Here is an excellent article by Paul Baker on the 25 years. There is an excellent video imbedded in the article, filmed at the World Congress in Cardiff. Great viewing.
Click here to see the article and video Voice Matters on the Mad in America website
Read this article written by a New Zealand woman, and the experiences she is facing after her sons suicide.
Here is an excerpt:
A couple of days ago, after two years of fighting, I received Mylan Pharmaceuticals assessment of the causal link between their drug Fluox and my son’s suicide. Their conclusion is identical to that of the New Zealand drug regulator Medsafe, that the SSRI antidepressant Fluoxetine is the probable cause of Toran’s death. The rating of ‘probable’ includes an assessment that Toran’s suicide was ‘unlikely to be attributed to disease or other drugs.’
I recieved two documents from Mylan. The first was a record of the adverse reaction report I made to them. It is full of errors. Critically, my son is recorded as having been 19 years old. In fact he never got to be 19, or even 18. He was 17 when he died. He was a pediatric prescription drug user, not an adult as Mylan has recorded.
The second major error is that the person who received the information I reported, recorded that Toran had been diagnosed with depression. Toran did not ever have a diagnosis of depression or any other mental disorder. At the time of his death, his medical records showed ‘diagnosis deferred.’
There are lots of other errors – the dates on which his dose was titrated, the date on which he took three times the prescribed dose and ended up in the emergency room having self harmed, the levels of glucose in his blood prior to starting Fluoxetine, while on the drug and after withdrawal.
The most shocking thing about the form though, is that despite my providing my contact phone numbers, despite my offering to provide Torans medical file and the transcripts of his inquest (in which his clinicians, teachers and others gave evidence on his adverse reactions to the drug), the recorder has finished the report by ticking the box ‘unassessible’ under the heading ‘Causality of Reaction (In the Opinion of the Reporter) which provides the options ‘possible’, ‘unlikely’, ‘unassessible’ and ‘not related’. The definition of unassessable is a report suggesting an adverse reaction which cannot be judged because information is insufficient or contradictory, and which cannot be supplemented or verified.
This makes me unspeakably angry. It takes no small emotional toll to call a drug company and recount the events leading to your child’s suicide. For my report to be dismissed so easily is insulting to me and to Toran.
Perhaps the Regulatory Affairs Team Leader mistook the word causal for the word casual.
This report was sent to Mylan’s UK office for assessment where despite the errors, notably the incorrect record of Toran having depression, the assessment was that the drug was the probable cause of his death.
The Mylan NZ report is here Mylan NZ Causality Assessment
The Mylan UK report is here Mylan UK Causality Assessment
I have written to Mylan correcting the errors in their reports and asking for an amended report to be sent to me along with an explanation of the ‘unassessible’ rating in the face of my clear offers to provide any information necessary for the assessment.
More info on the website as link above,
Anne chapman started her walk from the top of the North Island of NZ to Wellington on the 12th December. Annie wants to see more healthy choices for people under mental health care.
We are supporting Annie in her walk to bring about change. You can see more details about her walk here on her blog.
Go Annie. Any extra funds raised are to be donated to the Hearing Voices Network Aotearoa NZ, so we can continue to support voice hearers.
My friend Ying, was at a poetry evening, and one of the guys read an amazing poem on hearing voices. She kindly asked Chris, if we could share it here and he agreed. So here it is. Hope you find it as powerful as I did.
A POEM ON HEARING VOICES.
Having mental illness in family can be hard but the rewards for over coming them are so much greater then overcoming simpler things.
When i was 17 i had my first psychotic episode, and since then iv’e been diagnosed with psychosis, schizophrenia, bi-polar and depression, i hear voices, i have hallucinations and I have delusions
ahh Life is just a dream, woawo, lucky you, lucky lucky me
These days it starts with a gaze into the outer world, a blank stare into realms I’m not quite sure exist,
I can be staring at anything, such as, the alien species that hides trees
their limbs and their faces moved by the wind in such a way that they come to life
their waving hands simply stating “I see you, and I know you see me”
or I could be watching how the curtains breath at the pace of mother earths breath slowly hypnotizing me into a trance where I start to believe god himself has the curtains on strings or maybe
I’ll just be staring at the boring ground, where spiritual life reaps like you wouldn’t believe
as i walk with my head down i flow through a river of damned and tortured faces
lost souls trying to find peace and banished spirits trapped in purgatory trying to claw their way into me until
“Hey chris, got a spare smoke?”
“uh, uh yeah bro, help yourself”
Life is just a dream, woawo, lucky you, lucky lucky me
The voices that i hear aren’t as bad as the media will have you believe, but theyre pretty bad.
Imagine having no privacy because the people sitting next to me can read your mind
They don’t tell you your thoughts to your face tho, they tell you outside and down the road a little bit.
Imagine having no secretes because i feel like I’m under constant inspection, I’m to scared to even think a bad thought because something listening
Imagine trying to go to sleep and somewhere outside, you can hear people talking about you..there’s
whispers in the wind and vocal cords seemingly attached to passing cars
ambient noises vocalized into the voice of fear,
rustling trees like gossiping woman
and people in the distance speaking my thoughts
and then i hear about people who say that they can hear gods voice, or that they heard demons or angels telling them things…
Life is just a dream, woawo, lucky you, lucky lucky me
The problem with mental illness is that the people who know most about it aren’t the doctors who’ve spent a life in school
it’s not your psychiatrist or the leading team of psychologists..
It’s the people, that are living with them, its the people, who hear voices, it’s the people who believe theyre being followed and that their lives are at stake,
It’s the people who at this very moment are suffering from diseases that should of be labeled gifts a long time ago its those people…
it’s those people that hold the answers, not someone who’s lived a straight edge life and only knows what the text book says cuz no matter how smart you are
and no matter how much you have studied, until you lose your mind and believe that you’re Jesus, you only know half the story
Life is just a dream, woawo, lucky you, lucky lucky me.
Here is an excellent article. Hopefully it shows that slowly perceptions about hearing voices is changing! Below is only an excerpt, see the whole article on the link here:
http://wellcometrust.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/the-inner-noise-sublimation/
In this article, Marika Ciuffa discusses proposed changes in the way psychiatrists understand and interpret auditory hallucinations.
“Have you ever heard voices or sounds that no one else can hear?”
We are in the middle of a clinical interview at an ordinary hospital, it doesn’t matter which one. A while passes before any answer. Suddenly the man in front of the doctor starts to look down and his voice begins to tremble.
Fear of being judged; concern about consequences. With this simple question comes an emotional load that hinders communication and sometimes makes it difficult to find the correct diagnosis. It is frightening to speak about voices, but the thing that scares the most is the mark of mental illness.
The standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals around the world is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The fifth edition (DSM-5) will be published in May 2013. It has been in development for a number of years and a few but significant potential changes seem set to break with the past and bring a breath of fresh air to many people’s lives.
Hearing voices – that is, the perception of voices in the absence of auditory stimuli – can be normal. This is one of the ground-breaking changes to have emerged from the advance publication of the DSM-5 Status of Psychotic Disorders. In contrast to the previous edition (DSM-IV), hearing voices will no longer be considered sufficient and specific for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. It is a big step forward for people who live with voices every day but do not intend to give up their right to be called “normal”…
…But symptoms like auditory hallucinations, taken alone, are not necessarily a sign of schizophrenia. In fact, they can be found in other diseases such as brain tumors and epilepsy, and also occur in around 10 to 15 per cent of the general population. They are an example of phenomena called “out-of-the-ordinary” or “psychotic-like” experiences, which do not always lead to psychiatric conditions and can sometimes be a positive part of human experience.
Hallucinations are also very common in people who experience trauma, loss or other stressful events. It is important, therefore, to evaluate them in the appropriate context, relating their meaning to the individual’s underlying problems (for example, there is a strong association between psychotic-like experiences and severe childhood sexual abuse).
How can people manage with the unusual experience of hearing voices? A study conducted by Dr Heriot-Maitland and colleagues, published this year in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, evaluated the nature and context of psychotic-like phenomena in people who did (clinical) or did not (non-clinical) go on to use mental health services. People in both groups experienced these phenomena during periods of significant negative emotion, sometimes associated with isolation and concern about the meaning of their existence. However, the non-clinical group showed greater ability to make sense of these experiences in their lives, considering them to be transient and enhancing, not dangerous.
International associations like Intervoice (International network for training, education and research into hearing voices) share this non-pathological vision of the phenomenon, fighting against prejudice and the stigmatisation of mental illness. They aim to support people to manage this “normal though unusual variation in human behaviour”, underlining that “the problem is not hearing voices but the inability to cope with the experience”.
However, while it may be true that hearing voices does not necessarily imply mental illness, particularly in childhood, in other cases we could risk underestimating a considerable problem if people choose not to seek help or advice. It shouldn’t be forgotten that individuals with psychotic-like experiences are at significantly increased risk of clinical psychotic disorders, which can have severe effects on health and quality of life.
See the whole article at the link above.
The 2013 World Hearing Voices Congress will take place in Melbourne, Australia, they describe it like this
“We’re already working hard down under on the biggest, boldest, warmest, friendliest congress yet!
Indigenous views
New Research
Fresh Young Voices
So grab your togs and book your flights”
To be organised by Voices Vic, the hearing voices network of Victoria Australia. Dates 20 – 22 November 2013.
Please click on the link to hear our World Hearing Voices Day message
whats-that-sound-hearing
Found these fascinating videos , they are excerpts from a BBC documentary, where they placed people in isolation ( in darkness) for 48 hours. Many started hallucinating. The Dr commented that in a lack of sensory environment, the brain stilll has to function, so it continues to create and work regardless.
So how helpful is solitary confinement for mentally ill one must ask? Many voice hearers will attest to the fact that isolation, and lack of sleep, and also late at night voices are often worse( when awake in the dark)
Here is the first http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfdN_megX4E&feature=fvwrel
in the second one you see them experiencing hallucinations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nnekxGE0nM&feature=fvwrel
The third one, they are tested afterwards, and their mental capabilities have deteriorated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ewX-4eIomM&feature=relmfu
Here is an interesting article by a writer comparing what she experiences to hearing voices and other realities. There seems to be a sliding scale that can go up and down that transfers an experience from creativity to madness dont you think?
http://madgeniusclub.com/2012/07/25/canst-thou-minister-to-a-mind-diseased/
Here is another great video by children about what it is like to hear voices. Kids are great, they say it like it is.
.
HEARING VOICES NETWORK AOTEAROA NZ 