Schizophrenia and hearing voices

[ReVolved]

In 2019 two police cars were sent to my home and I was hospitalized and put on an injection I had been hearing voices since 2015 but have not had voices since 2019. One night in 2015 I was just at home listening to music when I began hearing voices. Some good, some bad. It was the bad one's is the reason I lost control. I wasn't drinking and I wasn't doing drugs I really don't know what happened for me to be able to hear them.

I really want my gift back. I have come off medication, I have tried drinking eleven cups of coffee a day for four days but it seems I am caffeine tolerant. I think medication changes the neurons in our brain the way they communicate and connect with each other through neurotransmitters. And also because of medication I find that I'm emotionally blocked.

I believe the voices are spirits and that I was hearing the spirit realm. I don't know how it happened I wasn't prepared for it I had no one around me that could relate or comprehend and unfortunately I was hospitalized. Am wondering if anyone could tell me what may have happened to be able to hear them and what the medication has actually done to my brain to cancel them out completely and how do I get my gift back?

[Ru-bee]

Hi @ReVolved , welcome to the forums

It sounds like having these voices come on and then leave so suddenly must have been pretty distressing. 

There are lots of reasons that one might start experiencing voices suddenly, it can be linked to something that's happening in your life at that time, or it can be a symptom of a medical or mental health concern. I notice that you mentioned Schizophrenia in your thread name, were you diagnosed with Schizophrenia?

To better understand what happened after receiving medication, and how this lead to your voices going, it could be helpful to ask your doctor who would likely be able to explain how it works and interacts with your brain.

[destructive]

We're the voices comforting or bad or both? I hear voices. Some are very distressing. I was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder decades ago, when it began and I had some paranoid too (still do from time to time). I've been on numerous antipsychotic medications and none really got rid of the voices but some made it harder to hear/understand them if I was more doped up.

I wouldn't know what to do to bring them on sorry. Mine are supposedly parts of me that have had trauma. So I guess that's how they supposedly came out about but I wouldn't recommend trying to get voices that way. They are also not the voices you're seeking probably. Maybe if you have a preferred spiritual way or whatever you could look into that.

[Eden1919]

@ReVolved  welcome to the forums. i have had some very similar experiences i too hear voices that i believe are spirits and such and i am also on an injection that is supposed to get rid of them it doesnt completely but it makes them harder to understand and a lot less frequent which feels strange when you are used to them being there. as i understand it the medication is supposed to act on neurotransmitters in the brain to stop the voices but as for how it does that no one really knows there is a lot of unknown stuff about these meds which can be kind of scary. as for getting your gift back it might be difficult to do while on meds but you shouldnt stop the meds without first speaking to your doctor. i hope you are traveling ok in general though as sometimes experiences like this can be distressing.   

[ReVolved]

Hi Ru-bee
Yes I was diagnosed with schizophrenia but feel I have been misdiagnosed been looking into PTSD and have talked to a counsellor who agrees and she wanted to speak to my psychiatrist on my behalf.
As for the voices leaving I feel a great emptiness like a big part of me is missing. I haven't really been able to discuss with anyone about the voices but I know they were not hallucinations and their communication had nothing to do with my thoughts.
Been looking into thought forms but I know that the things they were saying were not based on my thoughts. My counsellor believes they are linked to the same experiences that caused PTSD but the voices started in 2015, eight years later.

[ReVolved]

Hi destructive
There were both good and bad voices. Yes I feel that they are parts of me too and without them I feel like a big part of me is missing and I feel they too are a part of my trauma..
Thank you am looking into finding a spiritual guide.

[ReVolved]

Hi Eden1919<br>I agree the bad voices are very distressing and their the reason I was medicated. Thank you I will look into the affect medication has on neurotransmitters and I agree even to doctor's it seems a lot is unknown.<br>Back in 2005 I was taking medication for insomnia and it permanently changed my brain I ended up with rebound insomnia and even to this day I am full of energy and I barely sleep.

[Anders]

 Hi @ReVolved 

I too have started hearing voices in a recent psychotic episode.

The voices were specific people. People I knew from all across my life. Most were alive. There was 2 who were people who had deceased.

I too had a delusion that the voices were from a spirit realm and a delusion related to the afterlife. There was even an idea that those voices of people who were alive existed in both worlds (the real world and the spirit world).

The two people who were deceased seemed very real to me, and I had a delusion they were real and were speaking to me from the afterlife.

I was also prescribed injections and found I was unresponsive to treatments. I actually got worse and kept hearing voices even when they gave me injections.

Can I ask, do you really want to hear the voices again if it led to a police incident? Were they distressing? Were they comforting? Were they voices you know? Or some voice you didn't know? Why do you call it "a gift"? By your own admission some were bad. 

I don't want to discredit your experience (many people believe in a spirit realm or afterlife and are not considered mentally ill), but there is also many who would give an opinion (with evidence to credit them) that you had delusional thinking. The voices were a hallucination (and not real), and that you had a delusion they were spirits.

In all the material, I've read they don't know what causes voices and it's generally considered a bad thing.

Schizophrenia is the same. There is no known cause. There is a range of contributing factors - genetics, stress, environmental and lifestyle factors.

[edited by moderator]

Around the time I started hearing voices, I was trialling the use of medicinal cannabis. [edited by moderator] I had been trying that around the time and just before I started hearing voices but stopped as I deteriorated.

I have read some related experiences of others with Autism Spectrum Disorder who started hearing voices, they were unresponse to antipsychotic medications and they had a feeling and belief the voices were more related to their autism not schizophrenia despite doctor diagnosis saying it was schizophrenia.

[tyme]

Dear @Anders ,

Thank you for sharing your story.

We wanted to flag that parts of your post have been edited out to ensure it aligns with Community Guidelines around the discussion of medication etc.

You can read these Guidelines here: https://saneforums.org/t5/help/faqpage/title/community-guidelines

[Anders]

Thank you @tyme noted.

I have now read the community guidelines and will oblige with speaking more generally in relation to medications, dosages and content which could cause offence or harm.