Dear likecrystal:

I don’t know if you will be reading this post, but I hope that you will, and that you will take your time reading it patiently. When I write to you here, I don’t only have you and your situation in mind. I also have me and my situation in mind, and the more I try to understand you, the better I understand myself.

Three days ago, you shared that you chose your username “along the lines of clarity“, as in the term as clear as crystal, I figure, which means transparent and easy to understand. What you are looking for is clarity, transparency, understanding.

I wrote to you that hearing a voice or voices may be the inner critic becoming loud, so we hear it not as a thought, but as a voice, as if other people can hear it too.  And this makes sense to me. But it may not be the only explanation as to what hearing voices is about. Different people may hear voices for different reasons.

I had no contact with my mother for over 8 years, but the other morning, while in the kitchen alone, I heard her screaming at me. I didn’t hear words, or if I did, I didn’t remember the words later. I heard an angry voice that scared me. I did not think that her voice was really there and that someone else could hear it, but I heard it. It was not the voice of my inner critic: it was rather a vivid memory of her voice playing out in my brain.

Often, living with my mother as a child and a teenager, I was trapped like a caged animal. It felt like she was chasing me with her anger, and I had nowhere to run to, no place away from her (it was a very small apartment). Her anger was in her facial expressions, in the look in her eyes, in the shaming, ugly words she uttered, in her hand hitting me, and in her voice: loud, angry, accusing, threatening. She didn’t chase me at all times, but enough so that from one point on, I wasn’t able to relax because it was just a matter of time before she chased me again. Fast forward, in the kitchen that morning, I heard her voice as if she was there.

I am now looking at what you shared regarding the voice or voices: “I honestly don’t think that it is part of me, but rather something or someone else…. I don’t really feel comfortable about sharing what is said, and to be honest a lot of the time I can’t remember things very clearly after its happened, but just that its difficult at the time and not on my side“- sounds like the voice I heard in the kitchen: I didn’t notice or remember the words, but I do remember the tone and volume, and it was definitely not on my side!

You shared in regard to the people in your life who hold a belief or faith that you no longer believe in: “I’ve witnessed people being/feeling very uncomfortable around people with a different belief and wanting to challenge them.  I suppose I do not feel ready to be challenged“- maybe the voices you have been hearing are these people’s voices, angrily challenging you, chasing you in a way. Maybe these people include your parents.

“So that leaves me with a dilemma of what to say“- what to say to the people who challenge you, people who are maybe chasing you for a re-commitment to their side, their faith?  I will get to it in a moment.

First, a general note: people angrily chase people in a variety of contexts, a most popular context is online public forums, such as this. An example: an original poster (OP) starts a thread, asking for some help. A member replies, asking questions. Next, the OP does not answer the questions asked. The member who asked the questions gets angry at the OP and chases the OP for answers, almost demanding answers! What results is that the OP, instead of being helped, he/ she is being harassed.

The member asking the questions does not have a right to have his/ her questions answered. He/ she is not entitled to answers. Even a person arrested for a crime has “the right to remain silent”. Surely, a member starting a thread on a public forum has the right to remain silent when asked questions!

What to do when harassed on a public forum? The harassed member can (1) Contact the site’s owner and ask for intervention, to have the harasser’s account deactivated if needed, so to keep the forum safe. If that doesn’t work, (2) Delete one own’s account so to not be present for further harassment.

Now back to your “dilemma of what to say“, in regard to perhaps your fear that parents, family members, other people will chase you and harass you, demanding in one way or another, that you return to their side, their faith: (1) Assert yourself, and see if you get support from any of the people who can then talk to the others and have them avoid harassing you, or stop harassing you if they already started. If that doesn’t work, (2) Extricate yourself from them all (equivalent to deleting an account on a public forum).

“Is there such a thing as being able to actually hear other people or is it all bunkum?“- I don’t remember how old I was when I had this dream: I was flying in the clear, blue skies. Not in an airplane or the like, but like a bird: my arms perpendicular to my body, flying unhindered far above. It felt so real, that for a long time, I thought I really did fly in the sky. It felt so good, I definitely wanted it to be true! Eventually I figured that it didn’t really happen because it is impossible to defy gravity. It still felt real though. I think that this dream of flying was about the caged animal that I was finding freedom: no longer being chased, no longer being harassed.

Back to you: just like having the dream above did not mean that I suffered from psychoses, hearing the voice or voices that you hear does not mean that you suffer from psychoses. As to y0ur question:  “Are there other options to medication, which cause side effects?“- hearing a voice or voices does not mean that you suffer from psychosis and that you therefore need anti-psychotic medication. It may mean that you need safety: protection from being chased and harassed in any context, be it online or in-real-life.

Don’t give in to people who chase you, people who harass you, people who demand of you what they have no right to demand, is my strongest suggestion.

anita

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