Lived Experience Forum

[GrungyFairy20]

Hi, 

I'm looking for some positive coping skills that could help me deal with auditory hallucinations, or simply put voices. I currently struggle to stay in reality and am constantly tired from gratifying and validating these voices. Some of the things the voices say are quite negative and sometimes it feels like I'm justifying what they say to the point where it becomes confusing. Any suggestions would be really appreciated no matter how small 🙂 

[wellwellwellnez]

I struggle with intrusive thoughts. Because you said any "suggestions", I'm taking license to be weird.

There's a zen story about a zen teacher who messed with a student with a "don't think about monkeys" assignment. Of course, it was all for a zen lesson that helped the student on the greater path, but I found a shortcut. Redirecting with substitution. In monkeys case, I'm thinking baboons. There's no need to even see the mind-monkeys when you've got brain-baboons (perhaps writing a screenplay/being detectives hot on a case/making a dune-buggy and needing your urgent input.)

I used the trick a bit ago to get a song out of my head and found the same thing can go for intrusions.

Did you see the "Flash Gordon" movie with the Queen soundtrack? I really like that bit where Dr Zarkov manages to beat the space-mind-erasing-indoctrination-ray by thinking about his favourite thoughts and Beatles songs. I really liked writing and acting in that bit.

[Eden1919]

Hi @GrungyFairy20  I also hear voices for me I have to try and drown them out a bit usually this is with music or sometimes the tv but it is different for everyone sometimes concentrating really hard on something else can help or if that is too hard for some reason I find swimming and being underwater helpful too. Idk I don’t have many good suggestions because I am also having issues with the same things but I mostly have to try and ignore them.