Auditory verbal hallucinations, first-person accounts

Abstract

I have been hearing voices since 1986. At first I thought I was having a paranormal experience (many people who hear voices develop an interest in the occult). I was convinced that people were watching me, and that they wanted me dead for some reason. I heard voices all day long and developed a psychosis. I did not seek any mental health care, and the psychosis remitted spontaneously after 10 months. The years afterward, I was on the edge of a new psychotic episode, but I managed to finish my education (history) at an academic level. Then the second psychosis hit me, less severe than the first one, and yet it wreaked more havoc. This time I did seek help and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over the years I have developed various different explanations for the origins of my voices. In the beginning, I thought that they stemmed from paranormal sources such as spirits or 'entities'. Later, I learned about the neurobiological processes that govern them. Learning to cope with voices has been a central theme in my life. This was, and still is, a process with ups and downs. An important aspect was learning to accept the presence of the voices. I assume that I will be hearing them all my life. My magic word for coping with them is distraction. I just try to continue whatever it is that I was doing before the voices started. I know that I should not listen to them too much, and that I should not let them upset me: no fighting against the voices, nor becoming attached to them, even at times when their messages are quite joyful.