Tag Archives: silence

Silence vs. Hearing Voices

15 Monday Jan 2018

Posted by in bipolar, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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Even before my first episode of hearing voices, I had a very noisy mind.

When I was in my twenties, before my diagnosis of schizophrenia, I frequently laid awake at night and went over a situation or conversation I had had during that day. I played things over and over again in my head. I often regretted something about what I had said or done. My actions and words would keep me awake at night. I was deeply insecure, felt shame on many occasions and questioned my responses to so much of what I was doing. During those times when I would play things over in my head, I would hear a voice (my internal voice) talking to me. It was a voice I heard in my heard most of the day. It was my internal dialogue.

That kind of hearing a “voice” is common for almost everyone. It is very different than hearing the voices I did when I was psychotic. When I am psychotic, the voices are not “my” voice (although I also hear my voice because I have conversations with the other voices). The last time I was psychotic I had three voices besides “mine” talking to me. I heard the voice of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Not only do antipsychotic drugs clear up the voices that are intrusive and outside of my control (I know some people can direct and control or at least influence the voices they hear, but I can’t), they stop the voice that is “mine.” Rarely do I hear a running commentary in my mind of what I am doing, saying, planning, thinking or dreaming. In other words, my mind is mostly quiet.

When I am writing, I hear the words as I am typing them and occasionally, I will talk to myself inside of my head, but it is rare. The majority of the time it is blank. Silent. Nothing.

What antipsychotics do is give me more control over my mind. I don’t seem to do well with anxiety, paranoia, or a few other symptoms, but I no longer have a noisy mind. I think that people who meditate try to silence their mind and I don’t blame them. There are healing and comfort in a silenced mind.

When I told my husband that most of the time I don’t hear a voice (mine), he said, it was bizarre even to consider. I have grown to like this silence because when there is noise, it is not a good sign. And the ability to bring up my internal voice when I want to also helps my writing. I can have an idea for a blog post or essay and work the writing out in my mind before I ever sit down at the computer. I will work through the words and the writing with my internal voice.

Not having running commentary by a critical or judgmental or doubting internal voice helps me to deal with the other symptoms when they arise. It also helps me with my courage because I have one less voice talking to me about stigma, stupid ideas, embarrassing moments, etc. even if that one less voice was always one that belonged to me.

 

 

Making Assumptions

08 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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Earlier in the week, my husband went to a car show. I was sick and couldn’t attend, so he had an extra ticket. He approached people waiting in a line to buy their tickets and asked if they wanted the extra ticket. Several people were rather rude and said, “No. I don’t want that.” Finally, one man said, “I’ll take that!”

The man who watched, listened, and understood what my husband was asking was the one who gladly accepted the ticket. All the other people assumed that my husband was trying to sell them something or give them something they didn’t want (they wanted tickets, or they wouldn’t have been in line).

All of us make assumptions, and all of us assume inaccurate things about people, places, and situations. One of the things that kept me silent about my diagnosis for such a long time is my fear of assumptions.

I made assumptions about people. I assumed that they would think that someone with schizophrenia would be incapable of being rational, making sound decisions, or functioning in everyday life.

It was an assumption about assumptions.

As is the case with so many assumptions, I was wrong. I am happy that I was wrong. Some people are curious about what it is like to live with schizophrenia, but no one has treated me any differently than they did before they knew I had a mental illness.

I need to learn that making assumptions can cause me to miss out on something good.

I need to learn to assume less and trust more. I need to open my eyes, and ears and see and hear what is going on before I make up my mind that I don’t want something – someone could be giving away something for free that it would normally cost me money to buy.

I’m going to try not to assume. I don’t want to miss that free ticket. Do you?

I Was Once Invisible

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by in hope, mental illness, schizophrenia, stigma

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Before I hit the send button on these blog posts, I start to cry. If someone leaves me a supportive comment, I start to cry. If one of my articles is accepted, I start to cry. For the last seven months I have cried so easily. I often sit at the computer looking at a screen made a little fuzzy from eyes full of tears.

I realized yesterday, that I am letting go of twenty years of shame. I am letting go of twenty years of secrets. I am letting go of twenty years of humiliation, grief, and pain.

All those times at my job when people talked about a client with a mental illness, and how difficult they were, all those words that were used to describe those clients, like nuts, wacko, crazy, cuckoo, etc. I took all that into my spirit, into my psyche. “So, if they knew about me, and my illness, this is what they would think and say about me, too.” I thought to myself.

All those times I saw people talking to people and voices only they could see and hear, and I thought, “That could be me.”

All those times I heard jokes, saw movies, read books, and had no way to respond. All those times I kept my secret while I felt the burn of shame. All those times my husband and I had to hide our reality, and try to go on together after a psychotic episode, rebuilding our world alone.

For most of our marriage my husband and I lived in a bubble. We burst that bubble ourselves but the pressure and pain it caused is being released every day.

After nearly twenty years of having to shove my feelings somewhere deep inside, I can now respond to the stereotypes. I can respond to the language of dehumanization and all of the belittling of an illness that can be deadly and is nothing like the sensational beliefs most people hold. I can now point out when someone is being hurtful or furthering the stigma around schizophrenia.

After nearly two decades of being as tight as a pressure cooker with no way to release steam, I have a space. I have a place in this world, carved from my tears, where people can read about the injustice, the shame, the fear, and the pain.

I have a voice that is sometimes loud, sometimes soft, and sometimes crackly from lack of use. I have a voice and that means I am seen, recognized and validated in a world that often goes speeding by or where people spend time with their heads in their phones instead of looking each other in the eye.

I see that you see me, and that brings tears to my eyes.

All Those Raging Voices

27 Friday Mar 2015

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The voices in my head are silent.  They have been silent for over six years.  There are other voices though, loud voices, clamoring to be heard.  The voices on Facebook, the voices on blogs, the voices on my Twitter feed.  How can we decipher what is important, what warrants our attention, and what should be passed by, or ignored?

I have a test for the noise of this world.

Is it educational?  In other words, will I learn something from it that will add to my life?  If yes, I stop, slow down, listen (read) and take it in.

Is it inspirational?  Does it share with me a story about someone who has managed to beat all the odds?  Does it share a story of someone giving selflessly of themselves to others?  Will it encourage me to be a better human being, and make my heart sing a little bit, possibly bring tears to my eyes?  If yes, then I need to pay attention.  A gift to the heart is always a welcome present.

Is it something that needs some action on my part?  Did a friend post on Facebook that they are having surgery, or tests for cancer?  Did a friend get a promotion, or have a successful interview? If yes, there is always time to wish a friend well and offer some love, comfort and support.

Is it gossip?  In other words, is it about how ugly (or pretty) someone’s dress was, or that they got a facelift?  Is it about how this celebrity is cheating on that celebrity?  If so, I can pass.  I don’t need to know information that fills tabloids.  I don’t have the time or energy to take away from the voices that actually need to be heard.

Will it make me feel bad?  Is it an article about how I should lose fifteen pounds, purchase make-up to cover the bags under my eyes, exercise more, eat less, and basically follow someone else’s advice for making me more beautiful?  I pass this stuff by.  I don’t need negative messages about my body or my lifestyle.

Is it meaningless?  Is it a picture of an acquaintance’s dinner last night?   It is a picture of someone who takes a selfie everywhere they go?  In order to turn down the noise a little, I pass on these too.

We have so much technology, so many ways to connect and reach out to each other, that in order for those possibilities to add meaning to our lives, we need to make choices. If we don’t make choices we can easily become overwhelmed.  All the information that comes at us in a day can be like voices screaming.  I don’t like to hear screaming voices, so I choose to hear the voices that speak softly, and that at times whisper.  I want the voices I hear to add to my life, not make it loud, ugly or stressful.

Sing to me softly, I’m listening.

3 People

24 Tuesday Mar 2015

Posted by in bipolar, schizophrenia

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There are three people who I can’t find, but who I would like to see, and tell them how they changed the course of my life.

I would like to find the two men, whose names I do not know, that saved my life, back in 1997.  One man pulled me to safety as I was standing on the railing over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

On the same night, another man, pulled over to the side of I-5 and checked on me in my car.  I was barely conscious, as I had taken two bottles of pills.  He called 911 and stayed with me until help arrived.

I didn’t know then, but I was about to begin the best sixteen years of my life.  If those men hadn’t cared enough to stop and help a suicidal woman that was hearing voices, I would have missed all those amazing years of happiness.  I am forever grateful to them.

Angels exist.

The last person I would like to see is my last psychiatrist.  I had been seeing her for several years, and then one day, I received a letter in the mail, and the letter said, to choose a different doctor.  It seemed that no one knew why she left.

I asked my primary care physician, because the two of them used to work together, and she didn’t know what happened.  For nearly a year, I kept calling her office to see if she had completely terminated her employment or if she had made plans to return.

Eventually they told me she wasn’t coming back.

I still miss her, and I want to tell her something.

The last time I saw her, she told me, “As your homework, I want you to tell one person in your life that you have schizophrenia.”  You see, she knew that I was living in hiding for over twenty years, and she wanted me to learn, by slowing coming out, that the world was a safe place.

I took her seriously.

In her honor, I have come out to everyone in my life.  I am now living in the open.  I want to tell her the good and the bad.  How people have reacted.  I want to invite her to the performance of the monologue I wrote about living with schizophrenia that is coming out in May.  I want to tell her, that I made it.  I made it.  The world hasn’t completely accepted me, but many people have.

I want to talk to her one last time and say thank you.

Thank you for always telling me I wasn’t crazy.

Out of the Closet

19 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by in articles I wrote, schizophrenia

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I have been silent about my diagnosis for over twenty years.  A few days ago, I came out publicly by posting the following article on Facebook and Twitter:

ewriterscoach.com/need-a-shot-in-the-arm-of-courage-to-finally-speak-your-truth-meet-rebecca/

People who have known me for thirty years or more, as well as, many relatives found out for the first time that I have schizophrenia.  Preparing to come out, proved to be harder than actually coming out.  People have been supportive and kind, but the information is new.  Will people treat me differently?  I am certain some will disappear quietly from my life, and others will look at me with a new filter.  I could say it doesn’t matter, but it really does.  I am watching very closely, and if it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t be watching at all.