Voices, voices, and more voices

Voices.

Yes, I hear voices.

I hear LOTS of voices.

For as long as I can remember, I've heard voices in my head. Thinking back, it probably started because I was the middle child and only girl in a family with an abusive father and a mother who I'm 100% positive had borderline personality disorder even though she was never diagnosed with it. I think I created voices in my head to keep me company while my parents were fighting in the other room and my brothers were ignoring me because I was a girl.

Over the years, the voices have only multiplied and got worse overall. Today it feels like there are 50 or so TVs in my head all on at once. Some of them have voices that carry on conversations amongst themselves. A few of them are just loud static all the time. Some of them have voices that talk to me. Sometimes I talk back to them. Sometimes they get mad at each other and yell at each other. Sometimes they get mad at me and yell at me.

Some of the voices are different aspects of me... like divisions of my personality. Most of them are the voices of people I know in real life... like family members, friends, coworkers, ex-boyfriends, my ex-husband, etc. Some of them are celebrities or fictional characters from TV shows or movies. Even this blog has its own voice in my head. And then there are some that are unknown voices that I can't recognize.

I'd say at any given moment, I hear approximately 40 voices in my head. Sometimes I can zero in on a specific voice, but most of the time I can't. It's why I can not sleep without sleeping medicine... I can't shut the voices off long enough for my brain to fall asleep.

It's also why I can not do yoga or meditation. Therapists and doctors have recommended yoga and meditation time and time again over the years, but I can not clear my head enough to relax for that.

Sometimes I have conversations with a voice in my head of someone I know in real life and think I had the conversation with the real person instead of just the voice. I talk to the voice in my head that is my mom's voice all the time, so much so that I have to constantly ask her "Did I tell you about ...?" when I'm talking to her on the phone. I can't separate reality from what happens in my mind. I never know who I've really told stuff to and who I've just talked to inside my mind.

I've learned some things that help drown out some of the voices... like listening to a song over and over again really loudly or watching a TV show or movie and making myself get really into the story ... basically anything that I can focus in on and push the voices back for a little while. I used to drink alcohol a lot to drown out the voices, but that just led to other problems. Sometimes cutting myself would relieve myself of the voices for a little while too, but that also came with other problems.

Most days I can easily deal with the voices. I'm just used to them being there. I've never found a medicine that helps take them away, so I just learned how to deal with them. But if I go several nights without getting much sleep or if there is some added stress in my life, it becomes very hard to deal with the voices. That's when they start yelling at me. When they're screaming at me, it's hard to do my work duties because I can't concentrate on anything other than the voices yelling at me in my head, and you can't really explain that to your boss... "Sorry, I can't come into work today because the voices are screaming at me..."

It's odd that I've been talking about the voices so much lately with people. I've talked to my mom and brother, my boyfriend, and even coworkers about the voices. I used to hide the fact that I heard voices. Most people automatically write you off as "crazy" if you say you hear voices in your head.

I've been missing out on a lot of sleep in the last several weeks because every house in my neighborhood has been getting work done to them... new roofs, new windows, etc. The hailstorm last month damaged every house in the area in one way or another. So now there are roofing crews and utility workers around every single morning. I don't get home from work until 1 a.m. or later most days, and I don't go to bed until 3 or 4 a.m., and the damn crews wake me up starting at 8 a.m. with their hammering or drilling. And of course, my dogs feel the need to bark at them all day long so that adds to the fact that I can't sleep. Sleeping pills may help me fall asleep, but nothing helps me sleep through constant hammering and barking.

Also, my job has gotten increasingly stressful since they did layoffs. Then there are many other anxieties in my life. So lately the voices are pretty bad, and they just keep getting worse. For some reason, they've gotten even more worse since my younger brother has admitted to me that he hears voices in his head too. Knowing that he is going through the same thing I go through is really killing me. I'd honestly take all of his voices away from him and put them in my own head if I could just so he wouldn't have to deal with this too.

It's getting bad enough to make me think my brain is cracking up again. I really don't want to have another big breakdown, but it may be coming.

Ironically though, even if I could find a "cure" to get rid of the voices, I'm not sure I'd want it. I don't know how to live without hearing voices.