Seeking Help for Unwanted Thoughts and Voices
Determine the impact of your voice(s). It is not uncommon for people to experience auditory hallucinations, or sounds and voices in their head. Often, this happens as you are drifting off to sleep or waking up out of a dream. Other times, these voices can happen occasionally throughout your day. As long as you know that the voice is not some other real person, then you can replace it by purposely thinking of something else -- and then they are not dangerous. If they make you feel anxious, spied upon, threatened, or manipulated you should seek immediate medical assistance. Contact a psychiatrist or doctor right away.
Consider the “type” of voice you are hearing. Hearing a voice could be something as simple as hearing your favorite song repeating in your head. A voice can also manifest with its own personality. A voice's personality may be kind, positive and encouraging. Another voice can leave you feeling confused, controlled or upset. You might hear various voices, or just one. If you have trouble keeping the voice(s) controlled by positive/purposeful thinking about work, daily events and can not keep it all straight, try writing things down. Use a journal to analyze, and to show your counselor or doctor.
Change the way you think about the voices. This is a process known as reframing them. Rather than thinking of your voice as something that you can’t control and need to hide from, you can bring it to your personal awareness to begin to control it. But, do this silently without involving other people. It would only confuse or alarm fellow workers or bystanders. Fully be aware of the voice and realize that it is not based in audible reality. This allows you to think about the voice from a perspective where you have the control, and avoids stressing you out. Voices tend to get more intense when a person is stressed.
Discuss the voices with your doctor. Though auditory hallucinations are experienced by most people in some form or fashion, they are also possibly symptoms of bipolar disorder, dissociative disorders, alzheimer's disease, depression, mania, or schizophrenia. If you are hearing voices, especially if you feel that they are beyond your control, you should consult your doctor. It is best to detect these disorders as early as possible. Proper testing will need to be done to diagnose or dismiss these disorders. You cannot self-diagnose these disorders. Research has shown that some of the worst parts of a serious disorder such as schizophrenia can be avoided in some patients if it is detected in the early, or prodromal, stages. Testing for mental disorders usually come with a psychological evaluation, but in some cases your doctor may need to check for reaction to a medicine, for a brain tumor, blood vessel blockage problems (similar to a stroke) and so may perform a physical exam with blood tests, and order a CT scan or another lab test of some kind.
Think back to any trauma. Many people report that they started hearing a voice after a highly emotional experience. This can sometimes be a spiritual experience, but is more often reported as a traumatic experience. Make a note of when you started hearing voices and if it correlates to any trauma. Pinpointing the cause of the voices might help you to manage them. Common types of trauma are an accident, an assault, social humiliation, or the loss of a loved one. There are other experiences that can be traumatic, as well. It is more about the impact the experience makes on you rather than what the experience actually was.
Have your health evaluated. Mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, are not necessarily the only health problems that can lead to hearing voices. Being chronically dehydrated or malnourished can lead to hearing voices. Sleep deprivation is also known to cause hallucinations.
Know your stress levels. Everyone experiences stress throughout the course of a day. This “normal” amount of stress is not likely to cause a healthy person to hear voices. However, if you do not cope well with your stress and allow it to accumulate for long periods of time, it is possible that you might begin experiencing hallucinations as a result.
Diagnosing and Treating Schizophrenia
Get tested for schizophrenia. There is no physical test that is currently approved to diagnose schizophrenia. Instead, it is diagnosed by a clinical professional. The diagnosis requires that you show at least two (or one extreme) Category A symptoms, unless you are having bizarre hallucinations, hearing a constant voice that is commenting on your thoughts and behaviors, or two or more voices talking to each other. Category A symptoms are classified as either positive or negative. Positive symptoms are an excess of normal function and negative symptoms are a decrease of normal functions.
Discuss treatment options with your doctor. Medication, in the form of antipsychotics, is the best tool for treating schizophrenia. That being said, there are other treatments that can be used to complement the antipsychotics. These include, but are not limited to, additional medications for additional symptoms, therapy, support groups, transcranial magnetic stimulation, supplements, and diet.
Follow your treatment plan. Once a treatment plan is made with your doctor, it is important that you follow it. Even if you are feeling well, you should not stop taking your medication. Do this only if your doctor advises you to.
Diagnosing and Treating Depression, Mania, and Bipolar Disorder
Ask your doctor about these disorders. Your doctor will evaluate you for symptoms of mania and depression. The existence of both indicates bipolar disorder. In other words, you can be manic, depressed, or, if you go back and forth between the two, bipolar. Mania is characterized by feeling “wired” or hyper and excessively happy or important. You also might have uncontrollable thoughts and engage in risky behaviors that you wouldn’t normally do. Depression is characterized by feeling overly sad or tired and having no desire to do pleasurable things. To be clinically diagnosed, the symptoms need to persist for two or more weeks.
Evaluate the treatment options available to you. Mood stabilizing medications are usually used on a long term basis to prevent or lessen manic, depressive, or bipolar episodes. Therapy is also a regular go to since it helps heal the damages that the disorder has likely caused during your life. It is also a good idea to get educated about your disorder and how you might change your lifestyle to manage it.
Adjust your treatment plan as your doctor suggests. As time goes on, your doctor may see the need for changing your medication or dosage. They might also suggest a different type of therapy or participating in a support group. Be open to what your doctor has to say and communicate openly with them about how you are doing overall.
Treating Dissociative Identity Disorders
Contact a doctor about dissociative identity disorder. This disorder is characterized by a fragmenting of your personality. Two or more distinct personalities will exist within the same person, and take turns controlling the person's (the host) body. Until the mid 1990s the disorder was known as multiple personalities disorder.
Find out what treatments are available for this disorder. There are no medications that treat dissociative identity disorder. Instead, therapy is used with the goal of reunifying the fragmented personality. This is usually a form of psychotherapy, but can sometimes include other therapies such as cognitive or creative therapy. Medications may be prescribed to help manage other mental health symptoms that arise from dissociative identity disorder, but they do not treat the disorder directly.
Stick to a treatment plan. Reunifying a fragmented personality can take a long time. You should stick with your therapy for as long as your doctor recommends. Even if symptoms lessen, the therapy may still be important to keep the disorder under control.
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