[cashart10]

Last night was the first time, since I started hearing voices, that I settled quietly and intimately in a public place. I was outside of starbucks sneaking cigarettes with my best friend (I haven't been a smoker in years but she chain smokes). There were LOTS of noises besides her speaking. There were folks leaving the coffee shop, folks waiting at the bus stop, noisy cars, random people talking; there was plenty of background noise. Several times I had to reality check because I didn't know if what I was hearing was real or imagined. Since I was there with my best friend, I just asked her. Only once was reality questioned; only once could we not decide if I heard real or imagined voices. Anyway, for those of you who have auditory (or visual) hallucinations in your day to day lives, how do you differenciate reality from what's in your head? Does the anxiety with the hallucinations subside? Sometimes I have trouble accepting them as hallucinations and I start to believe they are demons or ghosts, or where ever my unsettled mind leads me? Do or did you do the same thing? Do you get over that too? Do the hallucinations typically come and go? Or, once you start hearing voices do they typically stay with you? Thanks!

[kaliope]

haha......the voices went away once i was loaded up on haldol...lol.......seriously though........once i got with a therapist who really listened and was right for ALL my mental health issues, it turned out those voices were actually tied into my ptsd with dissociation and they were my alters talking......my pdoc and old t just werent listening to what we were saying.............

[cashart10]

Ha! Haldol is what I was given for voices too. I can't take it though because it knocks me out too much and I have to take care of my kiddos. I'm so glad it got better for you! I don't have PTSD or alters. I am hoping this is episodic though (at least). Can you share what it was like before you received help from your therapist?

[convalescence]

My diagnosis before bipolar II was psychotic depression, so I might have a different experience than you had, but yes, the voices did eventually subside after I was put on Abilify or waited long enough. The anxiety ate me alive though. I couldn't tell the difference between what was real or what my mind was doing to me, and that led to some psychotic episodes. Which is strange... Considering by definition people w/ BPII don't suffer from psychosis. I think my psychiatrist & T just don't know what the hell is wrong w/ me, lol.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're experiencing this. The last time I heard voices was in April of this year, before I served IP. I promise that it can get better. Sometimes when I blasted good or peaceful music in my ears it drowned out intrusive thoughts/voices. Hopefully you find relief soon!

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I was hearing voices, got meds changed and voices are gone. Sometimes I still question it but I'm pretty sure that if they are there it's minimal. I tend to stay in quiet places so it's easy to know at least if someone else is in the room and potentially the source of the voices. So they can leave with treatment. Paranoia and delusions were harder to get rid but meds seem to have done this too. (I'm still not fully trusting this because well, paranoid.)

I hope the same happens for you.

[Crazy Hitch]

I usually only hear things when I'm home alone, severely manic - I'd have a lot of symptoms other than the hallucinations ...

Yikes, not easy.

So just wanted to leave you a little note to say hang in there!

Don't know that it gets "easier", but we do learn to distinguish ...

[raspberrytorte]

Now I just know that my mild hallucinations I occasionally have are paranoia related - seeing people out the corner of my eye when I'm alone, seeing the expressions of faces in pictures change, etc. When I'm in a public place I sometimes hear my name being called... but sarah is kind of a common name, so I don't know. I just know it's all paranoia. But I very much, truly believe that there's some negative entity watching me and following me around everywhere.

During my last episode I believed the hallucinations I saw, so I couldn't tell what was real and wasn't. Actually, I thought I was dreaming, so NOTHING was real.

[BeyondtheRainbow]

I said no more hallucinations, went to my mom's house and thought I heard her saying bad things about me under her breath. I didn't ask because I know she wouldn't do that (she'd talk about me on the phone when I wasn't there which is fine with me) so that goes down as one just annoying hallucination while on 2 APs but the 2nd on a super low dose. I'm going to ask to go up again Monday.

[Crazy Hitch]

APs are good for voices

[Standup2me]

For me it is music. I hear music in my head.
It's been there for years.
Sometimes she leaves me, but she always comes back

[HolisticGal]

For me, Tegretol has wiped out 90% of my hallucinations because it prevents me from becoming too manic. The way I differentiate is by using my other senses to verify. So for example, while manic and walking in a public park near 10pm, I passed an elderly man whom I thought had a small dark dog following behind him but then running into the bushes to pee. The man did not slow down, which was odd as most people would have waited for their dog to finish their business. However, as I passed him, I turned to yell at him that he was being an irresponsible dog owner. Knowing that a) I was manic and b) my other senses were not confirming a dog's presence - no rustling of leaves with the dog's footsteps, I held my tongue and proceeded to search for the dog. There was no dog.

Another time I had heard some gibberish as if some little being had been sitting on my shoulder. There was no one sitting on my shoulder (visual and auditory messages conflicting = hallucination). Also I had not slept much in the prior 3 weeks.

Now with being medicated, I have mostly olfactory hallucinations and that's a bit harder to verify. Usually it's a very strong foul odor with no obvious cause that just disappears in a matter of seconds/minutes/hours.

[Disorder7]

Originally Posted by Standup2me

For me it is music. I hear music in my head.
It's been there for years.
Sometimes she leaves me, but she always comes back

Yes! Music more than voices. Sometimes when I try to sleep the music just keeps getting louder and louder, but if I get out of bed, it will suddenly stop.

Sometimes I'll hear doors opening and closing and footsteps, just as plain as day. That's when I start wondering if ghosts are real.

[Secretum]

It can be difficult, if not impossible, for me to differentiate my more convincing hallucinations from reality. Usually, if I see or hear something really strange, I think that it may have been a hallucination, but I still can't know for sure, which is frustrating. I hear my name being called often too; when I hear it multiple times in multiple places in the same day, I think that is probably a hallucination, because what are the chances that everywhere I go, people would be calling out to their other friends with my (admittedly common) name? When I hear someone around me say something similar to whatever is on my mind at the time, I know its probably a hallucination, because how would they have access to my thoughts?

I also have hallucinations that are very easy to tell aren't real. Most of my visuals fall into this category; I see demons, for example, but they are only there for three seconds, and then they disappear. Other times, I just get this convincing sense that what I am sensing is not real. It feels dream-like.

I find hallucinations very fascinating. What are they, really? Are they truly just the product of us having too much dopaminergic action in our mesolimbic circuits, or are they actually representations of a different plane of reality?

[Shadesofdark]

Was not really sure I wanted to do this but what the heck. I have been having visual and auditory hallucinations for years. Usually it seems just like one person, I can see him out of the corner of my eye ad hear him anytime I am very stressed, anxious, hypomanic, or very depressed. He does not have a lot to say but my name, unless I am really stressed, then he brings friends to all come tell me how unfit I am, how bad I am, how I can't do what I am thinking of doing, you get the idea, all in sort of a low mumbling chorus.
Here is the good news, he/they have been with me so long I have even named him, and I pretty much know when he is going to show up. So the good news I think is, the longer you have this happen to you, the easier it is to tell if its real or not (for me anyhow). An understanding pdoc and some good AP helps a lot. When you hear things but can tell they are not 'real', they are not so bad. If it gets really annoying, up the AP, when life is good (lol), you can cut back a bit.
There is hope.

[HolisticGal]

Originally Posted by Disorder7

Yes! Music more than voices. Sometimes when I try to sleep the music just keeps getting louder and louder, but if I get out of bed, it will suddenly stop.

Sometimes I'll hear doors opening and closing and footsteps, just as plain as day. That's when I start wondering if ghosts are real.

I've heard music in bed as well but with a tilt of the head, it suddenly stops. I know the neighbors aren't playing heavy metal at 3am if they are, it wouldn't come in that clear.

On the ghosts issue - I wonder this too even tho I'm a woman of science because I see my cats stare into some space into the middle of the living room with alertness.

To another person's mention of duration - that's also how I know it's a hallucination. Even though the hallucination is pretty realistic, it lasts just a second or so and then the scene switches back to reality.