To get an idea of how distracting it can be to have these hallucinations, try having a conversation with someone while you have a shock-jock blaring in your ears through two headphones. Have you ever seen a person having a long, fraught argument with seemingly no-one? Imagine what awful things are being said by these voices to make someone shout back like that. The kinds of auditory hallucinations that are associated with mental illness are usually derogatory in nature, throwing at you the very things you hate about yourself, the things you fear:
You’re useless, a waste of space!
They’d be better off without you.
Just put yourself out of your misery.
You’re a terrible mother.
Everyone knows you’re a liar.
Everyone knows what you’ve done.
They’re all talking about you.
They’ve poisoned your food. Don’t eat it.
How stressful to hear this kind of thing all the time. Voices can go hand in hand with a more general pattern of paranoid thinking. They can also occur in some dementias or severe forms of depression. If hearing voices is part of a mental illness, it is best to have treatment, which may include medication. Voices can also be reduced or made more manageable through cognitive behaviour therapy-style techniques.
If you’re a voice-hearer and it doesn’t upset you or effect your functioning, then there’s no need to have treatment. You might be surprised to know how many other people hear voices. There’s even a national network of people who hear voices (Hearing Voices Network Australia, www.hvna.net.au).
