In this third and final part of a three part series of posts on strategies for coping with hearing voices I share a final four strategies that I employ to keep functioning at a high level.
7. Keeping occupied. While I am a strong proponent of having down time to think and reflect or pursue pleasing hobbies, I am a firm believer that a person needs meaningful occupation to be well balanced. I know I do. Consequently, I have chosen to remain employed instead of going on disability when it was offered and having nothing purposeful to apply myself too. It is my belief that without something purposeful to apply oneself to on a regular basis one goes into decline and the condition that caused the disability worsens. This has been true for me. And for me, much of my sense of self-worth comes from the fact that I work full time and am financially independent, especially of the state. My experience has taught me that I do better with my condition when I am working than when I am unemployed and left with nothing but time on my hands. While I do believe that there are times when it is necessary to take a step back from employment when one is in crisis because of a condition, it is essential to return to steady employment, or, as an alternative, possibly volunteer work, on a full time basis as soon as possible. In my last episode 2.5 years ago I was back to work in 6 weeks after persuading my doctor(a general practitioner) that I was ready even though she prescribed at least a four month recovery period. The mind that is occupied with a worthy undertaking has no time to occupy itself with lesser things, particularly the unending chatter of idle voices in my head.
March 15, 2014
Coping With Hearing Voices Part 3 of 3
March 11, 2014
Coping With Hearing Voices Part 2 of 3
Last week I shared three strategies for coping with hearing voices: detachment, acceptance, and self-restraint. In this the second part of a series of three I discuss three more strategies I employ to cope with hearing voices.
4. Support Network. Having people who I trust and respect to talk too about what goes on inside with the voices and other matters is a more recent strategy. After some failed attempts to communicate my experiences to professionals and some friends leading up too 1994 and beyond, because of the negative responses I learned to keep my troubles to myself. However, in recent years I have discovered, or rediscovered, a psychological benefit in being able to enter into open discussions with select trusted peoples I can create an environment of emotional safety and support where I am not judged, medicated, or ‘fixed.’ When the voices are at their worst I find a release in talking with trusted people instead of bottling it up inside and becoming overwhelmed. I attend a weekly men’s support group and have a small group of trusted confidants of which one is a licensed therapist. These exchanges help me stay grounded and keep life in perspective, which lessens the impact of the voices. As well, I keep in regular contact with friends and family on a daily basis, which helps me avoid becoming isolated with the voices and my issues. In my experience, psychiatrists have proven untrustworthy and my exchanges with them have been largely unproductive if not injurious. Beyond writing prescriptions they seem to have little else to offer. Besides target practice I have little use for them. I use a General Practitioner to prescribe any medications I might need and help me manage the condition from a medical perspective. At present, there are no psychiatrists in my support network and I figure that I do just fine without them.
March 4, 2014
Coping With Hearing Voices Part 1 of 3
Voices in my head never go away. They just fade in and out, which is to say that some days they are less active than others. I have been hearing voices in my head in some shape or fashion for over twenty years, and so I have devised some coping strategies that allow me to function in the outer world and attend to my day to day. In this post I would like to share some of the coping strategies for living with voices in my head that I have used to varying degrees of success through the years and continue to employ in the present.