# [TED Talk] Learning from the voices in my head



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

This video really resonates with me and my own attempts to find both meaning and reason in recent and past experiences with psychosis and hearing voices.

It's only 6 minutes long and it's a personal story that tells of an alternative way to look at madness (meaningful and sane reactions to insane/painful environments and experiences) in a culture that is saturated with mostly ideas of impersonal biological psychiatry.

I believe medication has it's place, but it's only a tool in a person's journey when suffering from mental distress.


----------



## Guest (Dec 5, 2013)

This is why I only ever talk about how I feel, as opposed to specific symptoms, when I'm seeing someone for mental help. Personally, my mind is like a radio, sometimes it's just repetitive music, other times it's like a talk show where things I feel strongly about are openly discussed, and sometimes it's just a string of random 30 second chattering, like commercials. I can control it if I try, and it goes away completely when I'm focused on something, and it honestly doesn't bother me unless I'm trying to sleep. Though; I have gotten lost in the thoughts and wondered how I got from one room to the other. If I told anyone about this I'm positive that I would get labeled with something like schizo or OCD, and I really don't want that. I know exactly what it is, all of this noise and chattering stops me from thinking about a lot of unpleasant crap that I don't want to deal with, because when it stops, and I have nothing to keep my distracted, I start feeling like crap. I've long since accepted that this would be a part of me until I clean up my issues.


----------



## GroupHug (Jul 6, 2012)

Antimony said:


> This is why I only ever talk about how I feel, as opposed to specific symptoms, when I'm seeing someone for mental help. Personally, my mind is like a radio, sometimes it's just repetitive music, other times it's like a talk show where things I feel strongly about are openly discussed, and sometimes it's just a string of random 30 second chattering, like commercials. I can control it if I try, and it goes away completely when I'm focused on something, and it honestly doesn't bother me unless I'm trying to sleep.
> 
> Though; I have gotten lost in the thoughts and wondered how I got from one room to the other. If I told anyone about this I'm positive that I would get labeled with something like schizo or OCD, and I really don't want that. I know exactly what it is, all of this noise and chattering stops me from thinking about a lot of unpleasant crap that I don't want to deal with, because when it stops, and I have nothing to keep my distracted, I start feeling like crap. I've long since accepted that this would be a part of me until I clean up my issues.


Have you ever really given "mindfulness" a chance? It really does help unclutter the mind more than anything I've found, and it eventually stays uncluttered after a little while.

Here's some guided meditation that you might find helpful when you have time for and interest in taking a break from things, but you can easily start to incorporate doing it yourself in your daily life (doing dishes, eating lunch, etc.) if you'd like.


----------



## Guest (Dec 10, 2013)

GroupHug said:


> Have you ever really given "mindfulness" a chance? It really does help unclutter the mind more than anything I've found, and it eventually stays uncluttered after a little while.
> 
> Here's some guided meditation that you might find helpful when you have time for and interest in taking a break from things, but you can easily start to incorporate doing it yourself in your daily life (doing dishes, eating lunch, etc.) if you'd like.


For what ever reason I've always had deep fear and hatred of quite. I can't fall to sleep at night without a fan on because I need the sound, other wise I sit up all night jumping at every little noise. I always avoid mindfulness and meditation because I become very anxious when I silence my thoughts and engage more with reality. So I'm not sure, maybe I should to get used to the quite, or maybe I should wait until I'm more secure.


----------

