u/Doraluma

It's just one of those days. These days usually the voices sound like they are in the room with me, close up. But people have been hanging out in the car park outside my flat, chatting away. And that gets really confusing for me.

The hubub from the chatter starts mingling in with the voices. Some of the voices start sounding like they are coming from outside the flat. I start "hearing" people talking about me in derogatory or threatening ways.

I know I am hallucinating, but I still end up feeling paranoid and that people in the building think badly of me.

It really sets my ptsd on edge because my trauma brain can't help but go "But what if there really is a threat?" I also get anxious because it reminds me of how I ended up delusional and in a psychosis years ago, when I thought people were outside my room talking about me.

It's cognitively exhausting, just a cacophony of both real people outside, and my hallucinatory voices and I feel so confused. I have moments of realising what's happening, and moments of slipping into believing that people are talking about me. It's like there is a traumatised part of me that is so fearful and full of memories of being told I was bad and called various names that even the hint of a miniscule chance of it being real just hooks me in.

It's so frustrating. Both a symptom of my PTSD hyoervigilence, and also a factor that then triggers my ptsd and hypervigilence which is a vicious circle, keeping my nervous system in a highly activated state.

I just needed to get that out somewhere.

I just need to get this out somewhere. It's one of those days where stuff gets to me and I feel utterly exhausted, down to my bones.

I have severe ptsd, and depression since I was 13. As part of that I hear voices (auditory hallucinations) constantly, for the last 7 years. I had a head injury and TBI when I was 2 and left with cognitive impairments. I have hypermobility syndrome and osteoarthritis so my joints are a mess, amongst other problems. Then perimenopause hit and omg I feel totally flattened by it all sometimes.

And am left mostly housebound, which leaves me isolated. It's hard to make and maintain friendships.

I haven't been able to access any kind of ongoing support. Each specialty (understandably) deals with it's own thing and doesn't understand the others and somehow I never quite qualify. Or no one understands the cumulative effect.

What pisses me off is dealing with other people who just shrug and say "you seem okay" because none of it really shows on the outside.

I'm exhausted from trying to handle all this by myself. I feel like I shouldn't have to handle all this by myself. Then I feel guilty for saying that. I know lots of people have it much worse than I do.

But sometimes I just look at my life and think aarrrgh. It is so bloody exhausting. It makes me feel like my life is a puzzle that I can't ever solve and I'm trying to keep half a dozen plates spinning with one hand tied behind my back.

It's just one of those days when I want to yell into the void.

I was hit by a car when I was just under 2 years old. I had a fractured skull and my head was fairly bruised and battered. In later years I had a neuropsychological assessment and they concluded that I have specific cognitive impairments consistent with TBI. The major ones are selective attention and working memory, some test results were 3rd-5th percentile.

I really relate to neurodiversity because it is all I've ever known, I don't have a "before person" and the injury will have affected how my brain developed in early childhood, but I find neurodiversity spaces quite excluding of TBI.

I struggle with the way people around me are dismissive. Because it's only specific impairments and other cognitive functions are relatively strong, I get the "Well you seem normal" and I'm expected to function and cope normally. I feel blamed for my difficulties as if they were a moral failing and I'm not trying hard enough. In reality I am relentlessly working to do the best I can. It especially hurts when it comes from a good friend.

I didn't understand what was wrong with me when I was younger, I just thought I was weird and useless and kind of naturally developed ways of masking my struggles. But it doesn't mean that they aren't there, or real. I compensated in my own ways, but that still doesn't make my cognitive functioning "normal". So many people seem to disbelieve that I have a TBI, and get pissed off when I reach overload and blank out, or get things wrong, or forget things.

It just upsets and frustrates me sometimes and I needed to get this out somewhere.

I had an episode of paranoid psychosis many years ago and although the delusions receded and I now know that the voices I hear aren't real, I have been hearing the voices every waking minute for the years since.

Antipsychotics haven't had much impact. I hear a multitude of voices talking at me or about me, sometimes several at the same time. I just need to shout into the void that it is \*exhausting\* to never get a minute's peace and quiet. The voices chatter and ramble every single second (unless I'm having a sustained conversation with someone else outside)

My diagnosis for it all was initially that it was a dissociative trauma reaction and Dissociative Disorder (likely OSDD or DID) then the next psychiatrist disagreed and put severe cPTSD.

To be honest I was surprised I didn't get a different diagnosis.

What I really hate is that when the voices started, I lost my inner voice. I cannot "hear" my thinking, my internal monologue, in my own voice. It comes out in the accents of some of the voices (and often gets interrupted) . I have to strain to hear my own thoughts amidst the "chatter". I have to actually mouth the words under my breath to really focus and stay on track. And obviously I can't do that when I'm out in public!

It still unnerves me a bit and is frustrating. I miss my own thinking voice.

Has anyone else here experienced this?

I had an episode of paranoid psychosis many years ago and although the delusions receded and I now know that the voices I hear aren't real, I have been hearing the voices every waking minute for the years since.

Antipsychotics haven't had much impact. I hear a multitude of voices talking at me or about me, sometimes several at the same time. I just need to shout into the void that it is *exhausting* to never get a minute's peace and quiet. The voices chatter and ramble every single second (unless I'm having a sustained conversation with someone else outside)

My diagnosis for it all was initially that it was a dissociative trauma reaction and Dissociative Disorder (likely OSDD or DID) then the next psychiatrist disagreed and put severe cPTSD.

To be honest I was surprised I didn't get a different diagnosis.

What I really hate is that when the voices started, I lost my inner voice. I cannot "hear" my thinking, my internal monologue, in my own voice. It comes out in the accents of some of the voices (and often gets interrupted) . I have to strain to hear my own thoughts amidst the "chatter". I have to actually mouth the words under my breath to really focus and stay on track. And obviously I can't do that when I'm out in public!

It still unnerves me a bit and is frustrating. I miss my own thinking voice.

Has anyone else here experienced this?

I'm going through a rough patch with a kind of grief about the limitations my mental health problems bring in my life. Sometimes I am focused on "there must be a way to make things better and recover and become 'normal'". Then I have days of realisation that I am very probably never going to be well.

I'm so tired of it all. I'm not in crisis, just sad. I need somewhere to let it out so long vent here.

I was first diagnosed with something when I was 13. I am 47 now. I wear diagnostic labels more lightly these days because they keep changing my diagnosis, it seems it's not as objective or scientific as it's made out.

At 24 it was severe depression, evolving psychotic illness, borderline PD and avoidant PD.... Psychotic depression and BPD...Schizoaffective disorder was mentioned... PTSD, EUPD and Mixed Anxiety and Depression....Unspecified Dissociative Disorder (almost certainly DID)...now it's cPTSD with hearing voices. So who knows what I actually have... something in that ballpark.

I've tried 15 different medications.

A year and a half humanistic counselling

Art therapy

Psychologists

CBT

DBT

Psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Six month CBT day program 5 days a week

2 years of psychodynamic therapy

2 1/2 years of integrative therapy

6 months of PD day program

Basically they were willing to throw any therapy or meds at me to see what stuck. While having written in my notes at 21 that my prognosis was poor.

I only managed to work (job) for a few months in my life and both ended up in 'breakdowns'. I haven't had a relationship since I was 23. At what point do I accept that this is it? That I'm unable to form and sustain a relationship (or many friendships), that I will never be able to hold down a job. That I will often have a tenuous grip on reality. That my day to day functioning will be quite impaired. That dealing with this alone in my flat is going to be as good as it gets. (Can't get out much, physical health issues and limited mobility)

I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of the "mental illness is treatable!" and recovery pressure... maybe for some of us it isn't? I feel like I almost need permission to "give up on recovery" and just try to survive the best I can. Where are the spaces that we can express this and just breathe?

I don't mean this as negatively or self-pitying as it probably sounds. It's just painful. I don't want my life to be like this, but it is. I am not a story of overcoming. Though perhaps one of survival. I had dreams and plans for my life. Simple things. I feel like I'm grieving the life I never had and will never have. But am required to "stay positive".. which gets in the way of accepting all this.