"I've been wanting to share this with someone for a very long time.
But, usually when I tell people that I hear voices... I make a joke of it, so that they don't believe that I'm serious.
I am sharing this with you. And, I am being completely serious. And I am being completely honest about it.
I started hearing discarnate/disembodied voices several years ago.
It was unexpected. It was upsetting. It was frightening.
And, since there was nothing and no on in my life prior to the moment these experiences started that had in any way prepared me for it... it was an absolute and utterly Hellish experience for me.
I made a conscious decision to not tell my family for what I thought were obvious reasons. I knew that they would leap to their conclusions based upon western civilization's favorite, pigeon-holing and usual suspects: mental illness and/or drug use.
And since I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt (after it'd started and I decided to try to do something about them/try to get rid of them - Hahaha! Good Luck with that! - I did my own self-directed study, research and even made numerous recordings of them), that neither of those was the culprit, I kept the amazing and - at the time - horrifying Hell that I was going through pretty much to just myself and a select few friends.
When I did eventually tell my mother, in the most general terms, what I was experiencing, she insisted on taking me to a psychiatrist immediately. I saw two different ones. The first one was very sympathetic and easy to talk with, but, she said she wasn't the right person for me to see. The second one, after hearing my detailed description of the previous few years experiences, diagnosed me with schizophrenia.
I don't hold it against her, because that's what the AMA/APA decrees and that's what they're all taught in medical school: "If a patient presents with symptoms A, B, C, D and sometimes E... then that patient belongs in slot # 1."
What my beloved mother and my dear doctor don't - or won't - understand is that I have been able to repeatedly record the voices that I hear - even when I'm asleep - on a tape recorder.
To put it simply, I have proof that the voices that I hear do not originate from inside my head nor from a chemical imbalance.
In fact, on one particular occasion, I performed an experiment. I left one of my recordings with my Mother to listen to and I left the room for about 10 minutes - so as to not influence what she might perceive from the recording.
When I returned and asked what - if anything - she heard, she looked at me with a curious look on her face and said, "I heard what sounded like a chorus of voices. And I definitely heard your name spoken a few times."
I hadn't told my Mother that the recording she'd just listened to was made while I was asleep, alone in my room, with a voice-activated tape recorder. At the time, I jumped up and down triumphantly and said, "Yes! Yes! That's it. That's them! That's what they sound like... a chorus of voices! You heard them, too!". And, she acknowledged that, yes, she did hear what she had just described on the tape.
(*Note: The voices that I hear have changed... not remained 100% the same over the years. Many of those that I heard in the beginning aren't heard by me now. And - in some cases - that's a very good thing.)
Yet, in spite of her personal experience with my tape recorded 'evidence' that - from her own description - seems to prove that the voices I hear do not originate within me, she's still more comfortable believing that the voices are from my alleged schizophrenia. But, I don't hold this against her, either.
The general population always has and still does ignore, ridicule, attack or reject outright anything that doesn't fit inside their often very narrow world-view.
My doctor, my Mother and people - in general - prefer comfort to instability. I know this. They don't like extreme and sudden changes.
Believe me, when this started happening, I wasn't exactly comfortable with it. I didn't like it. I didn't want it. A number of those voices that I heard in the beginning weren't exactly pleasant. And, I discovered that - at least for the time being - there was nothing I could do about it/them.
I can honestly say that those initial experiences reduced my previously held world-view - of how things are... of what is... and of what isn't - to so much pulverized, powdered, unrecognizable confetti.
But, hey, I survived. No bid deal. Bend and you won't break, right?
Apparently, other people are deathly afraid of bending their world-views.
"God" help those of us who present them with our extraordinary and genuine experiences. The ones that - if validated - would represent a significant challenge to most people's generations-old and completely-unquestioned world-view.
And, as for when they are presented with evidence that seems to indicate something unexplained or (gasp!) paranormal is going on...
Modern, organized religion - particularly conservative branches of Christianity - seems dead-set on only allowing a handful of men and scant few women from about 2000 years ago to have had officially-acknowledged/sanctioned, extraordinary, beyond-the-grasp-of-most-people types of experiences. Those select (and some of those selections were undoubtedly fabricated/co-opted from Pagans) stories are the only ones - for the most part - which are accepted as having any legitimacy.
What did that leave the rest of of us who were born since then? Those of us who still had and are still are having these very real experiences?
Well, thousands of poor souls were tortured, burned at the stake, persecuted and executed in heinous ways for hundreds of years.
At least the burnings and executions finally came to a stop... Well, at least they have in the Western parts of the world. It breaks my heart to hear stories from other poorly-educated, zealot-run and repressive parts of the world.
Now, the self-proclaimed Medical Deities (*M.D.s) simply try to drug us into submission. Into accepting their explanations for our incredible and awe-some experiences. To drug us into accepting their suffocatingly narrow world-view, to be obedient, to submit, to accept... just like they did. To be just like them.
Don't question them. They know best. Just look at that diploma! And, look at that other diploma! They were the at the top of their class! They never questioned anything! They submitted. They accepted. They got in line. They tow the line.
And, look how far it got them!
... Personally, I'd rather die than be just like them.
But, since the world desperately needs more people like us - with amazing experiences and less people like them - who drug people like us...
I'll just not take those meds that interfere with my experiencing my extraordinary life with (gasp!) an open mind and a flexible world-view.
I haven't yet figured out what to think of those whom I hear.
Sometimes I can hear them better than others. Sometimes, I've misunderstood them and I've gotten a bit angry. But, I got over it and tried again to communicate with them. Sometimes, they drive me... ah, nuts - so to speak. But, that's because I hear them all of the time... most anywhere I am - home, away from home, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, wherever. They are just there.
And they want to talk with me. I believe it's because I'm the only one whom has been able to hear them in a very long time. (One of them recently stated, "I haven't spoken to anyone in 68 years.")
I've adjusted to my experiences. It took a long time to do it. It was painful. I did it mostly by myself. But, I just had to do it. After all, what choices did I have?
1.) Go crazy? Sorry, but, apparently, that is physically impossible for me to do... not that I didn't - on several occasions - wish that I would finally just crack up. I'd have been grateful.
2.) Take pharmaceuticals to numb my senses? Thank you, no.
3.) Kill myself? Nah, not gonna happen.
So, I adapted... it's a lovely little thing nature gives us the option of doing to survive where others in a similar situation might not have.
And, I survived... Who'd have thought it? At the onset... Not me, for one. Go figure.
Anyway, thank you for letting me get this off my chest."
But, usually when I tell people that I hear voices... I make a joke of it, so that they don't believe that I'm serious.
I am sharing this with you. And, I am being completely serious. And I am being completely honest about it.
I started hearing discarnate/disembodied voices several years ago.
It was unexpected. It was upsetting. It was frightening.
And, since there was nothing and no on in my life prior to the moment these experiences started that had in any way prepared me for it... it was an absolute and utterly Hellish experience for me.
I made a conscious decision to not tell my family for what I thought were obvious reasons. I knew that they would leap to their conclusions based upon western civilization's favorite, pigeon-holing and usual suspects: mental illness and/or drug use.
And since I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt (after it'd started and I decided to try to do something about them/try to get rid of them - Hahaha! Good Luck with that! - I did my own self-directed study, research and even made numerous recordings of them), that neither of those was the culprit, I kept the amazing and - at the time - horrifying Hell that I was going through pretty much to just myself and a select few friends.
When I did eventually tell my mother, in the most general terms, what I was experiencing, she insisted on taking me to a psychiatrist immediately. I saw two different ones. The first one was very sympathetic and easy to talk with, but, she said she wasn't the right person for me to see. The second one, after hearing my detailed description of the previous few years experiences, diagnosed me with schizophrenia.
I don't hold it against her, because that's what the AMA/APA decrees and that's what they're all taught in medical school: "If a patient presents with symptoms A, B, C, D and sometimes E... then that patient belongs in slot # 1."
What my beloved mother and my dear doctor don't - or won't - understand is that I have been able to repeatedly record the voices that I hear - even when I'm asleep - on a tape recorder.
To put it simply, I have proof that the voices that I hear do not originate from inside my head nor from a chemical imbalance.
In fact, on one particular occasion, I performed an experiment. I left one of my recordings with my Mother to listen to and I left the room for about 10 minutes - so as to not influence what she might perceive from the recording.
When I returned and asked what - if anything - she heard, she looked at me with a curious look on her face and said, "I heard what sounded like a chorus of voices. And I definitely heard your name spoken a few times."
I hadn't told my Mother that the recording she'd just listened to was made while I was asleep, alone in my room, with a voice-activated tape recorder. At the time, I jumped up and down triumphantly and said, "Yes! Yes! That's it. That's them! That's what they sound like... a chorus of voices! You heard them, too!". And, she acknowledged that, yes, she did hear what she had just described on the tape.
(*Note: The voices that I hear have changed... not remained 100% the same over the years. Many of those that I heard in the beginning aren't heard by me now. And - in some cases - that's a very good thing.)
Yet, in spite of her personal experience with my tape recorded 'evidence' that - from her own description - seems to prove that the voices I hear do not originate within me, she's still more comfortable believing that the voices are from my alleged schizophrenia. But, I don't hold this against her, either.
The general population always has and still does ignore, ridicule, attack or reject outright anything that doesn't fit inside their often very narrow world-view.
My doctor, my Mother and people - in general - prefer comfort to instability. I know this. They don't like extreme and sudden changes.
Believe me, when this started happening, I wasn't exactly comfortable with it. I didn't like it. I didn't want it. A number of those voices that I heard in the beginning weren't exactly pleasant. And, I discovered that - at least for the time being - there was nothing I could do about it/them.
I can honestly say that those initial experiences reduced my previously held world-view - of how things are... of what is... and of what isn't - to so much pulverized, powdered, unrecognizable confetti.
But, hey, I survived. No bid deal. Bend and you won't break, right?
Apparently, other people are deathly afraid of bending their world-views.
"God" help those of us who present them with our extraordinary and genuine experiences. The ones that - if validated - would represent a significant challenge to most people's generations-old and completely-unquestioned world-view.
And, as for when they are presented with evidence that seems to indicate something unexplained or (gasp!) paranormal is going on...
Modern, organized religion - particularly conservative branches of Christianity - seems dead-set on only allowing a handful of men and scant few women from about 2000 years ago to have had officially-acknowledged/sanctioned, extraordinary, beyond-the-grasp-of-most-people types of experiences. Those select (and some of those selections were undoubtedly fabricated/co-opted from Pagans) stories are the only ones - for the most part - which are accepted as having any legitimacy.
What did that leave the rest of of us who were born since then? Those of us who still had and are still are having these very real experiences?
Well, thousands of poor souls were tortured, burned at the stake, persecuted and executed in heinous ways for hundreds of years.
At least the burnings and executions finally came to a stop... Well, at least they have in the Western parts of the world. It breaks my heart to hear stories from other poorly-educated, zealot-run and repressive parts of the world.
Now, the self-proclaimed Medical Deities (*M.D.s) simply try to drug us into submission. Into accepting their explanations for our incredible and awe-some experiences. To drug us into accepting their suffocatingly narrow world-view, to be obedient, to submit, to accept... just like they did. To be just like them.
Don't question them. They know best. Just look at that diploma! And, look at that other diploma! They were the at the top of their class! They never questioned anything! They submitted. They accepted. They got in line. They tow the line.
And, look how far it got them!
... Personally, I'd rather die than be just like them.
But, since the world desperately needs more people like us - with amazing experiences and less people like them - who drug people like us...
I'll just not take those meds that interfere with my experiencing my extraordinary life with (gasp!) an open mind and a flexible world-view.
I haven't yet figured out what to think of those whom I hear.
Sometimes I can hear them better than others. Sometimes, I've misunderstood them and I've gotten a bit angry. But, I got over it and tried again to communicate with them. Sometimes, they drive me... ah, nuts - so to speak. But, that's because I hear them all of the time... most anywhere I am - home, away from home, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, wherever. They are just there.
And they want to talk with me. I believe it's because I'm the only one whom has been able to hear them in a very long time. (One of them recently stated, "I haven't spoken to anyone in 68 years.")
I've adjusted to my experiences. It took a long time to do it. It was painful. I did it mostly by myself. But, I just had to do it. After all, what choices did I have?
1.) Go crazy? Sorry, but, apparently, that is physically impossible for me to do... not that I didn't - on several occasions - wish that I would finally just crack up. I'd have been grateful.
2.) Take pharmaceuticals to numb my senses? Thank you, no.
3.) Kill myself? Nah, not gonna happen.
So, I adapted... it's a lovely little thing nature gives us the option of doing to survive where others in a similar situation might not have.
And, I survived... Who'd have thought it? At the onset... Not me, for one. Go figure.
Anyway, thank you for letting me get this off my chest."