Katie
One specific terrifying hallucination she had was of a man coming into her home and attempting to join her body…. As she was trying to leave for class one day, she became convinced that her apartment manager wanted to kick her out of the building…. As a result of this paranoia, she entered into a catatonic state for hours…. Katie says that it is terrifying to realize that everyone else in the world knows a reality that she does not; it is a realization of just “how sick your brain is.”… Read More…
Rebecca
…The episode itself included paranoia, and she became afraid to smoke or eat because she was worried that the cigarettes and food were poisoned…. Once she was admitted, Rebecca was kept alone, away from the other patients, for about a week until medication took effect…Rebecca returned home, where the voices told her to take all of her medication and drive to the house where she grew up. Read More…
Andrew
Another time, he became convinced that his boss was plotting against him by changing his work to make it appear incorrect…. Even if someone had been there, Andrew would not have gone with anyone, because he believed that the people he knew were involved in schemes against him…. A few days after returning home, he believed that his parents would kick him out of the house unless he made chocolate pretzels…. When he was assigned to work the cash register for the first time, he encountered deep fear and anxiety; he was shaking and heard audible voices in his head… Read More…
Joseph
…. Joseph describes “hearing voices” as, at first, like having a song in one’s head…. As he got older, his mind began to hear voices of people around him….Things in Joseph’s mind began to blur, to the point that he believed that the physical people around him were truly thinking what the voices in his head were saying…. Some people called him crazy…. Joseph recalls a time when a lunar eclipse was supposed to happen, and his mother called him ahead of time to tell him that if he saw that, it would be real and not a hallucination. Read More…
Allie
After her mother tucked her into bed and turned the lights off, Allie heard “dark and whispery and scary” voices…. but when she was young, Allie thought it was all normal; she thought that everyone heard voices.” When she became a teenager, though, Allie’s symptoms caused her fear. The things she was experiencing were scary, and she tried to “turn it off” with activities like drinking alcohol and trying drugs….When Allie began college, the voices got worse, and she recalls trying to take a test but only hearing the voices Read More…
Victoria
She believed she was receiving messages from God and that she was “doing great things for the Catholic church.” This time period, which lasted for about a year and a half, was perpetuated by her own thoughts, as well as a priest who believed that she was, in fact, receiving messages from God. … When Victoria’s functioning deteriorated, she began reading about her symptoms online, and brought herself to a team of doctors at UCLA, suspecting she had schizophrenia… Read More…
Rachel
The TV in her head was not scary, but the demonic hallucinations she faced could be frightening…. Though she thought something was very seriously wrong with her, it was “scary” to disclose her experiences…. While some hallucinations are visual, many are auditory…. Rachel compares those that are auditory to the sound that is made when someone leaves a TV or radio on in another room in the house: a low murmur with few distinct words, or a radio being stuck between stations…. The auditory hallucinations come and go, with the worst often being at night when she is trying to sleep…. Read More…
Ashley
She remembers seeing roaches all over the floors and hearing voices…. Read More…
Mindy
… As part of her diagnosis, the voices she hears make her think that others are out to get her, making it hard for Mindy to trust anyone she meets…. One way Mindy helps distinguish what is going inside her head is to name her voices…. When she is out and active, she is able to keep the voices at bay, but as soon as she gets home, the voices will start…… Despite hearing voices every day, Mindy has found ways to cope. Read More…
Jeanne
While most people with schizophrenia only experience auditory hallucinations, Jeanne does see things on occasion…. Everyone thinks reality is one set thing, but it’s not…. My reality can be different than your reality…. They are definitely part of my reality…. Our reality is just a little different. Read More…
Penny
However, after an episode filled with delusions and hallucinations, she realized that she could no longer ignore or deny that something was indeed wrong…. A few months after her first episode, Penny felt better and decided to stop taking her medication…. During her time there, her mind became convinced of multiple things…. Penny experienced isolation in jail, which is when she “lost touch with reality” and tried to commit suicide on the floor with a paint chip. Read More…
Amber
She believed that schizophrenia played a part in the break-up of her marriage, and that it makes living with someone else difficult…. Even with medication, Amber hears voices every day, and often they say brutal and frightening things to her…Yet Amber manages to separate who she is from the voices and destructive thoughts, and she is determined to live a peaceful and productive life…. But that’s nothing compared to when you hear the voices themselves. Read More…
John
… John started to hear voices, a hallmark symptom of schizophrenia, in high school…The experience of hearing voices can vary from hearing a single voice to hearing many voices…. For some people, the voices are jumbled, while others can make out specific messages…. But, when someone can understand what the voices are saying, the messages are typically negative…. You know, there’s some crazy stuff out there. Read More…
Susan
… Susan was in graduate school working on a PhD in 17th Century English History when she had her first psychotic episode—it occurred after trying a diet drug to help her lose weight…“No matter what your education level or your attainments or what you’ve been doing in your life, the delusions are frighteningly real and they appear to be, they appear to be more real than reality has been for you previously.” Read More…
Antoinette
Just have respect for these silly little thoughts that go through your head about life and stuff…. She had her first psychotic episode while she was in college…. She knows the medication keeps her from hearing voices and clears her mind, but she doesn’t like what it does to her body. Read More…
Jason
He had a psychotic episode while at the airport, but was later able to be cleared by the airport medics to travel back and forth by himself…. Jason struggles to manage his illness and his symptoms, living in constant fear of having another psychotic episode. Read More…
Marshall
… Though Marshal had, for many years, believed himself to be different than those around him, it was not until he was a young adult with a two-year degree and work experience that he had his first encounter with a psychiatric hospital. Read More…
David
Even though this is helping him, he continues to struggle with compulsions, as described here in a typical day: “A typical day for me is, right now is kinda scrambling to put all the thoughts together to make things right…” Read More…
Chris
Chris says that sometimes he becomes preoccupied on bad days, during which he will talk to himself or, because of his involvement in his thoughts, completely blank out when individuals are speaking to him. Read More…
Antone
He hit his head badly during the accident, and several days later started hearing voices for the first time…. So now instead of the voices telling me to do mischievous stuff, it’s telling me to do more criminal stuff. Read More…
Luna
She says the medicine helps her sleep, but she still hears voices…. She does not tell many people about her schizophrenia because she doesn’t want people to think she’s “crazy” or to make fun of her. Read More…
Nicholas
He has been on medication since his first hospitalization, yet he continues to hear voices, and has been unable to separate his clearer thinking from what the voices tell him. Read More…
Wesley
However, Wesley continued to feel “an intense negative vibe,” and started to experience auditory and visual hallucinations. Read More…
Haiho
He went into a deep depression that included sleeping most of his days to fight off suicidal thoughts. Read More…
Shaggy
“You know how when people talk about aliens, and people think they’re crazy?” Read More…
Charles
Because they’d say, “Well, he’s crazy.” Read More…
