# question for others with schizophrenia or psychosis



## blackwinded

i was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about 1 year ago. I've been having many of the symptoms all my life--since i was about 3 or 4. So it's been real hard for me to figure all this out. What i mean is, i thought the voices and visions i heard and saw as a kid were normal--something i thought everyone had. So i did not know to tell anyone about it until recently. During my first hospitalization about 2 years ago, i met other people with psychosis and they would describe it to me. I would think, how horrible and scary to live with such things, not knowing yet at that time that i was living with it myself. But I slowly started to realize and started doing research on schizophrenia.

The reason i did not know i was hearing voices, was because i did not hear them as if someone were in the room with me. I had thought that it was only concidered "hearing voices" if they sounded like they were external. schizophrenia runs in my family and my mom use to tell me about her sister and mother and that they heard voices, so i guess that's where i got the idea that they could only occur externally. But
I heard them as if there were little speakers implanted inside my ears. They would start out slow and quiet ,and quickly become really loud and fast. It would put me in a sort of daze. They would shout things that made no sense, or say things to me , like "Here i come...im coming to get you now!"

I'm 18 now, and i hear voices in three different forms: Sometimes it's as if someone is really in the room with me. Often, i still hear them as if speakers are implanted in my ears, and recently, i have started hearing them inside my head--like the way everyone hears their own thoughts, only these are not my thoughts and i have no control over them. They are voices of all different kinds of men and women. Sometimes they speak in other languages i've never even heard, or they mumble and slur their words, or they comment on me or yell and scream and laugh.

So my question is for anyone else who hears voices: do they come from inside your head, or as if there are speakers in your ears, or from outside-like someone else is in the room with you, or maybe some other form?

thanks for your input.

-Becka


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## Guest

i'm not schizophrenic, but one of my favourite pastimes used to be lying in bed, listening to my voices. there is a whole bunch of them, all different ages, sexes, dispositions.

they never intrude, as it takes a few minutes of conscious effort to go deep enough to find them, so they never caused me a problem.

what caused my dp i think was listening to my own inner dialog as if it was a different person. my perception sort of shifted one day and i freaked out because i had the sense that i wasn't in control anymore - which just estranged me further. i'm still dped 24/7, but it no longer freaks me out - somehow the thinker bit of me made friends with the observer part.

this is probably going to sound odd, but it feels like i've become my own best friend.


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## Synapse

I was diagnosed with a psychotic illness and because something like 70% of people with schizophrenia hear voices one of the most common questions doctors ask is if you hear voices. I found that a very strange question because we all have an inner dialogue for example when you sit alone in church and pray. I said yes I hear noises from the external environment not really paying much attention to the question and ever since I have been diagnosed as schizophrenic.

More recently when I have attended day hospital because my psychiatrist of 10 years thought I was relapsing I asked the nurse directly how do you know if you are hearing voices quite innocently. She replied that they often come from an external source and tend to be derogatory. Ever since then I have become interested in this subject as a lot of people tend to associate it with spirituality which I am in to.

But to cut a long story short to this day I don't know for sure whether I hear voices under the psychiatric definition.


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## Luka

Hi, I'm new here.

I hear voices, but I was diagnosed with and treated for dissociative identity disorder (DID) 5 years ago. I hear them inside my head, like thoughts, but they're not my own. I hear men/women/children. I have no control over them and sometimes they take control. Sometimes I also hear 'loud' noises, like voices calling, plastic bags etc. My psychiatris thought of giving me anti-psychotic (I was already on anti-depressants at that time - still am now) but I refused.


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## blackwinded

Luka said:


> Hi, I'm new here.
> 
> I hear voices, but I was diagnosed with and treated for dissociative identity disorder (DID) 5 years ago. I hear them inside my head, like thoughts, but they're not my own. I hear men/women/children. I have no control over them and sometimes they take control. Sometimes I also hear 'loud' noises, like voices calling, plastic bags etc. My psychiatris thought of giving me anti-psychotic (I was already on anti-depressants at that time - still am now) but I refused.


i;ve read that people with DID can have hallucinations too, and they usually do hear voices in their head..the voices of the other personalities/entities. But your voices sound a lot like mine...I also hear sounds, like what you descibed: loud bangs (like a door slamming), thuds, phones ringing, beeps, etc.

DID and schizophrenia are often confused or thought to be the same thing. I know they are two different mental conditions, but i think there are a lot of similarities between the two (except schizophrenics dont have more than one personality)

-becka


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## Guest

well again, i havent been diagnosed with anything mroe then paranioa, depression and anxiety, yet i know there is somethin else there, only trouble is mt psycatherapist tends to listen to anything new i have for her, for i find is so hard to decifer what is all in my head, and what is reality, both seem to get mixed up...

anyway, voices were a common thing for me , it was only november 2004 after my second breakdown that they stopped... to start of with it was just me thinking to myself, as i had noone else to talk to i would run it all through my head, sometime i would laugh and reply to myself, in time the replyign to myself stopped, i didn't need to anymroe as slowly i would hear a reply to a question i was having, it was my own voice, in the begining i could tell it to shh.. and it did...

as tiem went on a person started to take form, he was actually giving a personality and everything bassically a second person walking around in my mind, he used to go by the name of iggy, iggy would drive me down so much, i would have so much trouble sleeping as he wouldl be there pacing up and down, his footsteps making me go crazy... he would constanly throw abuse at me, anythign i thought or said i would get a reply like the usual confidnce zappers, you are hopeless, your a failure, why did you say that for, moron, pretty much every name under the sun...

along side that, and till presant i can be listening to music, then i will have to rush to the phone, or rush to the door as i hear it ringing or someone knocking, i can be sittin in a quite room and i hear my name being called out, my mind is in constant spin only occationaly am i able to get a few moments piece, at those times i juat sit there and stare at the wall...

i also get things run across my vision, but at such speed i cant see them... i quite oftern see mice run along the floor, spiders, you name it... when i see this quite oftern it makes me jump, then when i go and see where it went i realise there was nothing there, yet my heart takes along time to stop racing...

another thing now, is everythought is actually a visual for me... if i am thinking about anything i will run it through in my mind quite oftern without wanting to... these visuals are so real, i mean i can fell the heat of the sun, the cold, the wet, it is as though it is so real, sometimes it is bloody scary, some of the visials the flash up are horrible, really graphic...

well at the moment my mind has shut off, so if anythign else comes to mind i will add it, plus i find it hard to see the difference what is an ''abnormal symptom'' due to the fact i have been living with this for as long as i can remember, so its hard to remember a time i ''was normal'' excuse the pun

All The Best
ThE_Mok


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## Luka

Hi Becka,



> i;ve read that people with DID can have hallucinations too, and they usually do hear voices in their head..the voices of the other personalities/entities. But your voices sound a lot like mine...I also hear sounds, like what you descibed: loud bangs (like a door slamming), thuds, phones ringing, beeps, etc.
> 
> DID and schizophrenia are often confused or thought to be the same thing. I know they are two different mental conditions, but i think there are a lot of similarities between the two (except schizophrenics dont have more than one personality)


My psychologist told me she immediately knew I was not psychotic or schizofrenic, because of my intact realitytesting.

A lot of people with DID also hear those "loud" noises. So I take it, it is part of DID in my case.

What confuses me, is that psychotics also hear voices of different kinds of people (men, women, children...). How can one ever know then if you're suffering from DID or schizofrenia?? How can one ever find out that those voices are really dissociated states (if you have DID, this is the case)??

I'm at a lost here! :?


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## falling_free

My intiial mental breakdown was cannbis pycosis and since then dp and pyschosis/........................................... I may have full time scitzophenia along with the dp, I think as I cannot barely make any sense at most times and find it neeaarly impossible to concentrate. I fufill many of the criteia, but I think Ive been denying that I have some kind of scitzophenia. My diagonis is cannbis pyschosis

my 'voices' whenever I hear 'them' whoever the fuck 'them' is usally come from the internal mostly seeming from the back of my head and sometimes from near me or around my enviroment but still inside my head, I have never had the experience of having a voice speak as if it were from the external world, it is always an internal self generated voice or collection of voices , which can be a collection of people talking about such and such, sometimes people or voices telling me to do certain actions, to a point where it gets impossable to blank out and I get confused and cannot process the external very well at all. I mean somehow SOMEHOW , I still retain the smallest thread of sanity, but I feel like there is an entire world and universe in my head, and I see flashes of the entire universe or wolrds flash across my minds eye and then dissapear in an instant into a chaotic whirlpool of mind warpage and I have no sense of time (it feels all warped and distorted).

Preety much I feel like im stuck in alices wonderland, full time all the time and I think like a computer and have no feelings. I also reorganize language sometimes an example would be this

Around - a (round)
see - C
I - Eye

I have no idea why (Y) I reoranize language, seems to be some random subcouncious pattern of reoganizing and reinterpreating language?

Im just mental


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## Guest

i know what it is like to feel asthoguth you have the whole universe inside your mind, quite oftern makes me wonder if in fact we are only real insomeone esles imagination, and that in our imagination we create reality for someone else... at times it drives me absolutly crazy wihy my mind questioning everything that comes to light...

although at the moment i am trying to put them all into a book, a work of my mind, for when ever i look into my mind all i see is a vasat cavern full of corridors from wall to wall, floor to ceiling with doors which leed of to huge vults of knowledge and stories, some of which are of past and presant life some i believe to be the maop to my future, again highy disconcerting at times.

maybe we are all just crazy, well, who knows


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## falling_free

hmm your cave anolgy sounds a bit like platos cave anology of people being in 'a cave' with shadows playing out infront of them, how would they know that the cave with the shadows was not the only reality and the outside world exsisted? Perhaps we are like the people in the cave.... maybe madness or scitzphenia is like echoes from the future , they do say there is an extremly thin line between genius and madness.

I'd like to expand on a certain audiotery hallicantion I get , itd like me but older and more confident and is like the voice of ym inner dialoauge, except it is kind of stuck a few seconds behind my actual voice, and rarely when I socilize does my voice sound as confident. However when i am alone I listen to my own voice and it sounds much more like my inner dialogue 'voice' when I am outside (which gets me incredibbly nervous and anxious) and for no particulr reason I HATE looking at people.

I also notiched something strange about my behaviour, in that when alone I can do many different voicess, that is put on acts of doing voices Like I do a nazi, a einstein, a french voice, a japenese voice etc just kind of playing withmyself (CRUDE I know) , but not having conversations as such, just pretending to be other people, I dont think that I have convesatiosn with realll people or indeed have 'imageinry friends.

I think I have aspects of scitz but am not fully scitz, like I dont have any strong paranoid delusions and more or less I have 100% reason and insight (but ok I few times I can go off into little trips in my head which make little to no sense) ..... I mean sometimes I delsuinaly have semi delusional type thinking like thoughts about all sorts of leftfield subjects (people from the future going back in time , being in a computer game programmiign my self etc etc today) but I dont belive people are bugging me or that I am in contact in aliens or random serious paranoid stuff, so does that make me mad or just eccentric with sensory expereinces that are not 'the norm'. I also babble on about myself for ages and reach no particluir point, and am crap with relateg with others.

anyway rant with time over.


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## Guest

alot of what you wrote there i can also put into my life, like yourself i find many different voices being spoken by myself, for instance i come over at times with a very strong Irish accent, which on a number of occations i have fooled a number of Irish that i was irish with the accent alone, ther eis also a brummy accent, indian, japanese among many more, and like yourself when i am on my own i do feel asthough i am acting another persons life. Normally when i wear certian atricals of clothing, or have a certian look my whole persona changes, for instance when i wear my suit i am no longer myself, but a very improtant director of a huge company and i quite oftern feel asthough everyone around me should look up to me for i am their boss. then you have the camo gear, when i am putting that it is it like i am prepareing to either go out on parade or on patrol in a hostile enviroment.

Also like your self i do not believe i am full skitz, but have a number of traits, the only voices i hear is my own thoughts, but it is not of my own mind, they are all internally, but something about them make me think they are coming from a different time, say the furture trying to sway my mind into thinking what needs to be thought to move to the next step in my life. The not being able to look at people directly also affects me, i mean for example i have met this lass and we are gettin on like a fish in water, and i know as we have spoken about this, once i have been able to take controll of my mind a little better, and i am able to controll my self and thoughts we will get together, yet i still have great diffuculty looking at her, when i talk to her i have to look over her head or over her shoulder, so it looks like i am looking at her, but not. the same goes for family members, if i am looking at them my mouth falls silent.

I also find myself talking about my past experiances and current thoughts on the workings of the world and my mind, even down to the book i am in the process of writing only consists of talking about myself, a sort of autobiography in short story forms, i tend to find if not consciencly then subconsciencly that once i have explain a time in my life enough i have closed yet another chater inmy life, as i do see my life and those around as a book, at times it is like i have read the end and missed out the begining and end, which is why i tend to focus on them.

well i actualy have 3 books on the go at once, one if more of my phylosophical thoughts of the mind, heart and soul, the part in our life that they all play a role in, also how it is possibly to controll which one you use in certian situations, for example i have been able to put a block between mind and heart when needed, which coms in handy when writing as in my mind i am dyslexic, so if i am able to by-pass that and use either my heart or soul to write then there is no sign of the dyslexia.

The other book is consisting of all my poetry, past presant in in tiem future. the past poems are very deep, very dark, very emotional and most greatly depressing to read, for back then i am not in controll of anything too many substances were clouding my thoughts and lettin my emotions run free, also at the point in my life everythign seemed to happen at once, a numner of friends took and tried to take te easy way out, there was breakdowns, smackdowns and knock downs. The preasant style of writing is far from that, it is more plesant, the emotions have been hidden behind the words, the manner in which they are writtin tells a story in rhyms and they talk mainly aboutthe world around, the natural work conflicting with the generated world. The futre, well who knows.

well i feel it is time to get back to what i was doing before loading the computer up to play music and that is to re-decorate, and tidy up. if i bored you sleep sweet dreams, if not, then you are my kind of people.

All the best
were better then the rest
for all those in east and west
get changed into your brand new vest
get into bed, close your eyes and rest

ThE_Mok


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## falling_free

Another common symtpons I get is a huge influx of ideas and concepts happening all at once, and having lots of ideas about lots of subjects, but when trying to conecentrate on everday task and learning being impared and slower than usual, like for example when taking notes or trying to keep track during a lecture, I find that I drift off, try very hard to conectrate , mentally and physically try but find myself drfiting off into my own thoughts and being literelly unable to focus very well, when recalling memories for wokr I just get bried flashes and try hard to rememebr, but my memeories sound like that bit on fear and loathing on las vegas where the voices are all distorted and slowed down.... Freaky shit. :twisted:


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## falling_free

I think writing is a very god way of externilising the external whenever you have mental porblems, I mean mental angst is EXPRESSION but an internal one, bring that expression out of the inside i think helps figure out why exatcly the mental turmoil exsists. Bit like solving a puzzle.

I do drawings and a lot of writing, mostly about whatever theories and thoughts I come up with, though probably I need to speak about my emotions more.


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## falling_free

In fatc today I came up with a thory linked to scitzophenia, More just a barrage of automatic thoughts that came thick and fast, but I may post up later on.


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## Guest

falling there seems to be a great deal in common between us, although slight variations, i mean i myself find almost imposible to concentrat on the subject at hand with out having half dozen others ont he go at once, not just in the psycolicial side of things but also physical.. a good example for me is doing the house work, rather then starting in one room and movving around i seem to start in all rooms, get in a right mess then gradually get things in order, and wheni get them in order they have to be perfect, that among others also makes me believe i suffer ic OCD...

i tend to find if i am replayign memories they are not blured at all, there is no distorting, infact i am reliving them to the letter T... i feel everything, from the emotions, to the enviroment i am in for example hot or cold, light or dark, even down to the sounds around. it feels at time asthough my mind has construceted this time matchine in order to tavel back to yester-year and face up to all that is holding me back..

although i do experiance times which not only send me into relapses orcan scare the heck out of me is when i am walking somewhere or soung something then all of a sudden i see the time we are living in merge or over lap with a memory, one example was today while cleaning my place up, i was in one area of the floor that i always sat about a year ago when i was gettin stoned, well i saw myself sittin there and the people i had round at the time watchign me take the biggest bong i have seen taken, (later that night i had the biggest breakdown todate) well i say everything asthough i was a 3rd person looking at the situation, that was not so much scary but kinda disturbing as i saw just how bad i was back then...

the one experiance like that that did scare the shit out of me was again this afternoon, well i was heading into the bathroom to clean up in there when i see an old mate walk out of the toilet and then right towards me before he disapeard, although these originate from my mind they see to be visualised via my eyes....

well fingers crossed my therapist will now be able to help me a little better then she has done in the past... well it looks like i have a new one now, and this one seems to do her job, where as the other realyl dont care... in the next 3 weeks i have another appointment in which she will discuss a few things with me, (things i generially know already, somethign i picked up on abotu 4 months ago) so yeah i will keep you posted 

anyway i am half way throught he washing up and cleanign the bathroom, best crack on

all the best 
ThE_Mok


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## falling_free

> In fatc today I came up with a thory linked to scitzophenia, More just a barrage of automatic thoughts that came thick and fast, but I may post up later on.


and here is my barrage of automatic thories, I don't view pychosis or scitzpehina as not mentall illnesses but since scitzophnia/pycosis is such a strange and unique illness I decided to construct some different therioes about the nature of madness.

scitzophenia

In scitzophenia the mind is cracekd and broken, divided into many parts (which may be working against each other)

Perhaps this process of having a scitzophenic cracked out divided mindsapce is like a macroism of cellur divsion
but instead of there being cells defining each other as humans (that is indiduak ceells have individual coucnoiusness)
you have celles which multiply themselves, creating a fractured and scitzophenic indivdual energy.

Another idea i had was that maybe scitophenics are a kind of neccersity or storage for the collective uncouncious. That
is like what does the collective do to offload all its biazarre/random ideas?? soloution, produce a mind with a multileved 
sense of personality and ego and subseuquenlty pump all unreasonable or 'mad' ideas into them as a storage so that mad brain
juice doesnt spill out into colelctive insanty and cahso.

maybe also scitophenics are a precouser to an evoloutionery leap,that is they work on a multiple minded basis but dont have more intellginece as a result
(becasue having such a compelx sesne of self is disoriteating). Pehaps this many levveld state of mind is a precouser for telehpathy with beings 'purselves'
in the futture, where intelligence has reached a critacal point (see technolgical singularity - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity)

where the amount of intellgience that is required requires 
a sharing or hive like sharing of intellgience/brain ernrgy/power and memeory storage as pur current minds can only store a certain
amount of indomation and this amount is unlilkely to change as if we have bigger brains then we lose proccesing ad speed)
perhaps the soiloution would be to have bigger brains but to have grouped councoiubss so that procssing power and speed is not lost
and an work at a faster level (many minds working together increases power and speed of thought)

related - http://www.webcom.com/thrive/schizo/articles/nietz.html

comparaionsisn between neitezches ubermenshe and surviers of scitzponia *those that can adapt and cope with the illness)


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