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It was November, 2018. I was almost 42 and going well, or so I thought. Work was interesting and I would enjoy going out on weekends to cafes and riding my bicycle. However, I had a yearning for the spiritual. I strongly believed in the supernatural and wished that God could be more real; if only he could speak to me audibly and help me with unresolved personal issues.
I grew up religiously agnostic or atheistic. I did not know whether God existed or not. At times, I thought there was probably a God. It was not until my teenage years that I developed a belief in God after my father passed away and began attending church. Since then, I have had a strong belief in the supernatural and have often wondered about claims of supernatural happenings. At the same time, I have a very rational and sceptical mind and am not one to jump to conclusions regarding spiritual or supernatural claims.
In my quiet times at home in my apartment, there was only ever silence. I was living alone. In the quiet of my apartment, there was deafening silence without having the radio or TV on. I became intensely focussed on any sounds I could hear, however faint. However, silence was just silence, apart from the constant buzz of tinnitus, the result of moderate hearing loss in the high tones from years of sound exposure in noisy places.
I journeyed with family to northern Victoria for a holiday weekend. Being spring, trees were green with new growth and there were still a few patches of snow on the tops of the mountains. It was beautiful. We stayed in a riverside park and attended the spring festival markets in Bright. In the cabin at night, in the quiet as I was starting to fall asleep, I mulled over all the personal issues in my mind and began to perceive sounds I had not heard before that I wondered whether might be supernatural. I fell asleep. The next day when I awoke, everything was normal. I did not hear the sounds I had heard falling asleep the night before, and we continued to enjoy the peaceful surrounds of the mountains.
I returned to Melbourne and to work. In the following week, in the silence of my apartment, I began to hear voices for the first time. One voice said it was Lucifer. Then, another voice, said that "heaven is coming to you soon, Paul". At work, I experienced the voice of a man singing a song of "hallelujah" to Jesus. I had to wear headphones with music in order to focus on work. At home again, I heard voices talking about how wonderful heaven will be. I was amazed. I thought I was having a real, spiritual or supernatural experience, coming from heaven.
However, in the coming days, I sank deeper and deeper into this voice hearing experience, which I did not know at the time was called psychosis. It turned into a total nightmare as the voices became threatening, especially in regards to health issues and what would happen to me beyond the grave. I thought the voices were real and of supernatural origin, the personal revelation that I had been hoping for. The voices began to command and threaten me with respect to whether I would go to heaven when I die. At one time, while I was in my apartment, they commanded me to put my hands on my head, which I obeyed. They also commanded me to go off Facebook and to evangelise my Muslim neighbours from Saudi Arabia.
The voices also started accusing me of being sexually immoral and pursing women. It was too much. I had to reach out to my Christian friends from church. I met them at community housing where they were helping disadvantaged people and broke down in tears. My doctor happened to also be one of my friends and was there. He put me in touch with a mental health crisis team and my other friends also called my brother. The mental health crisis team later came to my apartment and for the first time I was put onto medication, a small dose of risperidone.
For a long time, I have had anxieties, particularly medically related, probably originating from the passing of my father and the nightmare of a year in the lead up to his death going into hospitals for his cancer treatment. I became quite scared of anything medical and had panic attacks in my 20's due to heart burn, thinking I was having or on the verge of a heart attack. I went to hospitals several times to be checked up only to be pronounced fine. I also developed strong anxieties about my mother particularly getting sick and dying.
The voices began to play on my anxieties, particularly medical anxieties, telling me that I had an undiagnosed medical condition that needed urgent attention. I was getting voices all night and stood in the foyer of my apartment block at 3am wanting to call an ambulance in order to get my stomach checked, because the voices were warning me of stomach cancer. I had bad acid reflux, so I was very concerned things were not right with my stomach and the voices had alerted me. I was believing the voices.
I went to stay with my brother and told him of my concerns. I insisted he take me to hospital. He was reluctant to and tried to reassure me that I was fine. In the morning, he relented and took me to St Vincent's hospital where I was taken in as a mental health patient. I spent the next week in St Vincent's mental health hospital sharing a room with another patient. I was given various drugs, mostly antipsychotics. I found this time very hard and isolating. I tried to participate in a painting activity but I was feeling very depressed from the nightmarish experience of the voices, as well as flat and sluggish from the medication. It was awful. Eventually, I was discharged. My family arranged to transport me to Sydney where I would stay with my mum and sister. My uncle and brother from Canberra drove down to Melbourne to collect me and take me to Sydney.
While in Sydney, my psychosis continued, particularly voices continuing to say I had undiagnosed stomach problems. I insisted on going to hospital to have a gastroscopy. I was believing the voices. Against my family's wishes, I ordered a taxi and went to Ryde hospital emergency early one morning. I explained that I wanted to have a gastroscopy. Eventually, I was met by a mental health team and taken to be interviewed by a psychiatrist. He thought the best place for me was the mental hospital and admitted me. I was triaged and given a bed where I was given drugs that made me drowsy. As there was no room at Ryde hospital, I was transferred to Royal North Shore and put in the high dependency mental health unit. They took away my phone so I was mostly cut off from the outside world. I felt very isolated not having my phone to readily contact family or friends, immensely frightened because of the voices and what they were telling me, very depressed and worried about whether I might be destined for hell when I die, as well as flat and drowsy from the medication. These were the worst days of my life. I just wanted to go home. After a few days in the high dependency unit, I was transferred to a general mental health ward. I, not normally prone to crying, broke down and cried. Another patient tried to comfort and reassure me. Eventually, I was interviewed by a psychiatrist and I told my story. My family came to see me regularly, which I was grateful for, but I just wanted to go home. Eventually, I was discharged, around New Year's Day. On my discharge notice, I had the diagnosis: schizophrenia. This was a shock to me. I never in my life imagined I would have anything to do with schizophrenia. But there it was in bold black letters, unable to be erased. My risperidone medication was increased.
After a couple of months, I returned to my unit in Melbourne and was admitted to the Hawthorn Mental Health clinic. I was continuing to hear voices. One voice was masculine and like Hitler, screaming at me. I thought it might have been God and that I was being condemned. I was so frightened out of my mind. I was shaking from fear. I still thought it was all supernatural. I was beginning to accept that what I was having was psychosis and could be controlled with medication. But I also thought the source was supernatural.
I was very unhappy taking the risperidone medication. For one, it made me drowsy, sluggish, flat in mood and restless. I did not feel relaxed as I once did. I really wanted to quit the medication. I had a psychiatrist who was quite authoritarian and would lecture me about taking medication. I hated it. I still felt scared and the worst was being confronted by a psychiatrist who gave me no other option than medication. I was told that if I did not take the medication that I might get brain damage from the psychosis. I was told that abruptly stopping medication was harmful. I tried tapering off myself. I was very unhappy.
My employer was really good to me in developing a return to work program. I had taken weeks off work but was keen to return. I had regular meetings with a return to work case manager who also happened to be a psychologist. It was very good to have someone to talk to about what I had been going through.
My psychosis caused me to question my faith, though I found a lot of reassurance in faith too. My Christian friends, particularly the minister of my church in Melbourne, were very caring and invaluable to me in helping me to develop a relationship to my voices in which I would not trust the messages at all. I clung onto this "not trusting the messages" through future episodes of psychosis. My friends were there for me even late at night when I was having trouble getting to sleep because of the voices. I messaged them at all times of the day and night, particularly the minister of my church.
The messages themselves have been quite religious in nature. Often, I would voices saying, "repent, repent, you need to repent!" Or, "repent of your sexual immorality!" Or, "If you keep on sinning, if you keep on sinning, to hell with you...". It was horrendous. I have also heard voices talking about "the temple of satan" and "devil worshipping Christians" and "a demon possesses you!". Yet, this type of phraseology is not at all part of my everyday thoughts, even though I am religiously minded, being a Christian. It has caused me to wonder if there may indeed be a spiritually dark source to the voices.
I have often wondered where the voices come from, how they originate. I have pursued exploring the philosophy of the mind. Being religiously minded and believing in a soul, I have considered myself falling in the "substance dualist" camp. To me, physicalism seems inadequate. But I do now have a greater respect of how amazingly complex the human brain is that it could still potentially generate such voices internally, even though spiritually dark phrases that it seems I have never thought of and do not form part of my everyday thoughts have emerged.
Four years have passed since descending into psychosis for the first time. I have learnt a lot along the way. I've seen numerous psychiatrists who have said different things about causes and prognoses. I have had psychiatrists saying that I have probably had genetic changes and I will have psychosis for the rest of my life and should never come off medication, while others have said that maybe after a few years of medication I will be well again, and others saying that I would be well again soon. Unfortunately, I have found some psychiatrists to be quite authoritarian in their approach with respect to medication. I have also come a long way in how I deal with voice hearing. I am far more resilient than I have ever been. It has been good to confront my voices rather than accepting medication to remove them. I, now, am no longer scared like I used to be, even with horrendous, hurtful accusations. I regard the messages as reflecting my anxieties, especially to do with personal relationships and what happens when one dies. I have become more confident in my faith as a Christian in believing that everything will be fine when I die. God is good and merciful. I still think the experience could have a spiritually dark source, but I am not troubled by this. Whether or not it is internal or external to my head, I do not trust the voices.
I still battle medication because of the unpleasant side effects and long term risks, and have tried to be off medication as far as possible. I have had lengthy periods of remission as well as relapses. I am experimenting with what other approaches apart from medication there are to managing psychosis and getting well again. I have found music to be particularly helpful as well as reading, and it seems I have managed to come out of psychosis just using music and reading, which is a great victory for me.
I have been in touch with the Voices Clinic at Swinburne University in Melbourne, who have been helpful. They are trialling a form of CBT to try to counter frightening or persecutory voices, but for now I have just been having counselling sessions. I have also had very good psychological support from a psychologist in Melbourne who has helped me to recognise that my relationship to the voices has changed in that I can now even make light of some of the dark messages through dark humour. I think even if there is a spiritual basis to the voices that it is helpful to treat it as a mental or brain condition.
I hope my story may be of help to others who may have religiously persecutory voices. I would be interested to hear from you if it has been helpful.
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