Schizophrenia voices

[Tranquillity]

Apologies if I've asked this question before. What I'm interested to know is if any voice hearing sufferers have been able to have permanent remission without antipsychotics, maybe by way of other therapies or lifestyle changes?

My voices have started to get bad again in the last couple of days, but I don't like taking or living on antipsychotics. Most of the messaging I'm quite used to now (has been happening for five years). It is mostly religious in nature purportedly supernatural in origin with shocking negative prognostications, scaremongering, and purported insights into what others think of me or their actions.

Anyway, I'm quite sick of it, but as I said I don't like antipsychotic medication. So, I'm interested to know if anything has worked for anyone else. 

Thanks

[lavenderhaze]

Hi @Tranquillity

I'm really sorry to hear that your voices have been getting worse over the last couple of days. Have there been any triggers recently that you were able to identify?

I can't personally speak from lived experience, but I truly hope that others who have found success with different therapies or lifestyle changes will share their stories with you.

It's understandable that you want to explore options beyond antipsychotics. Have you tried any alternative therapies or changes so far that have had any positive effects?

Stay strong, and I hope you find the support and relief you're looking for. ❤️

[Tranquillity]

Thank you,  @lavenderhaze 

The only things that work are: sleep, music and an absorbing activity. However, if it becomes bad even these things are difficult to bring about a remission. Sometimes, I've had to resort to counting out aloud continually in severe episodes. This gets very tiresome, though.

Anyway, I have to keep trying everything that has some effect at bringing improvement if I'm going to avoid antipsychotic therapy. Thankfully, most of the time I'm coping fairly well without medication these days.  But, sometimes, the voices creep back in and start to get bad.

For me—and I don't know how this compares to other voice hearing sufferers—when the voices start they are totally incessant and relentless. Not a moment of pause. It can get quite tiresome. To begin with, I was totally scared out of my mind. But these days, I had just a momentary episode about two or three months ago where they were getting really bad and I started to become a bit anxious with some brief feelings of terror. But that also seems like it could be the antipsychotic medication as I had just started taken some antipsychotic meds at that time and I've noticed before when I've gone onto the antipsychotics that I've felt terrible in a number of ways and been prone to really bad anxiety and panic attacks.

[Tranquillity]

Struggling a little bit this morning with my voice hearing. It's like a multitude of voices with then some distinct ones becoming clear with awful messages. It's sad for me because I always use to enjoy total silence before this psychosis developed.

I'm borderline thinking of going back on antipsychotics, though I don't like them. Anyhow, I'm trying to be optimistic and ignore the symptoms as far as I'm able to.

I hope everyone else who suffers this abysmal problem is going ok. It's important not to lose hope of overcoming.

[Ru-bee]

Hey @Tranquillity how are things going as the day progresses? 

Have you been able to find any relief or distraction this afternoon?

[Tranquillity]

Hi Ruby, thank you for asking. I just went up to the shops and with all the background sound and activity the voices disappeared altogether. But now I'm home again, in the quiet of home they've returned quite badly. Lots of awful messaging, especially negative shocking prognostications based on a degree of subconscious paranoia. Anyway, I'm going to put on some music. Maybe I'll accept medication again for a while, I'm not sure as the medication makes me feel quite lethargic, flat and restless at the same time.

[Tranquillity]

I want to add, with regard to the messages, they tend to be stemming from deep seated anxiety and unfortunate unlucky things that have happened in the past, and have a level of plausibility that arouses curiosity to listen. Becoming absorbed by them tends to make it all worse. But it is very hard not to listen without some distraction,, like music or talking to someone.

[Tranquillity]

See here we are in late July. I thought it's worth documenting my journey with psychosis/hearing voices. 

Lately, things have been getting better, though I have had a few moments of awful messages, like, "you are mentally retarded" and more very religiously charged messaging about being demon possessed, the devil, accusations  of being an evil person and not repenting of sin, and other quite horrifying accusations that I'm not sure I want to disclose.

Anyway, in spite of all that, I've become quite inured to the potency of the messages. 

In the last week, I've noticed that the frequency of the voices has declined, which is good, and I have not taken a single antipsychotic for a long time. Right now, I'm sitting in total blissful silence.

I feel more confident than ever of overcoming psychosis. I hope this post may be an encouragement to other sufferers.

It'll be interesting to see how the next few weeks and months play out. I'm realistic given the persistence of my symptoms that there is a very good chance they will return. But, I'm far more resilient than I ever have been, and I'm optimistic that they can get less and less and perhaps even if not entirely then almost entirely disappear.

I'm experimenting also with what could be thought of as "denialism" but what I'm calling "disidentifying" with schizophrenia and voices, and trying to imagine that I never developed psychosis and I don't have this problem, even if symptoms re-emerge. I think it psychologically helps in more ways than one. Schizophrenia is obviously a very loaded and unfortunate term and diagnosis with all the stigma that goes with it, so it is good to think, "this is not me", even if medical professionals have given me that label and the majority of the population were to disagree if they were able to somehow find out. It also helps psychologically to believe in oneself as being of "sound mind".

[Tranquillity]

Aug 5th, 2024.

Good Morning dear fellow Psychosis sufferers and others,

I thought I'd give an update in the hope it could help others.

My voice hearing 

unfortunately continues with awful messages, usually Christian religiously oriented. There's a lot about "the devil" and "repentance", for example.

To be honest, I think that a substantial subset of the messaging could be "externally sourced"—ie. Not originating in my brain, even if there is brain activity correlated with it and medication medications could suppress it. Of course, this will sound absurd to a materialist or physicalist who only believes reality is the physical material realm and in this respect psychosis is purely a brain fault. I respect that. But for me, some of the messaging is emotionally potent and plausible, sometimes hitting truths, even if it is not entirely trustworthy.

If some of it is externally sourced, it's obviously not a reliable form of communication, even though there are some extraordinary things said that resonate with me along with plausible insights into events, usually personal. However, nothing objectively verifiable or testable has been given by these voices, like next week's lotto numbers or predictions of the future, even though calamitous predictions have been made. Still, there are quite profound but often awful insights into personal relationships and the like. I do find my curiosity does get the better of me sometimes in listening to the content.

I've become quite inured to it all and not really troubled much anymore. After all, I can't do much to stop the messages unless I choose to live on medication, which I don't want.

What is important is to have a good distraction and not get overwhelmed, nor to trust the messages or get triggered. It is possible to seize back control of one's mind, but it requires effort.