I found this helps me, When I have a chance and the house is empty I turn off all things that make noise like the tv and radio, I sit in the sitting room and all I hear is the clock. I breath in through my nose and out of my mouth and try my best to focus on the sound of my breathing and the noise from the clock beneath it.
It takes me a few minutes to concentrate and relax, It’s quite unsettling getting prepared because of the voices and with all noise gone it’s had not to focus on them, But After a few minutes I relax and try to empty my mind, it is very hard but I’v started to get there/ Make some progress. While I’m doing it the voices lessen and lessen untill I can only bearly hear them. In all honestly I can only seem to keep my mind quite for a few seconds at a time maybe 15, but I keep trying for about an hour, I guess pratice will make this an success. I don’t know if it’s because I’m focusing on my breathing or trying to keep my mind quite that is working … Or maybe it’s a mixture of each. I also connect my fingers on both hands and wait till I feel a pulse on each finger.
When I first started doing this I wouldn’t even notice drifting off in thought, I’d be in deep thought before I new it, But now after a few seconds I’m awear that I’m thinking and can restart sooner than before.
When I finish, get up and start doing what I’v to do I start to notice the voices come back and the best way to discribe this is like the volume on the tv, it goes up and up until they reach there natural volume.
I’m also a gazer, If I’m doing anything I’m always in a gaze (stare) and over the last few months I’v been working on that too, I’m trying to focus on everything I come in contact with, That has helped me hugely too. It is also hard because I’m so used to gazing at everything and reminding myself to focus can be tricky because it takes a lot of consitration - meaning I get mently tired.
(As I’m sitting here the voices woke up and are like, don’t say that- don’t say that, don’t say that hints why I’m defo going to send it)
Has anyone else tried to help themselfs? any one try what I’m doing? Or anyone doing something different?
In third world countries which don’t have antipsychotic medication, the community or village usually rallies around a schizophrenic and gives him or her emotional support, a job and a home. The recovery rate for schizophrenics in third world countries is supposed to be higher than in first world countries.
First world countries or more industrialized countries, on the other hand, has more stigma against the disease. This being the case, schizophrenics (in industrialized countries) prior to the development of the first antipsychotics in the 1950s were locked away in mental institutions.
I use meditation and yoga to relax and clear my mind of paranoia and voices. I also walk around 3-4 miles per day.
There are many things like this, in addition to medications and therapy, that can help you. It just takes a little experimenting to find what works for you.
One thing that changed my life was a book called The Art of Happiness, written by the Dalai Lama and a psychiatrist. It uses Buddhist principles and psychological techniques to change your thought processes and ease suffering. It worked very well for me.
Sounds an awful lot like meditation. You empty your mind and take deep, slow, controlled breaths. It’s meditation. I did it for years and it helped temporarily.
I lived normal for years because I had a life sort of diet, I always sleep with light on because the hallucinations get worse at the dark and more clearer, when I was so ill I turned on the radio and opened the window because the random music and the noise from people on the street gives me an ensuring surrounding, and I get the voices to be distracted, they disappeared with time I didn’t even notice them gone but they did, you may try that…I lived in a neighborhood that stays up all night so I always hear people moving, talking and working…I felt safer…I get away or block everything that scares me like if I felt that there is some sort of a threat from something I block it or remove it from my room or where I usually have my psychosis so it doesn’t make it worse, I feared faces and pictures of faces so I removed all of them from my room, and shut my self in my room so I feel it’s like a sanctuary and it worked so I got the pictures back and everything after sometime, but I still keep my room’s door closed because of a psychotic episode that freaked the hell out of me and I didn’t wanted it to get back…it also helps…I get out and meet people, I’m an anti-social, and I hate socializing, I consider it a waste of time and worthless, but for us it helps a great deal and it gets my brains back to normal…
I forgot that I had schizophrenia because it happened when I was a kid, and I started to get better when I got in the high school not all the way better but much much better than I was, I was so ill that I almost got DID, I guess that, so I only remembered that I had SZ when I had the relapse lately, and I can’t do those stuff I’ve talked about where I live right now but I’m working on it…Good luck Bugs, I hope they help
In third world countries if you have a mental illness then they simply consider u crazy, having a support could be only from parents maybe sisters or brothers but trust me that it rarely extends beyond that, they are an outcast in those countries…but in developed countries they consider it an illness not a craziness, there is a difference…maybe in developed countries family bonding is not always strong as it is in third world countries.