I hear a range of voices. I live with bipolar disorder, and my hallucinations are linked to my moods. When I’m severely depressed, the voices are cruel, scary and challenging to live with. When I’m manic, (a mood state which involves an elevated mood, impulsiveness and risk-taking behaviour) I hear a single voice which is motivating and affirms my ideas and goads me into impulsive actions.
‘The Chaos Gremlin’ arrived first. ‘The Gremlins’ came later. I first heard Chaos Gremlin as a teenager, but it wasn’t until my first term at university where it’s impact on my life began to ramp up. It’s strange to say, but it felt like a friend, a best friend who’s always positive, always encouraging you, giving you ideas and filling you with confidence. It was a frequent visitor for most of my twenties and I often wished for it to turn up when I was stable and well. I hear it much less often now. Like how you see distant relatives every other year, or an old friend. I’ve had to wave goodbye to Chaos Gremlin many times, as its’ words and ideas became all-consuming and would cause my behaviour to become unpredictable. It would tell me to write down ideas and stories, which I would later look back and see a scrawl of gibberish on the page. They would tell me the formula to time travel, which pretty much involved barrel rolling down a specific hill at a specific date and time. They were incredibly convincing. This would mean bipolar mania was in full swing, and I would be very unwell. Life was never boring with Chaos Gremlin and still even now, I miss it.
The Gremlins are another story. I can’t wait for them to leave so I can slam the door in their faces. They usually appear when I’m feeling at my lowest, and grab all the worst thoughts, words and memories which pop into my head, to use against me. The gremlins often sound like a group of people chatting, or whispering, or raucously laughing and shouting over one another. It can make day to day life difficult, as when I’m out and about during the day, or meeting up with friends for a night out, I find myself second guessing if what I’m hearing is real or a hallucination. Sometimes their talk is impossible to decipher, other times it’s crystal clear. When I do understand the gremlins, it’s a distressing and deeply upsetting experience. These gremlins are linked to my low moods, but I’ve also heard them when I’ve been under extreme stress or had a particularly intense bout of insomnia.
Hallucinations, as with delusions, are on a spectrum of experience, and that’s something missing from much of people’s knowledge about psychosis. For this book, I dugout some of my old journals. I can’t keep a daily journal to save my life, but something I did do a few years back was journal my auditory hallucinations. I felt, at the time, it could give me power and control over the sounds and voices I was hearing. Here’s one of the entries from that time.
"I thinkI've found the worst combination ever of physical and mental illness. Migraine, room spinning and doubting my sanity as I hear voices whilst sat in bed. I'm feeling very vulnerable and scared. I've felt physically ill all day today. We went out for a meal with friends but had to cut it short because I thought I was going to pass out or fall over from being so dizzy. This week has been an emotional rollercoaster with my moods all over the place. I've been ecstatically happy and hyperactive, busy working away on new projects. In a startling contrast I've felt hopeless, useless and deeply lost.
Now I'm home and sat in bed. The noises have started. I can hear creaking. It sounds like it's coming from the bed, but I'm not moving. It won't stop. I've turned on my laptop and found the easiest, but most distracting programme I can find, AlwaysSunny. It reminds me of hanging out on a cosy Friday night with my partner Jimi. A time when I was happy and not hallucinating. If I can focus on this maybe the voices will leave me alone.
It isn't working. Now the creaking has turned into banging on the bedroom window. The banging is urgent, fast and incredibly loud as if a fist is pounding on the window. The blinds are closed and I'm paranoid now that the banging is real, and someone is playing a joke on me. Should I get up and check? I really should. I've been to open the blinds and there was nothing there. It's windy outside, and all I could see were the bushes and trees swaying. The unpredictable and forcible wind today is mirroring my state of mind. The banging is making me really uncomfortable. I'll turn the volume up on the laptop to try and drown out the noise. It's not working, Fuck. What is my mind trying to tell me? How can I rationalise this or tell it to stop?
It's suddenly stopped, thank fuck for that. I can breathe again. The cat has leapt up on the bed and has curled up next to me. It's like she knows something is wrong.Stroking her and listening to her gentle purr is calming me down. I've just realised it's getting dark outside and I'm sitting in the bedroom with no lights on. But I don't want to get up because right now sitting here I'm not hearing anything scary or confusing. I don't want to jinx it.
Now it's dark and I'm still sitting in the bedroom, still too afraid to get up and turn the lights on. I can hear footsteps coming into the room, it must be my husband. I hear the bed creak as he sits down on it next to me. He says to me "Do you want any carrots? I think we need some more carrots for next week." I'm confused. Why is he talking about carrots? I respond, "Yeah ok, I'll put carrots on the shopping list next week." I hear him get up and walk out the room. I'm not sure if that conversation was real. It was weird and random and now I feel really muddled and confused. I've turned the light on now so I could write this down.
Oh yay, here comes the shouting! I close my eyes and try and focus my mind. All I can hear is "Fuck! Fuck!" "Get the fuck out!" Can't take this anymore. I'm getting up. I realise I'm trembling, and I feel as if I've been shaken roughly by someone much stronger than me. I sit down next to my husband on the sofa. I ask him, "Did you come in the bedroom earlier?" He replies "No, I've been in here the whole time, why?" I can't be bothered to explain what's been happening. I'm still feeling overwhelmed by voices. I'm asking him about his game. He's playing Elite Dangerous. I love how enthusiastic he is about this game and the idea of space travel. I make myself listen to him intently, and the shouting starts to fade.
The problem with hearing voices is the paranoia afterwards. Is that banging from outside orin my head? Is that whispering in the background of the tv show I'm watching orin my mind? Unknown noises set my teeth on edge. I'm jumpy, full of panic with the fear it will start again.
At least I'm talking about it."
The Myth-Busting Guide to Psychosis by Kai Conibear is out now.