I read that not only schizophrenics hear voices!

Hi all,
I previously read that not only schizophrenics do hear voices, but also those with depression and bipolar disorder, but not with the same tensity and duration. There are also other cases! What do you think of this?

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Yes people with psychotic mood disorders can hear voices or have visual hallucinations, with the same intensity but shorter duration. The hallucinations experienced in bipolar disorder usually happen during an intense mania or depressive episode.
Not everyone with bipolar experiences hallucinations, not unless you have psychotic features like I do

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I’m coming across more and more people just dx with borderline personality disorder who are hearing voices also.

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People with Borderline Personality Disorder can become somewhat psychotic and paranoid, but it is usally transient - happening during times of extreme stress. My ex wife had borderline

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Yes other conditions cause people to hear voices. Also not everyone with schizophrenia hears voices :wink:

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When my youngest brother was at his worse, he did admit, he heard some voices… not constant like mine.

He said there were some nights that he was struggling hard to keep ahold of himself … that is when the over the top heavy drinking started.

He was diagnosed with bipolar 1.

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I am sorry for your brother, but I am not well also. I have depression and can’t accept the fact that I 'm ill, this illness has worn me down.

It’s hard to accept… Who would want to?

It’s a very scary thing to face… not only the illness… but the way the media show us how we will be treated… (which the media is wrong)

But for myself… my middle brother who has been battling depression and my youngest brother who is finally getting to know himself again… Accepting the diagnosis is what kept me on track to accept healing. It took a long time an a few rock bottoms…

I do hope you feel better soon. Best of luck and I’m rooting for you.

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Thanks for your support and for your wishes. I hope soon I 'll feel better. I hope your brothers will be healed, as well. I 'm glad you are doing better! Since I got hospitalized, and saw some very severe occasions, Ι have always the fear of becoming worse, and even by not be able to communicate with others, to sink in my world! That’s my worst fear right now!

I was there for almost a year… days passed me by… life passed me by… Ending up like that again… is one of my worse fears as well. Being homeless again is my second.

I didn’t know how far deep in I was until I started coming out of it.

For me it was meds… therapy… and that helped me start trying to connect and communicate.

It’s oddly coincidental… there is another thread about day programs… that did help me reconnect and get out of the house and out of my head more.

I am wishing the best for you.

Sorry to hear that you were hospitalized for a year!! I fear of being homeless as well! Meds used to work for me at a satisfactory point, but now I am almost like before meds! Thanks for your wishes again! I hope everything goes well.

Oh… I’m sorry for that miscommunication… I was trapped in my head for a year more or less…

shutting down and going through some heavy negatives… into poverty of speech… mind wipe… no motivation… it took so much work to get up and interacting on even a basic level.

My body was with my family… But since I wasn’t in any way connected… it didn’t really matter where I was… My mind was in the world inside my head.

I’ve noticed that when I exercise or am tired, I will hear myself think and it feels like other people can hear it. I don’t often hear outside voices anymore. I did on other medications, like Seroquel. That never eliminated them. Abilify is like $1,000 without insurance, and it’s the only medication that got rid of hearing voices or auditory feedback. I’m thankful that I no longer hear them. It’s only in certain situations where I sometimes get intuitive thoughts that are not threatening voices, but subconscious and sometimes hint to something I need to know.

Oh! To tell you the truth, I kind of thought that you might have sinked in your world, but I found it impossible to recover after that!! You give me so much courage! I am on meds now, but I haven’t worked to get up like you! But thanks for the encouragement, it means a lot!

Yes, happens to me also, I mean the intuitive thoughts! I 'm not sure if I have voices, I think I have only thoughts that I think that come from other people, but can’t hear them, they are only thoughts! But the worst are the negative symptoms! No motivation, poverty of speech as SurprisedJ says. I can’t communicate with others, and I feel crazy all the time. That hurts.I wish though that I 'll get over them with psycotherapy! I also have depression as I 've mentioned before that is very heavy, too.

I found that I can be more creative when I’m having depressed feelings. I write more, and use watercolor or colored pencils. Color helps, and conceptualizing beautiful paintings in my head when I’m trying to cheer up. Have you tried picturing in your mind a blank canvas and what you would put on it? If you practice drawing the art in your head, it can help relieve stress and tension.

Sometimes also when I’m stressed I count, or repeat numbers. I also pray to God. My friend and I pray every time we take a journey in the car or like to NYC. We pray out loud together, “Please Lord keep us safe” so far it seems to work. I’ve never run into any issues traveling. And he made sure I stayed close to him in certain areas, like Brooklyn. On the bus ride home was when I started thinking and I could hear my thoughts it sort felt like I was echoing. I had been walking all day, and used a lot of energy.

I think staying active or trying to practice mindfulness is the best medicine.

Thank you for your answer! I don’t know if these work on me, though.

I think that the terms like " hearing voices" , " auditory hallucination " or hallucination
has lead to misleading knowledge

For example,look at the term “hearing voices”
In reality,there is actual lingual voices but the schizophrenic does not hears
them through the normal auditory mechanism,wherever he realizes these voices
by new perceptual auditory mechanism

If you are schizophrenic person,and ask about practical evidence ,you can
shut " close" your ears by your fingers,you will notice that you hear the voices
internally in your head " you will perceive the voice as if it is a vocal thought "

You will realize the voice content as a vocal perception,that is happens without existence of any physical source for the voice or usual sensual mechanism

This means that,in reality you do not sense the voice but you perceive the voice,
and you should know the difference between the sense process and perception

You PERCEIVE the voice not HEAR the voice ,and this is a new perception phenomenon,because the usual perception process which occurs in the mind-brain of all people without sz is silent “soundless”

So that the term " hearing voices" is meaningless !!

At the risk of sounding like a Geico commercial, everybody knows that. It’s a figure of speech.

Thanks for the analysis, I hadn’t ever thought it this way, although it might be obvious to someone else!