Hearing Voices

Written by Soraya T
Peer Mentor, The Wellness Initiative
I am a voice hearer and have been for approximately 35 years. It is a difficult thing to disclose due to stigma, and the most common response I get to announcing that I hear voices is for a person to ask or state that I have Schizophrenia. The short answer to that is “no”.
 
Whilst up to 80% of people with Schizophrenia hear voices as part of their mental illness, hearing voices can be associated with other mental illnesses such as Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder, drug and alcohol use, and many people also hear voices in the absence of any mental illness.
 
Approximately 5-15% of people experience at least one hearing voices experience in their life.  Hearing Voices can also occur in the context of falling asleep or waking up, due to bereavement and grief, sensory deprivation and very commonly in the wake of trauma.  Approximately 70-80% of voice hearers have experienced some trauma in their lives, whilst child abuse and going to war are commonly cited traumas others include marriage and divorce, the loss of a child, and the loss of a job also affect the way people feel and react.
 
One of the reasons we use the term “Hearing Voices” instead of the traditional “auditory verbal hallucinations” is the fact that in the past AVH was associated with voices as being ‘not real’ which both demeans and devalues our experiences as voice hearers. We prefer to use terms that indicate our experiences are not shared with others, but are still in fact “real”.  “Hearing Voices” is also a blanket term designed to also cover other experiences including visual and olfactory experiences, and other unusual perceptions.
 
Voices when associated with Schizophrenia and other mental illnesses are often negative and commanding, however this is often not the case.  In my case my earliest voices were helpful and guiding, it wasn’t until I experienced trauma around the age of 19 that I started to experience negative and frightening voices.
 
There is a lot of support available for Voice Hearers presently, as professionals try to understand and explain the voice hearing phenomenon which is as vast as it is varied.

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