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I Haven't Heard Schizoaffective Voices in Almost 2 Months

April 9, 2020 Elizabeth Caudy

I haven’t heard schizoaffective voices in almost two months. That’s pretty exciting news. I started hearing voices much less because my psychopharmacologist increased the dosage of my mood stabilizer. It’s so good to be free of the voices and I don’t take it for granted.

I Haven't Heard Voices, But It May Not Last

I wouldn’t want to jinx myself by saying the voices have gone away for good, but I haven’t heard them since February 9th and I’m writing this on April 4th. I know the last time the voices visited because I have a notebook in which I write down the date of each time I hear them.

There were times, before February 9th, when I went long stretches without hearing voices (not as long as this stretch) and then they returned. That was a disappointment but a monumental improvement. There were random times when I experienced this schizoaffective symptom once a week. At those times, I was so afraid I was going back to my original pattern of a constant battle with this challenge.

It took years after my first episode in college to get control of the voices. But it was really scary when I thought I was getting over these schizoaffective episodes, and then that awful symptom would intrude a week later. I had regularly heard them about once a week before my doctor raised the dosage of my psychiatric medication. Also, sometimes during the most recent times I heard voices, they lasted a long time. I had gotten accustomed to the voices sticking around only about 20 minutes tops after the medication change.

It’s really scary to have such a problematic schizoaffective symptom seemingly go away, and then to have it come back. Some sense of hope seemed to unravel at that point.

I Heard Voices, But I Was Used to It

Believe it or not, I was used to hearing voices before the medication change. It was just a part of my life and had been for over two decades. I knew the voices weren’t real, and I didn’t do anything they might tell me to do.

I even had a plan for when I heard voices. I would take a tranquilizer that my psychopharmacologist had prescribed for me to use as needed and I’d watch a DVD--either a mellow Tori Amos concert or the movie Brave about Disney’s feisty, red-headed princess who breaks the rules big time. A song towards the beginning of that movie, Julie Fowlis’ “Touch the Sky,” especially soothed my voices.

When I still smoked, I just chain-smoked through the voices and, when I was quitting smoking, I drank lots of decaffeinated coffee during an episode. Let’s just say I did everything I could to relax, not worry, and self-soothe.

I know I will probably hear voices again, but, superstitiously, I don’t want to say more than that. I’m very surprised I haven’t heard them even once during the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m glad I haven’t, though. Let’s just leave it at this--I haven’t heard schizoaffective voices in almost two months, and I am very grateful.

APA Reference
Caudy, E. (2020, April 9). I Haven't Heard Schizoaffective Voices in Almost 2 Months, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, December 24 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/creativeschizophrenia/2020/4/i-havent-heard-schizoaffective-voices-in-almost-2-months



Author: Elizabeth Caudy

Elizabeth Caudy was born in 1979 to a writer and a photographer. She has been writing since she was five years old. She has a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA in photography from Columbia College Chicago. She lives outside Chicago with her husband, Tom. Find Elizabeth on Google+ and on her personal blog.

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