Hi. I do not have a medical diagnosis for schizophrenia, but I am experiencing a bothersome symptom that I know some with schizophrenia can relate to. Given the nature of what I experienced in the past, I am hoping that writing this out will enable others to help me out, comment, or just make myself feel better. I need someone to know what I've been through via text because I simply do not have the mental capacity to get this out in any interpersonal setting. I really hope this doesn't become too meth related. If you want to skip the long story, scroll to the drawn out line.

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I am a recovering meth addict (130 days) and used on-and-off for about a year and a half. Most of these stints would be anywhere from 2-5 days long, with one being 9 days. Lack of sleep, heavy use, and disregarding my body's needs during these stints would eventually cause psychosis. Over time as I totally lost control, pretty much every single binge ended in psychosis.

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Now that I am finally free, most of the after-effects of my use no longer significantly affect my life - which brings me to the subject here. I still hear voices. It was plenty worse when I using, given that in that state of mind, I was MUCH more paranoid, gullible, and prone to making bad decisions. The psychosis I experienced was so harsh and cruel that I now have PTSD as a result of it.

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I remember the first few rounds with hearing voices while under the influence, when I was totally unfamiliar with the possibility of me ever hearing voices.

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I heard my friend's voice (who was not home at the time) shouting at me in a very demanding, angry voice from the window. Mind you I respect my friend very much, to this day - his fake name will be Bob. He demanded my attention as he shouted to me from the window. He referred to himself as Bob's rap alter-ego but with his own twist. Let's say the alter-ego's name is "Bill." "This is Bill-Not-Bob's-Brother, bitch." He was very mad with my drug use, especially how I casually shared drugs that aren't meth with him, and how this disrespected his mama who loves him very much. Therefore I was disrespecting his family. The beratings ensued about how I was being a bad friend. I started crying relentlessly as my mind was battered and pulled here to there. In my state of humility, I was taken advantage of and humiliated.

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The voice demanded that I look him in the eyes when he talks to me, but I told him, I can't tell where your eyes on, so he told me to draw eyes on the fucking blinds if that's what it takes to maintain eye contact with him. So with my hands shaking and tears falling down my face, I made very poorly drawn eyes, which digressed and insulted me for having drawn such terrible looking eyes. He threatened to kill me with a shotgun if I kept taking my eyes off of him. He had my attention for as long as my mind could handle, I held my pee in for so long because if I didn't pay attention to what he was saying then we are done as friends and I am off limits to his family as well. His demands were unrealistic and as I continued to fail to meet them, he basically hinted at some point that we are pretty much done and are just going to tolerate each other as roommates until I get the fuck out of that house.

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As my mind became very exhausted from the shear emotional distress, the voice was no longer forming coherent, linear sentences and began to fade out into a cloud of voice spam. I eventually fell asleep and saw my friend later on and hugged him, and laughed about it later. But it made me wonder, was I really being a bad friend, or was it just a guilt trip for the sake of my misery.

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Here's a hint: It was a guilt trip purely for the sake of my misery. I didn't deserve any of that shit. If it wasn't a guilt trip then it was an appeal to my fear. I remember stating my worst fear out loud and a non-familiar voice said "Oh so THAT'S his worst fear!" It became quite apparent that the voices in my head were profiling me for the purpose of exercising misery upon me. And if it wasn't an appeal to my fear, it was an appeal to my anger, in order to get me to do some irrational. It was certainly like a very drawn out mental and spiritual attack.

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Two most memorable things that were repeated time and time again:

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"I'm gonna RUIN your life!" Yes, the voices ruined my life.

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"WE want YOU to go to jail!" Yes, I went to jail.

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"WE want YOU to do something stupid, so that you will go to jail!" This is a reference to when a family member was intentionally provoked into wrath via his anger problem by another family member, in order to facilitate him going to jail for domestic violence to save his life, where there was no blatantly obvious grounds for him to go to jail for a drug charge.

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It was all so fucking cruel. I'm sober now and experience auditory hallucinations to a much more minor but very obvious degree, I only hear one primary voice, with occasionally a 2nd voices now. The voices STILL try some old tricks. It's as if, they were SO satisfied with the outcome of their involvement with my life, that they just want to see MORE of it happen. They WANT to see me cry, they WANT my thoughts to become angry and resentful. As time went on I began to become more familiar with what has apparently become my only true enemy in life. Its influence is very weak over me so long as I am sober, but it can still intrude into my mind and make my day more annoying or difficult.

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They still narrate my thoughts and gradually slow them down (I am, without distraction, a fast thinker.) They narrate my thoughts and replace a key word with another word to change the entire meaning of my sentence. My silent thoughts dictate one word, but my mind hears the voice say another. They don't change the thought, but they are still there. They like to try and make me paranoid about maybe someone hearing me while I am masturbating. They like to draw out their vowels to sound more sinister and crystal-clear. They like to answer as though they are God when I communicate with my newly-found higher power. They like to be counter-productive when I am trying to be productive. They like to answer questions I ask myself just for the sake of butting in. They hold no opinions on any manner, and will answer "Yes" or "No" for example regardless of any confounding factors. They still like to try and guilt trip me. They are proud of their guilt trips. Everything they say just sounds like a really bad liar trying to get one in on me.

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Sometimes I wonder if the Devil is actually real, but I think it's more plausible that the voice in my head is just trying to replicate the Devil for the purpose of appealing to a higher type of fear or superstition. I don't have to have a "Devil" while having a higher power. I am not scared of this voice AT ALL, and quite frankly it is actually humorous at times to hear the voice try to have an influence over my life.

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But it still tries, and it tries relentlessly. I have tried so hard to be respectful to this voice, only to have my attempt briefly entertained when the voice's default state is to mock my existence. I have tried to be empathetic and offer my hand to co-exist in this mind of mine without the need to cause suffering. I have prayed for this voice after hearing it say that it wants to be set free, but then I wonder if an appeal to my positive emotions is just all a part of the bigger picture of leading me on to make the impact of more suffering more effective.

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I have run down their list of tricks, tactics, generalized the fuck out of their whole existence, simplified and dumbed down their whole game down to as few words as possible, called them out. While it narrowed down the list of things able to be used against me, it still intrudes onto my daily life.

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I often wonder if this will just become a permanent, daily reminder of the WORST series of events I have EVER experienced in my entire life. But I pray that it doesn't. He's unintelligible right now, but he's definitely hopping on this moment of openness and exposure. But I will not faulter. I reserve the right to be open, "vulnerable," and truthful about the things going on within me, without some shitbird taking every opportunity to kick me around and taking advantage of my emotions.