Thank you so much for sharing your story. Our stories are similar in many respects. I was also ālate onsetā and had been working successfully for many years when I was diagnosed. And like you, I successfully weaned myself from medication and I have worked mostly full-time and mostly professionally throughout my adult life. I think I was successful because I was stubborn enough to question the need for ongoing medication and succeeded in weaning myself ā twice ā as I was ārecoveringā from two extended periods of distressing hearing voices and being paranoid. Unlike you, I shied away from meditation, as Iād had bad experiences in my twenties (I started falling all the time because I associated my mantra with negative words ā anger and anguish ā not healthy). So my forms of focus and reflection included being the best possible mom to my son, joining a faith community that focuses on social justice and social action, singing ā to recordings as well as in choir — and of course workāwhich is vitally necessary to sustaining our lives as well as to maintaining balanceāthe requirement to keep our jobs forces us to negotiate the terms with the voicesāwhether negative or absurdly flattering. I would love to communicate with you further about your experiences. The one commonality I didnāt mention above is that weāre both Asian.
At the risk of shameless self-promotion, Iād like to let you know that Iāve written a memoir, Hearing Voices, Living Fully: Living with the Voices in My Head, which was published last June. I would be very interested in learning your thoughts about my experiences if youāre willing to read it. Itās been very well received and has gotten some great reviews, including one from Ron Unger, who is a leader in the Hearing Voices Movement. Iāve also had occasion to meet and talk with some young people who struggle with voices and paranoia and am told my story helps. Those interactions have inspired me to go back to school ā Iām now 65(!) and work toward the clinical degree that I abandoned in my twenties because I kept making myself physically worrying about the student clients I saw in āPracticumā as part of my program. Iāll be going very part time, as I must work nearly full-time for another five years. But by the time Iām ready to āmostlyā retire, Iāll have my degree. Weāll see where this leads ā but one of the best things that I am doing for myself as I continue to struggle sometimes, is adding my voice and story to the survivor movement.
Hi Fiachra, I think you’re right about dreams. After all, they address what our unconscious–and subconscious–minds perceive but don’t acknowledge or address. And some of those perceptions appeal to our secret desires and stir our hidden and repressed fears. I haven’t read enough of Jung and Freud to write knowledgeably about this. . . .
I’m so glad that CBT has been helpful to you. I am such a firm believer in the power and utility of enlightened therapy and the desire and will of the individual in addressing and overcoming psychological distress.
You write that you’ve “often wondered if hearing a voice was the end of things, or if the hearer could find a way of working things out.” For me it was a beginning. I truly believe I am a better person and more fully myself for having had voices and survived them.
I’ve come to understand, through the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) and some of the readings I’ve done in the past couple of years — notably an ISPS (International Society of Social and Psychological Approaches to Psychosis) publication, Psychosis and Emotion, that the voices in our heads generally address unresolved issues — feelings that we’ve blocked because taboo, or socially or culturally unacceptable — but because they are strong, and perhaps because they represent our own true selves, and will out. And when we continue to ignore them, they begin yelling at us to pay attention. One of the tenets of the HVM is that voices speak metaphorically–so their true meaning isn’t always easy to discern. I don’t know the reason–perhaps it’s a self-protective mechanism–because being direct might cause us more distress. But trying to discern meaningāand also just sharing ā in therapy, and in support groups, is enormously useful because we feel less alone.
Thank you for your lovely, thoughtful comment. And thank you also for noting that my presuppositions rang less true for you. I have to admit that my pronouncements in the last pages of the memoir are intended to serve as a rallying cry for a reform and are, like many rallying cries, based upon limited knowledge (I truly know only my own story, along with a bit of what others have shared with me, and what I have been able–or cared–to understand.) Those pronouncements are based upon my own prejudices, and sadly limited perspective. The hope is to promote respectful conversation–and an earnest effort on everyone’s part to achieve what understanding we can. I’m glad you’re part of this conversation. Claire
Dear Someone Else (and how many of us, truly, are there?),
Thank you for sharing a bit of your own story. So many of the phenomena you describe are similar to my own experiences–during the height of my second “break” I felt connected with a universe of sympathetic, merely curious–and malevolent–“others.” It was incredibly heady–and terrifying. And for a time, I wished to stay in that world — but ultimately I realized that my real place belongs in this one. And here we both are, reading and writing on the Mad in America site. Congratulations on finding yourself again, and very best wishes. Claire
Dear Margaret,
Thank you so much for sharing your story. Our stories are similar in many respects. I was also ālate onsetā and had been working successfully for many years when I was diagnosed. And like you, I successfully weaned myself from medication and I have worked mostly full-time and mostly professionally throughout my adult life. I think I was successful because I was stubborn enough to question the need for ongoing medication and succeeded in weaning myself ā twice ā as I was ārecoveringā from two extended periods of distressing hearing voices and being paranoid. Unlike you, I shied away from meditation, as Iād had bad experiences in my twenties (I started falling all the time because I associated my mantra with negative words ā anger and anguish ā not healthy). So my forms of focus and reflection included being the best possible mom to my son, joining a faith community that focuses on social justice and social action, singing ā to recordings as well as in choir — and of course workāwhich is vitally necessary to sustaining our lives as well as to maintaining balanceāthe requirement to keep our jobs forces us to negotiate the terms with the voicesāwhether negative or absurdly flattering. I would love to communicate with you further about your experiences. The one commonality I didnāt mention above is that weāre both Asian.
At the risk of shameless self-promotion, Iād like to let you know that Iāve written a memoir, Hearing Voices, Living Fully: Living with the Voices in My Head, which was published last June. I would be very interested in learning your thoughts about my experiences if youāre willing to read it. Itās been very well received and has gotten some great reviews, including one from Ron Unger, who is a leader in the Hearing Voices Movement. Iāve also had occasion to meet and talk with some young people who struggle with voices and paranoia and am told my story helps. Those interactions have inspired me to go back to school ā Iām now 65(!) and work toward the clinical degree that I abandoned in my twenties because I kept making myself physically worrying about the student clients I saw in āPracticumā as part of my program. Iāll be going very part time, as I must work nearly full-time for another five years. But by the time Iām ready to āmostlyā retire, Iāll have my degree. Weāll see where this leads ā but one of the best things that I am doing for myself as I continue to struggle sometimes, is adding my voice and story to the survivor movement.
Very best wishes,
Claire Bien
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Hi Fiachra, I think you’re right about dreams. After all, they address what our unconscious–and subconscious–minds perceive but don’t acknowledge or address. And some of those perceptions appeal to our secret desires and stir our hidden and repressed fears. I haven’t read enough of Jung and Freud to write knowledgeably about this. . . .
Report comment
Dear Fiachra,
I’m so glad that CBT has been helpful to you. I am such a firm believer in the power and utility of enlightened therapy and the desire and will of the individual in addressing and overcoming psychological distress.
You write that you’ve “often wondered if hearing a voice was the end of things, or if the hearer could find a way of working things out.” For me it was a beginning. I truly believe I am a better person and more fully myself for having had voices and survived them.
I’ve come to understand, through the Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) and some of the readings I’ve done in the past couple of years — notably an ISPS (International Society of Social and Psychological Approaches to Psychosis) publication, Psychosis and Emotion, that the voices in our heads generally address unresolved issues — feelings that we’ve blocked because taboo, or socially or culturally unacceptable — but because they are strong, and perhaps because they represent our own true selves, and will out. And when we continue to ignore them, they begin yelling at us to pay attention. One of the tenets of the HVM is that voices speak metaphorically–so their true meaning isn’t always easy to discern. I don’t know the reason–perhaps it’s a self-protective mechanism–because being direct might cause us more distress. But trying to discern meaningāand also just sharing ā in therapy, and in support groups, is enormously useful because we feel less alone.
Report comment
Dear Berta,
Thank you for your lovely, thoughtful comment. And thank you also for noting that my presuppositions rang less true for you. I have to admit that my pronouncements in the last pages of the memoir are intended to serve as a rallying cry for a reform and are, like many rallying cries, based upon limited knowledge (I truly know only my own story, along with a bit of what others have shared with me, and what I have been able–or cared–to understand.) Those pronouncements are based upon my own prejudices, and sadly limited perspective. The hope is to promote respectful conversation–and an earnest effort on everyone’s part to achieve what understanding we can. I’m glad you’re part of this conversation. Claire
Report comment
Dear Someone Else (and how many of us, truly, are there?),
Thank you for sharing a bit of your own story. So many of the phenomena you describe are similar to my own experiences–during the height of my second “break” I felt connected with a universe of sympathetic, merely curious–and malevolent–“others.” It was incredibly heady–and terrifying. And for a time, I wished to stay in that world — but ultimately I realized that my real place belongs in this one. And here we both are, reading and writing on the Mad in America site. Congratulations on finding yourself again, and very best wishes. Claire
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