Mind Moves: When Brian speaks openly about living with "voices", his insights are inspiring and full of hope, writes Tony Bates
The personal story he shared - on the occasion of the inaugural meeting of the Hearing Voices Ireland group last Friday in Cork - was not so much about madness as about what we all need to do to live in a mentally healthy way with ourselves.
The launch of this new support group was triggered by Brian's concern for the great number of people who live with "voices" that they experience as speaking directly to them. They are naturally confused and frightened by the experience and often endure years of misery trying to cope with it alone. Their voices may be benign, but they are more likely to be tormenting and threatening for much of the time.
Brian first experienced his voices in 1991, when "things began to unravel" for him while he was working in London. At that time he experienced a severe breakdown that coincided with a period of experimentation and misuse of drugs. When he first sought professional help in 1996, he was diagnosed as having "drug-induced schizophrenia". During the five years in which his difficulties were undetected, Brian's life was miserable and lonely. He tried to deny his voices at first but found there was nowhere to hide from them. There were times when his voices were nasty and drove him into paranoia and isolation. In 1996 he began a course of medication, which helped to "lower the volume" of his voices and gave him "space and clarity to think about them in a new way".
He accepts the diagnosis of schizophrenia but feels it is a condition which needs to be "looked at in a much more holistic way". In his view, it is a complex condition that has psychological, emotional and spiritual layers. There are aspects of schizophrenia that cause pain and distress but there are also many ways in which it makes sense and reflects the character of a person's life.
For example, Brian heard multiple voices, from people of diverse ethnic backgrounds - reflecting his multicultural experiences while working for five years in London. These voices could be intrusive and distressing, but the same voices also spoke to him intimately about key concerns in his life. Now he sees them as "old friends". They have encouraged him to face problems and helped him at times to find answers. His coping strategy has become one of inclusion rather than exclusion.
For Brian, his breakthrough in coming to terms with his voices came when he stopped trying to run from them. He described how he had a moment of insight where he decided to listen to them and try to understand what they were trying to say to him about his life. This was difficult at first, "like trying to tune into a short- wave radio station. Until you really tune in properly, all you get is noise. Then you find the precise wavelength and you hear the message they are trying to communicate."
Since choosing to relate to his voices rather than react to them, Brian feels a lot stronger. He believes that many of the voices he hears emanate from people who have known pain, and may still be in pain, and who want to be heard. He talks of his relationship with them being "like any marriage or bunch of people who live together in the same house. There are times when we fight and times when we get along."
Asked what he would say to someone disclosing for the first time that they heard voices, he replies he would ask them three things: Do you recognise them? What are they saying? How do they make you feel? He emphasises that people can very easily feel bullied by their voices and need a lot of support before they can build up the strength to engage with them.
Hearing Voices Ireland wants to offer hope and self-belief to people who have "been through a lot of crap" in their lives, who need a listening ear, and the hope that it is possible to come to terms with their distress.
For me, the key to Brian's message was the importance of finding the courage to open up our inner lives and to work with whatever we find there. And to be allowed to make sense in our own way of those unusual experiences we have. Brian has no particular explanation that he wants to impose on others for these voices. Some people, he acknowledges, may choose to explain their voices as aspects of their own inner minds. That's fine by him. What's important for any of us, he says, is that "we can be open to ourselves and not keep running from our demons".
• Brian can be contacted on 087-7516607 or at voicesireland@gmail.com
• Tony Bates is chief executive of Headstrong, the National Centre for Youth Mental Health.