Voice-Hearing Is Not An Illness For Me

I first started hearing voices in 2015 when I read a book called “Power of the Heart” by Baptiste de Pape. It gave me the idea to ask my heart a question and listen for an answer. The answer I heard came from within and I thought it was my subconscious. I followed what the voice said as an experiment and it led me to good things. When I went travelling in Spain, I joined a religious group and I started to believe that this voice I heard was from God/Creator/Great Spirit. I was shown miracles. Back in Nova Scotia, I had a sleepless night, a spiritual awakening, and I ran away from my parents which led me to being forcibly admitted to the mental health ward. I realized that not all the voices I heard were from Creator. I was put on medication, then after staying on medication and going through a depression I was taken off it. After a few months, I had a second visit to the hospital. I was admitted after accidentally injuring myself during a spiritual awakening event. I learned new ways to stay safe while hearing voices. I continue to pray to Creator every morning and receive spiritual insights that lead to many blessings in my life.

Thank you for reading my story. I am sharing this story so that other voice-hearers can feel empowered to share their story too. I want non-voice-hearers to know an example of hearing voices so that it can become more familiar. I believe that the more that we speak out about our life experiences with hearing voices, the less stigma we will face in society. Familiarity leads to acceptance. I envision a world where voice-hearing is not feared or judged but celebrated as a unique expression of our humanity.

It is my choice to listen to my inner guidance and I don’t believe it’s an illness, nor is it a disability. It is a gift. My experience of hearing voices is unique, as is the experience of every voice-hearer. We are a diverse community of voice-hearers. Some people have episodes of voice-hearing and don’t hear voices in between. Some people hear hostile voices all the time, others hear a mixture of positive and negative voices. Hearing voices often comes with the labels of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, or psychosis not otherwise specified (NOS). The label doctors use for me is bipolar disorder.

We each have the right to define our own experience for ourselves. Some people may identify with having a mental illness and that’s okay. Some people consider themselves to have a disability. I choose to listen to my inner guidance because it has become a positive part of my life. I don’t want it to go away. I take medications that still enable me to hear my inner guidance. I can choose to listen to the voice and I can choose to ignore it.

I would honestly prefer to not be on medication and my doctor has recommended that we start tapering down my medication. I choose this path because I want to hear voices and I feel it is a good experience for me most of the time. I am learning how to hear voices in a safe way, which includes saying no when an instruction seems like it could be harmful to myself or others. I now use my values as a signpost to decide whether an instruction is good for my well-being or not.

Voice-hearing is not an illness in my view. It is an experience. It is a mental health condition. We can use medications to help people cope with hostile voices. But to say that voice-hearing is a mental illness to be treated medically in every patient is outdated and not necessary. Let’s listen to voice-hearers, celebrate them and learn with them during their struggles, and show people that voice-hearing is a natural occurrence in our human experience.

Photo of a woman with open arms by Julian Jagtenberg (Stocksnap)