Fighting the stigma of mental illnesses: To understand voices you have experienced and live with.  

Hearing voices can be a frightening and disturbing  experience. They often come out of nowhere at any time. 

My experience of hearing voices has been ongoing for a  long time. Many years of negative, repetitive and  threatening voices. Believing and acting on them was the  most obvious and easiest choice to make. Like many people  with schizophrenia, I found I couldn’t help myself many  times, because it felt like they took control.  

My voices often came from the television, feeling and  believing things might happen. I often hid in my room,  fearing that these voices were real. Voices are frightening, very disturbing and intrusive. 

I heard voices from my friends, my family and even people  in the media. Voices of people I never even met and  celebrities I did not know. They felt so real and I believed  them. 

There are many people who hear voices both positive and  negative. Sometimes voices can be relaxing but can still be  difficult to handle. The voices I heard were unwelcome and  intrusive. 

Often suffering in silence because the voices they hear go  beyond what would be acceptable by their friends and  family. This leaves them feeling ashamed and unable to talk  about a thing. 

Telling people their exact voices needs courage but it needs  a sympathetic person to talk to. However, those voices can  disappear by themselves. Voices can be just as frightening  and disturbing as the first time they happen. 

So to conclude, you may have heard voices for a long time  but with time they will go away. So keep the faith and you  will eventually find that there is light at the end of the tunnel.