Amanda Jayne Maclachlan - Hearing Voices Handbook

Hearing voices Handbook

By Ladybard2012

(Amanda Maclachlan )

Dedication

To all those people who died because they couldnt find any h elp. May they find peace in death they never found in life?

R.I. P . Matthew Barker

Authors note

I have heard voices since being a small child. In the half light the cartoon Characters use d to talk to me on my wallpaper, comforting me and reassuring me that I was not alone. Despite this I passed my exams at school and went on to train at Brock hall hospital as a nurse fo r mentally handicapped people. It is now un-politically correct to say mentally handicapped; you have to say learning difficulties

As many people receive a duel diagnosis much of the training w as about mental health. We were taught from more of a Freudian angle, than from the medication model. Although I have had to let my nurse registration lapse due to enforced treatment and being unable to for fill my re-registration requirements the fact still remains I still trained as a professional and have every right as such to have an opinion on the causes of schizophrenia. As a diagnosed schizophrenic I have even more rights to discuss what helps and challenge the psychiatric departments perceptions of the condition. I feel I have managed my condition fairly successfully all my life. What I am not successful with is managing the attentions of the psychiatric team. I challenge their belief system therefore I have No insight into my condition. I would say it is the psychiatric staffs that have no insight or understanding into the condition. Schizophrenia is a broad diagnosis that covers a multitude of differing conditions. I can not deem to help everybody cope with their condition. I discuss the conditions I have some ex perience with.

There is little help and no form of talk therapy to help people with schizophrenia. Many people end up committing suicide. I cannot promise to help with every type of schizophrenia. All I can do is impart my own knowledge and my own coping strategies in the hope this will help other people.

What the psychiatric team see as a nasty horrible mental illness that needs to be eradicated. I see as a simple inherited family trait that I am proud and pleased to possess. Although it can sometimes be hard coping with at times I can have fun with my brain and my imagination that most people do not. Learning to live with schizophrenia is about learning to harness the powers of your own mind. This is something the psychiatry dept can not help you with

As a member of the Mind organisation I would like to apologise for my use of the term schizophrenic which I know they dont like and any other language which is deemed apolitically correct. However I find which ever language to use to describe people with mental issues it always eventually develops negative connotations. I hate to say sufferers of schizophrenia It implies that it is an illness rather than the sixth sense I perceive it to be. Personally I think it matters much more how one is treated by society than what language people care to use.

History of S chizophrenia & Mental health

Most people that are admitted to hospital these days receive a diagnosi s of either bi polar disorder or some sort of schizophrenia or schizoid affective disorder or sometimes both. So whats the difference?

When I did my nurse training Bi polar was called maniac depression which is a mood disorder. People swing from being Maniac when they feel great, get lots done and often go without sleep. Then they become depressed, often staying in bed all day and often put on weight from lack of exercise and comfort eating.

The new bi polar however Ive heard is characterised by people going on a shopping spree , s o what is the difference between a shop and a spree? Well a spree is when you spend more than a psychiatric staff can afford. Anybody who has been shopping with psychiatric nurses know s that they take you round charity shops and flea markets and then they haggle the price down to 50p. So if you spent 25.00 on a jumper in a high street store, this will prompt the nurses to go hysterical saying you cant afford to pay your bills now. I cant afford that and Im a nurse. You wont be able to afford food now

As far as I am aware nurses are on at least 25000 a year so why cant they afford to shop in high street shops ? I dont know, unless like the nurses off casualty they spend all their money down the pub after work. I admit I did when I was nursing.

The word schizophrenia means split or fragmented personality. Psychiatrists used to believe that voices and hallucinations were splits off ones own personality. Although the term seems to be used to describe all sorts of different mental health problem, there is voice hearing, multiple personality, when people suddenly start to believe they are another person like napoleon or I even knew one man that turned into a cat. It is a broad definition. However most people diagnosed with it just like me simply possess a sixth sense and see and hear things witch others can not hear and see. In others words psychic or if you do not believe in ghosts just think of it as a hyper imagination .

According to many current day psychiatric nurses schizophrenia is when you are filthy and dirty and untidy and smell poo! Yeuk! Schizophrenics often end up as tramps on the street. I am quite frankly appalled by their attitude.

When I did my training although we covered schizophrenia I am still unsure of a definition. Schizophrenia means split or fragmented personality. Multiple personality disorder is a very rare condition. Psychiatrists used to believe that voices and imaginary friends were splits of ones own personality , however now they believe every mental illness is caused by excess dopamine. I have listened to psychiatrists talk about schizophrenia on you tube. Everyone has a slightly different definition. Basically schizophrenia seems to used by psychiatrists to describe anybody that does not fit their definitions of what it is to be normal but yet will not fit into any other mental health category.

Schizophrenics have always been persecuted. In medieval times they were burned as witches, most famously Joan of Arc. In the bible Moses advises to stone spiritualists to death even although he himself claimed to talk to God.

In Victorian times they were committed to asylums for life. Nurses chained them up and doused them down with hosepipes filled with cold water. They s haved your hair to get rid of nits , relieved you of all your possessions and gave you easy wash hospital clothing to wear. They had you over crowed on smelly wards like animals. Pre anti psychotic medication they would tie patients to chairs and gag them with socks and bandages.

So no matter how much you are suffering from the medication and attentions of psychiatric staff, think things could have been worse. You could have been born in Victorian times.

Psychiatrists gave people frontal lobotomies against their will. They removed the frontal part of their brain. I think sometimes without even anaesthetic. Thankfully the psychiatrists have come to realise this doesnt work to stop people hearing voices. Instead they inject t people with anti psychotic. This also does not stop people hearing voices and has allsorts of unpleasant effects. However it is a psychiatrists only way of justifying his own job description. They do seven and a half years to learn to diagnose mental illness. Yet the only thing they can do is prescribe anti psychotic or dopamine blocker. They keep coming up with new mental illnesses that can be treated with it. Personally I think the Royal Collage of psychiatry should be spending more time coming up with talk therapies and new ways to help peopl e that have existing conditions, rather than keep inventing new ones. It wont be long before theyve diagnosed every man women and child with some sort of mental disorder that needs forcibly injecting with dopamine blocker. Psychiatrists who really want to help people go on to do there psychothera py training. Psychiatrists often know nothing of psychotherapists and refuse to refer people to them. Psychiatrists seem to work on a punishment regime. When you are in hospital if you break the rules you get your leave cancelled as punishment. Then they increase your dose of anti psychotics. Nurses use anti psychotics as punishment, if they perceive a patient to be in any way disruptive they immediately lead them to the medicatio n room for a pill. If you refuse the pill they pin you down and inject you with it.