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I heard the severity of hallucinations in these people is based on their life experiences. Those who have witnessed death, destruction, deformity and violence would have the most horrifying hallucinations, even possibly the kind that tell them to do harm. I don't know if I agree that all people who hear voices in their head are full of fear; it seems like some of them grow up to be friends with those voices. For those people the source of fear and anger might be external voices telling them there is something wrong with them.
I don't know what you are talking about, the voices in my head tell me to do many good things. Actually the example of telling you to pick up the trash in the floor is one of the things I have to deal with very often. I would be walking on the side walk just minding my own business when all of the sudden there would be this random water bottle in the floor and I would try to just ignore in and keep walking and sometimes I make it, I walk like 5 or 7 feet and then I can't stand it and I come back running and pick it up. Sometimes I have to carry it for a long time before I find a trash can. My dad and brother have given me a few wierd looks. I think that if it where not for my voices I would just be another jerk in the world lol. Sometimes they tell me to do bad things too like punch someone annoying or throw a book at that random person over there to see how he reacts, but I just laugh and tell them that is something that I can't do. So instead they tell me to buy a doughnut, and that is one evil I'm OK with.
People who have auditory hallucinations don't always have voices that command them to do bad things. That's just the worst kind of "voices" people with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders can get.
We assess for auditory hallucinations, then we clarify what type they are having. "Command hallucinations" are considered the most dangerous, but they are not the most common. Command hallucinations mean the person is at a higher risk of harm to self or others. In my experience, command hallucinations to harm or kill oneself are much more common that commands to hurt or kill someone else.
The next type of "voices" people seem to experience are insulting, berating, or damning comments toward the person hearing the hallucination. It's pretty common for people with schizophrenia to have this kind of "voices." It might be a voice saying "you're worthless" or "you're evil," "you smell like death," "you're going to hell," "you deserve to go to hell" or something else negative. This was the most common kid of "voices" my clients used to report hearing.
Then the next category, which usually is not associated with any danger, is the "commentary" or "play-by-play" voices. This might be one or more voices commenting on everything the person does or thinks. Sometimes they talk to each other about the person. "Now he's going to do this..." "Now look at her, she's walking down the hall..." These are mostly considered a nuisance by clients who are able to understand that they are a product of their illness. I had some clients who were able to identify when the voices changed from commentary to commanding, and report them to me or the doctor right away, as that was a sign that something was changing.
I'm sure there are more categories, but those were the 3 major areas of "voices" I've dealt with, with my clients over the course of 23-ish years.
In all that time, I only had two clients who regularly had voices with positive content, not negative. One very sweet man had schizophrenia and intellectual disability, and he used to hear voices every day telling him "smile," "be nice to people" and "be happy." One woman used to hear religious-based things that were positive like "God loves you," "the angels are with you," and "do a good deed so you can enter God's kingdom." She actually did get compelled to do things like lick up trash and help others. But it seems that positive "voices" are not very common.
For reasons I don't know, the content of auditory hallucinations is often negative, or neutral (like with the play-by-play.)
maybe we all have voices in our head... some are louder than others? tells them to do harm to people.. some other voices tell people to do volunteer work and help one another.. who knows...
I lived next door to a schizophrenic man and his parents when I was a teenager. The mother was friends with my mother and confided in her. Well, the mentally ill man would hear voices telling him to do things. One thing they told him was to give away things to needy people. He could not determine who needy people were, since, obviously, he was not in the right frame of mind. His illness bade him give away things to anyone, because he believed they were needy. He would try to give away his clothing, his food, etc. when he was out and about.
Location: Subconscious Syncope, USA (Northeastern US)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghengis
...never ask them to do something constructive?
Why don't they command someone to pick up trash from the side of the road or visit with a lonely elderly person?
The recent Navy Yard shooting is just another example of the ill nature that often is revealed whenever the voices inside someone's head is cited.
Is it the inherrent evil that lurks within?
It could be one or more demons. Im not sure anyone is ever possessed by an angel. An angel would be the voice in the head that tells someone to visit with an elderly person or be constructive - if they possessed people.
The military is special - you could call it a necessary evil. They are basically training people to in one way or the other be survivalists and killers. Some people remain in control and are able to turn the switch off in regular society, then flip it on again when it comes time to go on a mission. People/soldiers in training come from different back grounds. Some respond well to different forms of training and stress, while others dont.
In the end, you cant make sense of the senseless; whether it is supernatural, or perfectly tangible.
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