Hearing Voices? It’s OK, It’s Part Of Who We Are

In my 30′s my life was turned upside down by a huge psychotic breakdown.  I was terrorised by auditory and visual hallucinations.  The voices I heard provided a relentless commentary on what was happening in my mind.  I link my psychotic episode to traumatic events during my dysfunctional childhood and first, abusive marriage.  I am in no doubt about this and challenge those who say “it would have happened anyway” because in no way was it biological in origin.  I first heard voices at 14, just after the death of my grandmother.  I was anxious and depressed and my parents took me, without telling me, or asking me, to see a white coated Child Guidance Specialist.  I was terrified.  I said nothing about my troubled home life and was sent away with a prescription for Diazepam.  Later at 16 I was given anti depressants. To think I was labelled a ‘psychiatric case’ so young is so wrong.  I later accessed the notes the “Specialist” had sent to my GP and was horrified to see so many derogatory and stigmatising comments about me.   As an adult I felt angry about how I’d been treated and decided to write an account of my childhood and of my descent into psychosis and in 2008 my memoir ‘Don’t Mind Me’ (Chipmunka) was published, and in support of what I’d shared I set about raising awareness of mental illness and of voice hearing and saw for myself how much stigma was associated with both. Voice hearin...
Source: Dawn Willis sharing the News and Views of the Mentally Wealthy - Category: Mental Illness Authors: Tags: *Special Guest Writers* Hallucination Hearing Voices Movement Member of Parliament Mental disorder National Health Service NHS Psychosis Rufus May Source Type: blogs