsychotic (no matter how effective, Clozaril was the only exception to this rule). I do know from what I've been informed by psychiatrists that if a person's auditory hallucinations appear to come from outside of them and are thought of as seperate and commenting on them that they will not respond as well to treatment. I was told by my psychiatrist that in the past, even on standard antipsychotics that my self awareness was relatively high and that's why I responded well to treatment. For example all the times I went to psych. hospital in the past I went on my own, knowing that things were wrong and that was what I needed.

[paranoid_cataclysm]

HoneyNut -
Yes well the voices I hear in my head are easily distinguishable but they are almost as loud as if I were actually hearing them and when I get tired my thoughts start to become audible.  Hearing things outside of my mind are hard to distinguish from a real noise so I go check the area to try to find things that made the noise.  My visual hallucinations are somewhat not as hard to distinguish when they involve monsters and such but these still can scare me anyway.

Xila31 -
Hopefully they are giving you accommodations at least, they're require do that as long as you can perform the essential functions of the job.  Sometimes organizations get too busy trying to help their clients/customers/whatever, that they totally forget they need to take care of their employees too.