[flowingly]

...I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what was "normal."

So I told her, "Sort of."
Then she asked me if THEY talk to ME, and I didn't know what to say.
Then she asked me if I talk to THEM, and I didn't know what to say.

Then she asked me if THEY talked to EACH OTHER, and I giggled out loud. Although I think I did more cause it made me nervous. I don't know what's "normal" voices. I mean, I get spontaneous images in my mind sometimes that are so vivid that they distract me from what I'm doing. The images are nothing I've ever seen, but places or people that I don't know. As for actual voices, I certainly don't feel alone in my head, but...oh I don't know. Just this past weekend, I was laying down with my boyfriend. He was asleep, and I was just awake but with my eyes closed, resting. Suddenly I got an image of a girl and was telling me "Why don't you go to the other side?" It wasn't my voice, it just happened...out of nowhere.

How do I know if I should mention them to my psych, and how? How do I know it's not just my imagination.

 

[Da'Burgh]

From my understanding all psychs ask this question. It's just an evaluation. As for the girl you saw or whatnot, that was more than likely just your imagination running wild. With schizo (which is what shes reffering to) you would interact with the voices and you wouldn't wonder where they came from or how you though them. They just "are".

 

[flowingly]

From my understanding all psychs ask this question. It's just an evaluation. As for the girl you saw or whatnot, that was more than likely just your imagination running wild. With schizo (which is what shes reffering to) you would interact with the voices and you wouldn't wonder where they came from or how you though them. They just "are".

Well, I actually SAW a little girl in my room when I was...18ish. I never once questioned she wasn't real. She was just...in my room, out of nowhere, playing with some of my things. I SAW her.

 

[Da'Burgh]

Were you very very tired or on any drugs? I remember a night when I was so sleep deprived I saw a ghost of an of Army patriot in his blue coat. His face seemed blurry but I could see his outline. Have you had any other hallucinations?

 

[flowingly]

Were you very very tired or on any drugs? I remember a night when I was so sleep deprived I saw a ghost of an of Army patriot in his blue coat. His face seemed blurry but I could see his outline. Have you had any other hallucinations?

No, no drugs, wasn't sleepy or tired.

She was playing with an old box of stickers and stuff that I had from when I was younger. It was stored, and I never took it out. But when I saw her, her and the box were by my bed, and she was MOVING the little pieces and stuff. I never knew how the box got there. When the girl vanished, the box was still on the floor where she left it.

I've sort of hallucinated, perhaps. One of my old friends used to have a "haunted" house, and I helped to rid him of the spirits. Stuff like that, nothing concrete-seeming like the little girl.

 

[blackwinded]

...I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what was "normal."

So I told her, "Sort of."
Then she asked me if THEY talk to ME, and I didn't know what to say.
Then she asked me if I talk to THEM, and I didn't know what to say.

Then she asked me if THEY talked to EACH OTHER, and I giggled out loud. Although I think I did more cause it made me nervous. I don't know what's "normal" voices. I mean, I get spontaneous images in my mind sometimes that are so vivid that they distract me from what I'm doing. The images are nothing I've ever seen, but places or people that I don't know. As for actual voices, I certainly don't feel alone in my head, but...oh I don't know. Just this past weekend, I was laying down with my boyfriend. He was asleep, and I was just awake but with my eyes closed, resting. Suddenly I got an image of a girl and was telling me "Why don't you go to the other side?" It wasn't my voice, it just happened...out of nowhere.

How do I know if I should mention them to my psych, and how? How do I know it's not just my imagination.

It took me until i was sixteen years old to realize i've been hearing voices all my life . They started when i was about 3 or 4. I would often have images/visions in my head along with them, of strange people and places and things i can't even describe. I think i thought it was pretty normal my whole life, because it's been going on since i was so young. Or at least, i didn't think i was "hearing Voices" because they weren't external, as if someone was in the room with me. They sounded more like they were coming from speakers inside my ears.
Whenever psychiatrists had asked me in the past "do you hear voices or see things" I would always say no.

So...i went years, thinking i was "normal", and always being amazed when hearing stories of my grandmother and aunt who were schizophrenic. I would think to myself "How aweful that they had to go through that" not even knowing that i was experiencing it myself. Again, i always thought that to be concidered "hearing voices", they had to be completly external. I was wrong...voices can come in many forms.

Anyways, what made me realize i was hallucinating, was durring my first trip to the psych ward (I was suicidal and cutting myself..that's why i was there) After talking to other kids in the hospital who had hallucinations, i slowly began to realize i was too...and that they were getting worse.

Most of the voices i hear these days are inside my head, like the way i hear my own thoughts, only they are not my thoughts. I can't predict them or control them. Most of the time, it is a bunch of backround noise--like 10 or 20 voices talking at once. voices of men and women. And usually i can't really make sense of what they are saying. But sometimes one or two or three voices will come out and talk about me or tell me to do things. Sometimes i hear them screaming or laughing, or singing.
The other week, i heard some girl telling me her name was "katie or Katrina" ...guess she couldn't make up her mind.
It's strange, because when i am having episodes of hearing these voices in my head, i get this strange sick feeling. It's hard to describe, but it's kind've like nausea.

Also, when i pass by people on the street or when im driving, they put their evil thoughts into my head--telling me i'm powerless and they are going to get me, or "ha ha ha, sucker!: stuff like that...so it's like i have telepathy (actually, i think i do) and sometimes i can feel people pulling my thoughts away from me.

This feeling of not being alone in your head...have you always had that feeling, or is it something new? Everyone has their own inner dialogue and it;s normal for people to play out conversations and arguements with other people in their head. The difference between this and voice hearing, is you have control over these "voices of other people" you make them say what you want them to say, so it's just part of your own thoughts.

I think you should mention all this to your psych. Also, the voices and visions you get when your eyes are closed and you are resting... I have the same kind of things. The voices and images i hear get much louder and more clear when i am closing my eyes, resting or about to fall asleep. i've heard that this can be somewhat normal, then again, i've heard that it's not. So i don't know. It;'s really confusing me!

well, good luck..sorry this reply was so long. I hope i didn't cause more confusion.

-becka

 

[flowingly]

But, I don't make them say what I want. They just ... happen. Sometimes if I listen really carefully, I hear people talking but I can't make out what they're saying. The images have been happening for years. They come out of nowhere, at any time, and feel like they're happening right in front of me: I get lost in them for a second or so.

Like one time, all of a sudden I'd "see" an image of a man right up close to my face, just looking at me. Mostly it's people, but sometimes other things.

 

[blackwinded]

[
No, no drugs, wasn't sleepy or tired.

She was playing with an old box of stickers and stuff that I had from when I was younger. It was stored, and I never took it out. But when I saw her, her and the box were by my bed, and she was MOVING the little pieces and stuff. I never knew how the box got there. When the girl vanished, the box was still on the floor where she left it.

I've sort of hallucinated, perhaps. One of my old friends used to have a "haunted" house, and I helped to rid him of the spirits. Stuff like that, nothing concrete-seeming like the little girl.

Do you remember if you were depressed or manic when you had this hallucination. People with severe depression or bipolar disorder can have hallucinations.
Actually, i was diagnosed with psychotic depression before they realized i have schizophrenia...they assumed that my hallucinations and delusions were only occuring while i was depressed. But they weren't.

-becka

 

[flowingly]

Do you remember if you were depressed or manic when you had this hallucination. People with severe depression or bipolar disorder can have hallucinations.
Actually, i was diagnosed with psychotic depression before they realized i have schizophrenia...they assumed that my hallucinations and delusions were only occuring while i was depressed. But they weren't.

-becka

No, that was before my DP started. I wasn't depressed or manic. I mean, I was sad and worried, but not depressed like it affected my life or anything.

 

[blackwinded]

..here is a really good description of hearing voices that i found...

It's on mentalhealth.org I'd post the link, but i dont know how.

hope it helps.

"
"What is it like to hear voices?

It is difficult to explain what it is like to hear "voices", particularly if you have never heard voices yourself. However, the experience of hearing voices is not as alien an experience as it is generally thought to be. Firstly, it may be the same as hearing a voice in the normal way through your ears, the difference being that the "voice" has no physical cause - but like normal voices, there is variety and every experience has its differences. You may think you have never experienced this, but are you sure? You may have had the experience of hearing someone call your name only to find that there is no one there. Indeed, research shows that especially for people recently bereaved, it is not an uncommon experience to hear the voice of the recently deceased person.

As well as hearing voices through the ears, people also hear voices as if they are thoughts entering the mind from somewhere outside themselves. This is not the same as a suddenly inspired idea, which people usually recognise as coming from themselves, rather the thoughts are not their own and would seem to come from outside their own consciousness, like telepathy. A good example of this is the experience of recalling a rhyme or tune, which you find yourself repeating unconsciously under your breath and which keeps going through your head again and again. You can even find yourself humming it. You never took a decision to start thinking of it and it's difficult to stop thinking about it. The difference between the tune and "voice thought" which appears as words in your mind is that it may go on to speak coherently to you and even engage you in conversation. You, yourself are not responsible for it and you have no idea what this "voice" is going to say next.

There are many different ways to hear voices. Voices can be experienced in the head, from outside the head or even in the body. It may be one voice or many voices. The voice may talk to you or about you. There are other ways to hear voices, some of them make the phrase "hearing voices" a poor description and perhaps one day we will have to come up with a better one - because it is never the same for everyone. Some people for instance, experience non verbal thoughts, images and visions, tastes, smells and touch. All with no physical cause and all sensations they didn't call into being themselves. Voices can be like dreams, we all dream and experience words, images and even sensations. When we are bored we can drift off and have a short dream. When we dream all sorts of strange things can happen to us, but we still believe they're really happening to us. Hearing voices can be like that - a waking dream - but something that is experienced as real. For voice hearers, the voices might be present all day and have the effect of preventing them from doing things in their daily life. Voices might also punish the voice hearer if they don't do what the voice wants them to do. For example; leaving a party on their say so; not being able to talk about the voices; becoming silent and as a result isolated from other people."

-becka

 

[flowingly]

Thank you for the article. It wasn't until i got to the end of the article that I started thinking it wasn't just .. my imagination. I get "told" to do things sometimes, and that if I don't, bad things will happen, so I do them. Little things though, like washing a fork I just washed or they will keep pestering me and making me feel bad. I used to think it was OCD, but it's always something different. So I don't know. I'll just make a note to actually mention it to the psych. I've just been so afraid that if I open up too much I will get hospitalized or sent to an institution or something. Plus, the demands I hear aren't all the time, only sometimes. Thanks for the article, though. i might bring it in with me on my next visit.

 

[blackwinded]

Thank you for the article. It wasn't until i got to the end of the article that I started thinking it wasn't just .. my imagination. I get "told" to do things sometimes, and that if I don't, bad things will happen, so I do them. Little things though, like washing a fork I just washed or they will keep pestering me and making me feel bad. I used to think it was OCD, but it's always something different. So I don't know. I'll just make a note to actually mention it to the psych. I've just been so afraid that if I open up too much I will get hospitalized or sent to an institution or something. Plus, the demands I hear aren't all the time, only sometimes. Thanks for the article, though. i might bring it in with me on my next visit.

Glad the article helped. It helped me a lot too to understand more

If you want my opinion, it does sound like you are hearing voices. What you have described sounds pretty much identical to what i experience. Things like the voices telling you to wash a fork and such or bad things will happen. I get that kind of thing all the time..: the voices telling me to do this and that. Saying things that make no sense and such.

I also get those imgages/visions like you descibed, but i've had less of them lately. I had a particularly bad episode that went on and off for about a year when i was about 13. On and off, durring the day, i would suddenly get all kinds of strange images (people/places, undescribable things) It wasn't exactly like i was seeing things in this world, but like i was seeing into another demension. Anyways, i would always get this horrible, strange sick feeling along with these images, and i'd have to lay down for a few minutes. I still get the sick feelings, like when i hear voices, but it is thankfully not nearly as bad as it use to be.

don't worry, they aren't going to hospitalize you for this stuff by itself. The only way they can do that, is if you are an immediate danger to yourself or others. And, since you are over 18, it's more your choice if you want to go to the hospital or not. I've been to the psych ward quite a few times, but only one of which was involuntary, but that was when i was still underaged. Also, even if you ever get put into a hospital, you wont be there for much longer than a week, if that. The avergae stay is about 4 or 5 days. People are more likely to be put in the hospital for being suicidal or homicidal, then they are for having hallucinations and delusions alone.

I don't hear voices all the time. Most people with schizophrenia or other forms of psychosis don't have hallucinations absolutly all the time. They usually have them quite a lot, but not necissarily all the time. When i am in an acute phase, i have them constantly for weeks and weeks, but other than that, they are more on and off. Sometimes i will go nearly a week without hearing hardly any voices. I think lots of people have the misbelief that people with psychosis are always psychotic.

-becka

 

[peacedove]

Oh my god I get that too.

"I get 'told' to do things sometimes, and that if I don't, bad things will happen, so I do them. Little things though, like washing a fork I just washed or they will keep pestering me and making me feel bad. I used to think it was OCD, but it's always something different."

Since I was a little kid. But I never thought it was considered hearing voices cuz it's the same voice that's always in my head ya know? My own voice I guess... although sometimes I thought it was God or Satan... they would be the ones telling me to do things and if I didn't I'd go to hell. But it wasn't a scary voice or anything.

And a lot of times I can't control the voice but I always just referred to that as my "racing thoughts". [/quote]

 

[peacedove]

Why is that quote thing at the end of my post. How do you guys quote each other? I tried to do it but couldn't figure it out so then I just put my own quotes and copied and pasted.

 

[blackwinded]

Oh my god I get that too.

"I get 'told' to do things sometimes, and that if I don't, bad things will happen, so I do them. Little things though, like washing a fork I just washed or they will keep pestering me and making me feel bad. I used to think it was OCD, but it's always something different."

Since I was a little kid. But I never thought it was considered hearing voices cuz it's the same voice that's always in my head ya know? My own voice I guess... although sometimes I thought it was God or Satan... they would be the ones telling me to do things and if I didn't I'd go to hell. But it wasn't a scary voice or anything.

And a lot of times I can't control the voice but I always just referred to that as my "racing thoughts".

[/quote]

Hi peacedove,

if it is your own inner voice telling you to do these things, then it probably is more of an OCD thing. In a way, people with OCD do kind've hear voices, but it is just their own inner thoughts/voice gone out of control.

But if your hearing voices in your head that you dont know where they are coming from and they sound like someone else and such, and you can;t predict them, then that would be more of an auditory hallucination.

-becka

 

[blackwinded]

Why is that quote thing at the end of my post. How do you guys quote each other? I tried to do it but couldn't figure it out so then I just put my own quotes and copied and pasted.

there should be a little icon at the upper right corner of each post that says "quote" if you click that, then it will take you to the reply page and it will have quoted that particular post.


-becka

 

[blackwinded]

From my understanding all psychs ask this question. It's just an evaluation. As for the girl you saw or whatnot, that was more than likely just your imagination running wild. With schizo (which is what shes reffering to) you would interact with the voices and you wouldn't wonder where they came from or how you though them. They just "are".

Not necissarily. I'm schizophrenic, but i usually don't interact with my voices. Usually, because they are talking amongst themselves saying things that make no sense. When they do talk to me or say things about me, i will usually just sit back and listen. Only sometimes do i respond.

A lot of schizophrenics dont interact with the voices. Sometimes because they can't ( the voices don't answer them or ) or sometimes because they don't want to.

Also, i think plenty of schizophrenics, including me, wonder where the hallucinations come from. Why wouldn't we?

-becka

 

[Martinelv]

Hmmm. I think you should be very careful with this. Everyone, absolutely everyone, can hallucinate. I hallucinate regularly when I have sleep paralysis, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Schizophrenia. You can hallucinate when you are tired, intensely concentrating on something, etc, etc, and these are nothing to do with mental illness either.

When you are pouring all your mental energy into obsessing about something, especially if you're straining to 'check' if you are hearing voices or whatever, then you probably will! As Blackwinded said, this is entirely different from her experiences of Schizophrenia.

With almost any psychological complaint, they are going to ask you if you hear voices. I've been asked many, many times. It's just a tick in a box.

I don't want to get into this, because it's a sensitive issue, but I'd like to comment, or rather ask a question on this:

When they do talk to me or say things about me, i will usually just sit back and listen.

Blackwinded, you say you don't interact with your voices, but isn't sitting back and listening to them interaction?

 

[flowingly]

blackwinded,

The reason they kept asking me about the voices is because my grandpa was Schizophrenic, and they said it was hereditary. I remember reading about it in high school and college, but it was one of those things you think only happens to someone else. Then again, it could be nothing. Boy will my psych make lots of money with me, heh

 

[blackwinded]

Hmmm. I think you should be very careful with this. Everyone, absolutely everyone, can hallucinate. I hallucinate regularly when I have sleep paralysis, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Schizophrenia. You can hallucinate when you are tired, intensely concentrating on something, etc, etc, and these are nothing to do with mental illness either.
When you are pouring all your mental energy into obsessing about something, especially if you're straining to 'check' if you are hearing voices or whatever, then you probably will! As Blackwinded said, this is entirely different from her experiences of Schizophrenia.

I agree with Martin. You do have to be really careful with this kind of thing. Most people who are studying psychology will start over-analyzing themselves and think they have all kinds of mental disorders. When i started doing my own research, I would think i had almost every mental disorder i read about. Everyone can have mild hallucinations at times, like when they are lacking sleep or are about to fall off to sleep, but i still think this doesn't seem to be the case with you, flowingly. Sounds like you are having hallucinations while you are completly awake from what you described.
But also something to keep in mind: people who have hallucinations don't necissarily have schizophrenia...it could be depression or bipolar or PTSD, or a number of other possible causes.

Blackwinded, you say you don't interact with your voices, but isn't sitting back and listening to them interaction?

good point, Martin. I suppose you're right.

-becka