Hearing voices and psychosis 🗯️

@SleeplessRaven My dear fellow sufferer i hear you loud and clear. So much of what you are saying has been my reality, and still often is.

Medication wise i fully agree, meds are not everything, and often do not stop the voices or inner disturbances we daily experience. [edited by moderator]

@RiverSeal @Dimity @tyme @Alittleorange

i do not believe that my schizophrenia is solely psychical, for i'm not solely physical, therefore the solution is not just treating the physical symptoms, though such can be most helpful at the right time, but also, and in particular, the psychological/spiritual.

i have now come to believe that i as a schizophrenic have the gift of discernment, but that the lies i believed, and the violence and the evil i met, especially because of my sexual assault, made all things turn sour in a big way in my inner reality/dwelling place.

My first psychotic experiences as a young child had been good not bad. At least for me my hallucinations were much more like living a kind of strange and at times scary but still also wonderful 'fairy tale' within. (For how could someone else, i reasoned in my childish mind, speak, and be, to me like someone's 'spirit/consciousness', inside of my head? Yet for years i spoke to 'Jesus' like this and 'He' to me. (For at the time i did not understand my paranoid alter was also a product of my 'psychotic mind', but hated myself a coward and faithless weasel.))

However having become aware of all this, especially through excellent LOVE based counselling, made a huge difference. For i was taught to use mindfulness, according to the rule of love, that i finally could begin the merging of my alters, and begin a wholistic approach instead of a broken up one. For the 'creation' of me in my alters, was a psychological division (which 'survival instinct' had me use at the time of my trauma experiences, and i literally created myself an other dimension of reality and found also life there in. We are talking about division of self to the extremities of psychological/spiritual existence. I believer that is why i hear evil voices as well as good ones. It ALL depends were my focus is!

For me the problem was how i had been dealing with myself in my alters - always trying to get rid of myself in my other selves, whatever alter i was in - at first not realising that these inner divisions within myself can NEVER be healed by pills, but only by myself LOVING myself away from the lovelessness i had my ' inner subdivisions' in, understanding i am ONE within many, and ALL of me is ME, not cut up as i had been. For NOTHING in me, i learned to understand, is to be labelled away, rejected or hated. Only love knows the answers that i seek.

Through the counselling i received i understood that i needed to let love grow me out of the loveless hole i found my existence in. That horrible 'emptiness within me, that spiritual black hole sucking me into The Abyss below.' This loveless inner reality which had so very cruelly created the inner divisions within me,to be me setup against me. (For at the time of my trauma i had agreed to hide away in that place.) And so me revoking my inner divisions, and learning to accept myself in my WHOLE, good and bad, while placing truthful loving all around myself, banning ALL evil voices, thoughts and feelings OUT of my reality more and more, the healing of my conscious reality, where the pills/drugs is become less and less needed, even as love regrows me me.

So yes my friend in suffering i still use medications at times. Mostly natural remedies, but at times the disturbance within me is so great, i need to knock my mind out for a bit, then i take antipsychotics, until i can see truth from lies again. This is how i have battled medicating and find healing for myself and those crappy voices forcing themselves into my existence through the lies of my on tilt mind. Not something we can do on our own. Be need a lot of guidance, support and love to be able to overcome those crappy voices making the drinking that life waters so very bitter to drink.

For me the evil voices are fading away more and more, even as love for the truth of myself grows me away from the hell of my past.

Suffering from DID does that to us doesn't it? THE LIES THAT ATTACKED US, CUT US UP BADLY, AND LEFT US TO PERISH THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFUSION OF US BLOWN TO BITS RIGHT INSIDE OUR INNER REALITY, BY THE TRAUMA/EVIL WE BEEN THROUGH.

Schizophrenia is about all that inner division and the confusion it creates within. The medical world tries to treat us with pills, but we need much more than pills. We need a coming back together one whole, which only we ourselves can do being mindful of ourselves in a truthfully loving way instead of whatever loveless way we may have used in the past.

For loving truthfully, also ourself brings/grows/materialises/creates/builds us our inner peace. This is what i have learned to understand about letting the voice of love dominate our daily reality instead of those focusing on those evil voices trying to distract us from what is really important.

Hang in my friend. We are not powerless having to hear voices and see hallucinations. Thank God there is more healing than treating symptoms around.

@DownMoreThanUp @Dimity

Thank you for sharing your experiences with me, it really does help to know there’s people who have had similar experiences and have managed to get further through than I have. I guess it helps see that there could be a path forward.

I agree that there’s more than just a physical self that needs to be addressed. I’ve seen and heard devils since I was a child - they fight inside me for control and I’ve landed in a weird limbo I don’t know how to get out of where neither the light nor the dark have power. I feel I need to be medicated because I know what happens when I’m not, but I’m also not at a stage where I’d be capable of safely adjusting my dosage as needed depending on my state. I hope to get there someday.

@SleeplessRaven I can understand both the internal battle with demons and the uncertainty re medication level, having come through both, and being OK now touch wood. Apart from anxiety and depression that I'm getting support with.

Do you have an ongoing relationship with your prescriber? That's just so important. I think for us it's not appropriate to only see a psychiatrist for a one off medication review.

@Dimity

The one I’m seeing is one who I have a bit of history with, I started seeing her when I was hospitalised last. I did make the mistake of trying to go to another psychiatrist but that went incredibly badly so I won’t make the same mistake again even if I don’t know if my current one is right for me. I haven’t been able to find a psychologist I can work with yet though.

@SleeplessRaven I agree it's hard to locate compatible psychologists.

I've found the Psychology Today online locator tool helpful to search for someone based on location, training (eg clinical psychologist vs counsellor or other backgrounds) and treatment modalities (if you have a preference for particular therapies). Then you can make a short-list to google their practice websites where they usually describe themselves and their approaches so you get an inkling of their personal style. Billing and availability can then make or break the deal. I think I looked at the directories of a couple of professional associations too.

@Dimity
that’s a good idea - I didn’t actually think about trying something like that. I guess I’m sort of worried about how many times I’ll have to retell my story on the path to finding someone who can help me.

@SleeplessRaven Yes i relate very much.

It were the demons i perceive all around, that literally fathered me a paranoid schizophrenic, a religious perfectionist, as well as my raging angry, the self I religiously baptised my evil self, though i found birth at a much later date in my life, believing their lies after being badly damaged.

Yet when i stopped believing the demons not heeding them, i learned to understand they are, but they cannot speak truth about me or anyone. For even when demons often talk about truth - even making out is important and must be obeyed, they lie.

On the other hand, true love, does not see the wrongs, the demons tell us is ourselves, or others. This is them duplicating themselves in me when i believe their lies. For not only demons can duplicate themselves love can too, true love can help you overcome those evil voices.

For in my life the demons have not gone away. However getting to know how love speaks and thinks, i know who those demons are now, and who i am, this made all the difference in my daily life.

So the way to overcome the demons is to know them, and to know yourself, who you really are, not what those demons say, and make you feel, you are.

Getting to know love like this has literally blown my mind wide open to receive good instead of bad even during bad times. E.g when the voices of the demons are cutting me down, or threatening to take over, anxiety can no longer lay me lame, and not understanding what is happening can no longer blind me, and hearing untrue voices cannot drown out my own voice, or need to be, any longer. For love does not let go of its own. For only that within me that is not loving is done away with by love, the very love growing me practising it on myself and all around whenever i get a chance.

TRIGGER: An example of love dealing with a schizophrenic experience!

i hope this gives you some perspective on how you could find aid.

Oh i have learned that the quickest way to find a good counsellor is by reviews that you can read. Not those glossy one liners, but really stories of mentally ill people finding healing and support.

Hi @Dimity @RiverSeal @SleeplessRaven @DownMoreThanUp

I agree that it is nice the conversation was opened up again.

Last year i had a series of sessions with a psychologist, not due to my usual anxiety or other things simply because it was recommended and a question I asked her was "where, or are there peer support groups for those with schizophrenia."

The answer it seemed was no, so I went looking and found SANE.

As mentioned, I am successfully medicated (if that is what we say), and a psychiatrists report recently said "in remission." I thought that was cancer. Anyway, I am glad I found SANE as it is nice to know you aren't alone, and also in some ways able to assist.

It is hard to say what the future holds, hopefully the envelopes of the mind will remain successfully medicated, and we will have 'sane' discourse. For those struggling though keep up the good fight and remember that peoples opinions are nothing more than that when they are filled with bias and hate, such is the outcomes of stigmas.

Alittleorange

@DownMoreThanUp

Thank you for sharing all of that.. it means a lot you’d share something so difficult.

I think I have a long path to walk - I don’t the strength for disobeying the demons to even be an option; they take control. I think I haven’t got a strong enough sense of self to really challenge that, because I don’t even know who I am amongst all of the alters and voices. I’m even afraid to lose the voices to medication because I think there’ll be nothing of ‘me’ left if they go.

@SleeplessRaven i know what you mean i have been in the same boat for many years lost and down and out hating my life.

This is why counselling is so very important my friend.

To find yourself back from among all the lies that have been whispering, talking and screaming inside your head for all these years, fathering what i term untrue selves.

ITS BEST EVER TO BE TRUE TO YOURSELF AGAIN.

i used to hide in my bedroom during the times my evil voices spoke. Fearing myself so much in my raging alter that I denied myself my loved ones, or anyone else for that matter.

Only ever exemplifying my daily troubles never solving them.

We ourself need to know ourself before we can heal ourself or others.Be kind to yourself and feel the flow of good energy. Be kind to someone else and ride along on the wave of good energy..