VOICES AND HALLUCINATIONS

For the past couple of years, I’ve been hearing three voices: they are the voices of people who used to bully me at school. The voices take it in turn to persecute and threaten me, saying things like: “I’m going to duff you up” or “You’re going to die,” or they plot against me among themselves. Sometimes people who hear voices obey their commands, but my voices are rarely commanding and I know during the episodes that they are not real.  

    The Olanzapine does little to diminish my voices, but it does make me feel calmer and less anxious, whereas the Chlorpromazine used to make me extremely tired all the time.  

    If you’re getting voices in your head, it is important to remember that they’re not real and that sometimes, even healthy people hear voices. At first, I was frightened of them, but that’s no longer the case now: the most they can do to me is prevent me from sleeping at night or cause me to talk to myself.      

    I also have visual hallucinations occasionally. One night, I hallucinated that I was undergoing heart surgery and was talking to the surgeon during the procedure. On another occasion, I was having a drink at the pub and I could see spiders running across the table. When I reached out to touch them, I could see them running through my hand. People often think that hallucinations are simply a matter of seeing things that are not there, but you are literally in another world when it happens.  

    During a depressive episode, I sometimes hallucinate the taste of rotting meat and the smell of burning flesh. These hallucinations can be severe enough to stop me eating.  

    As well as the voice hearing and hallucinations, for a number of years, I also had delusions that the lead singer of a rock band was inside me, watching every move I made, every thought I had. I came out of this phase a couple of years ago.  

    It is possible that no drug will be able to stop my voices or hallucinations: I’ve learned to live with them. I feel reasonably safe and it’s unlikely that I’ll lose touch with the real world.