Hearing Voices

Ten years ago I was drugged and then tortured, for how long I don't know, all I know is by the end of it I was irreparably damaged and changed for life.

This event cost me everything I had, I lost my home and became homeless, I lost all my friendships and connections and I lost my sanity.

Looking through the eyes of someone who had experienced such a violation of their being the world became a very different place. When once I had felt comfortable and safe I now found my environment hostile and dark.

And I heard voices.

While some were members of my family who had passed on and cared for my situation, most were very unforgiving.

They blamed me for being raped and we're the very opposite of supportive. They very quickly degraded what was left of my self esteem and self worth.

It was just me and the voices. And to be honest it was like I had never escaped the man who assaulted me. Because they reminded me of him.

I completely lost touch with the creative, intelligent woman I had been before this. I spent years aimlessly walking the streets consumed by voices who said they were witches and out to destroy me. And I became entangled in the mental health system being retraumatised again and again with repeated hospital admissions as a result of my apparent insanity as witnessed by the public. I never found any real support in those places though. And the medications have done little to quieten the voices and give me some much needed solitude from them.

It's been a hard road for ten years, the time of my life when I should have been finding a partner and having children was stolen from me. That is something I will never get back. And because the voices are still so brutal in my every day life to this day I am not given the chance to process the grief and deep sadness of losing the chance to have children and basically having my youth stolen.

It is torture. I am still living with the man that assaulted me.

I hear others aswell. Women are the worst. The compare our situations, they do not empathise with my experience and chose instead to put themselves above me. One of them taunts me by saying my deceased son is her child not mine and that my estranged brother who I was very close to before I was tortured is hers. It is incredibly hurtful and they offer no sympathy.

Although they are voices it is much like the dynamics of being in a toxic relationship with a group of people. Narcissistic and manipulative behaviour. The only thing is that because they are voices in my head they even follow me to the toilet, I cannot escape them by going into another room.

Most of the time the things they say to me make me feel suicidal. It's really difficult having people around me who only see the bad in me when I was once loved and respected by all the people in my life. Those people are long gone and it is very lonely.

I think they say that there is nothing lonelier than being in a crowd of people who don't understand you and you would feel less alone if you were just in your own company and I can definitely relate to that.

Recently I was homeless and had a seizure as a result of no food intake. I was in a deep psychosis and the voices made me feel guilty for eating because I receive a pension and they made me think that it's stealing so I stopped spending money on food. It was incredibly scary. It's so hard going through this all alone. After this I started to head some helpful voices. They encouraged me and showed me kindness. It showed me how sensitive I am to the impact of others. Because when I had their influence as opposed to the cruel calculating ones I felt alone safer and happier with myself as a person. Being with the negative ones makes me contract into myself and act out in ways I wouldn't normally. They make me feel like a bad person and they feed off my insecurities. They can suck the life out of a room very quickly and make me feel hopeless.

I know what I need to feel better. I need a genuine person who understands what I'm going through and is willing to give me their time. In the last ten years I have only ever seen improvement in my quality of life when someone has done that for me. It is very rare to find such a person. The world has become so fast paced and self involved these days that it is very hard to find such a person. That's why it gave me great relief to have kind voices after the seizure. Another reason to grieve the loss of such companions when I had nobody else.

My life feels like a tragedy most of the time and I feel like I was made for much more than this. Also I have seen the other side when I have felt life was not just worth living but that it was magical. Deep inside I know this is hurting me deeply but I spend most of my time trying to ignore that because it is too painful to acknowledge.

That might have seemed like a lot but really that was only a small fragment of what I experience. I still have hope that one day I will again experience the magic of life and not just the tragedy but in all honesty I find life incredibly difficult.