Hearing voices - what to do?

February 20, 2018 6:59 AM

In the last couple of years, I've started to hear "voices" occasionally - once or twice a week. I use the term loosely because the voices are generally indistinct, and when they are distinct, they always seem to be my name (perhaps I think too highly of myself). I'm afraid to go to a doctor about this because I think the fairly low impact to my life is outweighed by the non-trivial chance of being involuntarily treated. I have a good job, a good life, and a good family. I don't think I pose a threat to anyone. What should I do?

Each time this occurs, I heard some voices behind me - either talking indistinctly or apparently saying my name. When I turn around and notice nothing is there, the voices go away. Although this is more annoying than worrying, I do have a fondness for my brain functioning correctly.

A number of advice pages mention that many people are afraid of going to a medical professional over similar symptoms due to the similar fears. What I haven't actually found is a statement or evidence that involuntary treatment/commitment is not a likely result of presenting with these symptoms to a medical professional.

I realize that if I was reading this question, I would think the answer is, "of course not, fool - why would a doctor bother with such a drastic step for you?" However, now faced with this possibility, I can't exclude it from my consideration.

Am I crazy? What should I do?

posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (27 answers total)

“Crazy” isn’t a useful term in your situation; please put that one aside.

You can always familiarize yourself with your rights in your area, but in my experience the chances of you getting involuntarily admitted somewhere are really small.

So, first, this could be an important neurological symptom and it’s a really good idea to get it checked out. You could have something going on in your brain.

Second, if you did need help, it would be good to start getting hooked up with supports. Third, fear is stressful. So I think it’s worth seeing your doctor, and if there’s no clear medical explanation, it might be an idea to look for a therapist to work through any impact on you and to give you help in feeling sure someone with expertise is able to look for psychosis, etc. — which it does not at all sound like you have!

You can also explore the Hearing Voices network. But I would always start medically.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:11 AM on February 20, 2018 [6 favorites]

I think your concern is reasonable, though the risk is low. I don't know where you live; based on my experiences in the US I think you can reduce the risk in a couple of ways:

• make sure that your family members are on the same page as you. If they support your being committed, it's much more likely.
• this one's probably obvious, but find an independent practitioner who is not affiliated with any institution that might benefit financially from an expensive involuntary commitment. In-patient psychiatric facilities employ their own psychiatrists who know what side their bread is buttered on and will commit a head of broccoli if it's got insurance.
• Don't express any shred of doubt about hurting yourself or somebody else. You write: "I don't think I pose a threat to anyone." When speaking to your doctor or psychiatrist, you should use much more certain language.

There are also a number of online therapy services now. If you're willing to pay out of pocket, perhaps it's possible to use one of these without revealing your real name?
posted by enn at 7:15 AM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

There's a growing trend in mental health care to encourage people who hear voices to engage with those voices, but I think it would help to do this while working with a therapist who is experienced in helping navigate these waters.

I think it's reasonable to think of this as yet another form of normal mental processes, rather than your brain not functioning correctly. The whole notion of "correct" is a problem in itself, honestly. What is, is, so might as well work with it!
posted by spindrifter at 7:17 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Also if you want to MeMail me or provide a throwaway email I can discuss some personal experience with the topic.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:22 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

If you're in the US, it is very, very hard to have someone involuntarily committed. In fact, there are frequent instances where family members are unable to get someone committed and the result is tragedy. So I really don't think you need to worry about that at all. If you'd like to be reassured by someone who is not a random internet stranger, I'd suggest calling the people at NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I'm not saying you have a mental illness, by the way. But they are the people who know the ins and outs of dealing with the system. I've called them before regarding insurance issues, and they are wonderful.
posted by FencingGal at 7:31 AM on February 20, 2018 [16 favorites]

Erm, I'm pretty sure this is a neurological symptom of some stripe. I would not think it's a sign of mental illness. You should definitely go to the doctor.
posted by jbenben at 7:47 AM on February 20, 2018 [33 favorites]

Each time this occurs, I heard some voices behind me - either talking indistinctly or apparently saying my name.

Is there some other ambient noise involved? Our brains automatically try to make sense of things around us, and IANAPsychologist, but certainly I find that anxiety can borrow this effect in some uncool ways. For example, if I'm already feeling a little anxious about feeling left out or judged, AND I'm really tired, my brain will go to a bit of confirmation-bias paranoia.
posted by desuetude at 7:51 AM on February 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

There is a night time version of this called hypnagogia - perhaps there is a daytime version?
posted by Calzephyr at 7:53 AM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

in my experience the chances of you getting involuntarily admitted somewhere are really small.

In the US, super small. My partner has a son who has a diagnosed mental illness and even when he's in a full-on situation, it's pretty tough to get him committed (which is more good than bad, but just as an FYI). However it's possible that this means there is something neurologically going on and that's important because early intervention/diagnosis can be important for this sort of thing and could in fact help whatever this is from becoming a larger thing. Have you shared this information with someone in your family? I'd consider doing that first. If it were me, I'd get it checked out.
posted by jessamyn at 8:00 AM on February 20, 2018 [14 favorites]

How old are you? Are you in your early to mid twenties? That is an age at which this sort of thing often begins. I work in the Civil commitment field and commit people at hearings. You could not be committed for this. The greater danger is if the voices interfere with your daily functioning - distracting you from taking care of yourself - or if they become command hallucinations. It sounds like neither of those are happening. But generally mental illness is progressive. I would go see a psychiatrist now. People with mental illness have happy successful lives. Good luck to you.
posted by kerf at 8:04 AM on February 20, 2018 [13 favorites]

I realize that if I was reading this question, I would think the answer is, "of course not, fool - why would a doctor bother with such a drastic step for you?"

Even in your question you show a tendency to separate yourself from yourself and say disparaging things about yourself, and I think that's a legitimate cause for concern, yet not because of possible schizophrenia, which you pretty clearly don't have, but it's also a very common symptom of PTSD.

You mention this only started a few years ago -- did something happen around then that might have caused PTSD?

If the answer is yes, I think you should think about exploring that with a therapist.
posted by jamjam at 8:14 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Can’t speak to your odds of being committed (though they seem very low). I do think some people have the bad luck of ending up seeing boneheaded healthcare professionals who throw out (and treat with medication) incautious diagnoses. If you don’t already have a smart, critical, compassionate doctor with common sense and good referrals to hand, it’d be worth putting energy into finding that person.

Lots of people with no psychiatric conditions do hear voices, apparently especially people who are strong pattern-matchers.

(How’s your hearing, by the way? Any chance it might have suffered a bit recently, and you’re filling in the gaps?)
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:15 AM on February 20, 2018 [8 favorites]

You are not crazy, but you are definitely having some neurological symptoms.

Go to a doctor and say, "I am experiencing the following troubling symptom: echoes of voices while awake, movement of my head and body makes the symptoms temporarily stop. I am concerned that there is a neurological problem."

They will not commit you involuntarily, but they will want to run some neuro tests.
posted by juniperesque at 8:32 AM on February 20, 2018 [11 favorites]

I wouldn't hesitate to see a medical professional about this. The likelihood that you would be treated or committed involuntarily seems very low, especially given your description of your functional life. At this point it's not clear from what you've written that you're describing something dire, not that any of us here can make that evaluation. Obviously none of us can promise anything but the bar for involuntary commitment is very very high, in my limited experience. (My coworker couldn't get her relative suffering a diagnosed psychotic break committed or treated, and he was threatening harm and not at all functional.)

This can be a symptom of any number of conditions, and I don't think it's going to be helpful to speculate over which of these they might be, because we just don't know.
posted by kapers at 8:48 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

As others have said, it may be more helpful and/or reassuring if you treat this as a neurological symptom rather than a psychiatric one.

But even if it is a sign of mental illness? There are so many symptoms of mental illness that seem extreme and terrifying at first, to the degree that you might be afraid or ashamed to admit experiencing them - and then you visit a professional and they're like "oh, that's quite common! Here's what's going on and here's what might help you handle it." I have never, ever regretted telling a professional about my scarier mental health symptoms, even when I was afraid to at first.

Whoever you see, I recommend scheduling a follow-up appointment in six months to a year in case you develop any new symptoms.
posted by Metroid Baby at 9:01 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

You would have to be really super-sick to get committed, which you are not.

A lot more people hear voices than you'd think. I am in medical school, and when you ask patients "Do you ever hear voices?", you'd be surprised at all the people who answer yes.

Go get it checked out! Why worry?
posted by 8603 at 9:12 AM on February 20, 2018 [3 favorites]

Nthing going to see your doctor and asking for a neurology referral. This could be nothing more than a weird quirk (brains are weird), but as you point out brains are also important and you want to make sure there's nothing sketchy going on up there.

Unless you're considered to be an imminent danger to yourself or others, it is *highly* unlikely that you could be involuntarily committed. As noted above there are very strict rules around that.

Talk to your doctor. It is totally normal to bring this to them.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:37 AM on February 20, 2018

Definitely suggesting to look for a medical explanation first rather than a MH explanation. I'd recommend seeing a doctor and possibly a neurologist - this can be a neurological symptom.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 10:38 AM on February 20, 2018

I sometimes hear music, with lyrics even, in white noise. It's indistinct, like it's playing softly in another room, but it is annoying. It usually happens when I'm overtired or stressed. This is a totally normal thing! Brains, as has been noted, are weird.

However, though I seriously doubt this is adult-onset schizophrenia (there's a lot more to that disorder than hearing voices) it could be something physiological or neurological going on in your brain. I won't list any here, in case you are prone to worry, but I do agree you should get checked out in case it's something you need to keep an eye on or remedy now before it worsens.
posted by ananci at 10:42 AM on February 20, 2018 [4 favorites]

Oliver Sacks' book Hallucinations discusses, in a very readable and fascinating way, all sorts of different kinds of hallucinations. It's well worth reading; you might find it comforting to know how many are pretty much normal. Here's a relevant excerpt:

"....Seventeen thousand people were sent a single question:

Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice, which impression, as far as you could discover, was not due to an external physical cause?

"More than 10 percent responded in the affirmative, and of those, more than a third heard voices. As John Watkins noted in his book Hearing Voices, hallucinated voices “having some kind of religious or supernatural content represented a small but significant minority of these reports.” Most of the hallucinations, however, were of a more quotidian character.

"Perhaps the commonest auditory hallucination is hearing one’s own name spoken—either by a familiar voice or an anonymous one. Freud, writing in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, remarked on this:

"During the days when I was living alone in a foreign city—I was a young man at the time—I quite often heard my name suddenly called by an unmistakable and beloved voice; I then noted down the exact moment of the hallucination and made anxious enquiries of those at home about what had happened at that time. Nothing had happened."

"The voices that are sometimes heard by people with schizophrenia tend to be accusing, threatening, jeering, or persecuting. By contrast, the voices hallucinated by the “normal” are often quite unremarkable...."

posted by artistic verisimilitude at 11:02 AM on February 20, 2018 [5 favorites]

To be committed in the US you have to be violent, or threatening violence, or threatening suicide. I know this because I had to commit my mother twice and it was incredibly difficult even though she had a long and well-documented history of schizophrenia. And yes, she heard things that weren't there. So, stop worrying being committed.

And, in my non-expert opinion, don't worry about the voices unless they tell you to do something horrible, or tell you you're horrible, or something along those lines. I have occasionally heard music that's not there, always classical music, and I'm a classical music illiterate. A few times I've hear my long-dead grandmother say my name and it's sweet to hear.
posted by mareli at 11:49 AM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I was sure I had read a similar question before on AskMe--turns out it is from 10 years ago, so I'm not sure if any links are dead, but you might find something of interest in it anyway: Can you hear voices without being ill?
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:52 AM on February 20, 2018

Just a follow-up to artistic verisimilitude's comment: Recent studies show that the types of voices one hears depends on the culture they were brought up in. Americans hear the aggressive types, people from other cultures might hear encouraging or neutral voices.
posted by clone boulevard at 12:16 PM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

I sometimes hear music, with lyrics even, in white noise. It's indistinct, like it's playing softly in another room, but it is annoying. It usually happens when I'm overtired or stressed. This is a totally normal thing! Brains, as has been noted, are weird.
posted by ananci

I hear this, too, and it used to really, really scare me; now that I know that it's fairly common, I try to relax and even enjoy it. OP, are you hearing these voices in complete silence, or is there some white noise going on? Our brains really love to find patterns in things, and that extends to sounds, too.
posted by fiercecupcake at 12:20 PM on February 20, 2018

Just backing up what several others have said - in the USA, it is damn near impossible to get someone involuntarily committed, even if they definitely need it. They must clearly be a physical danger to themselves or others.

Also, if by some chance you are developing schozphrenia, there is a growing body of evidence showing that early intervention makes a huge difference in the long term prognosis. Please see a doctor about this. I, too, have personal experience with a close relative. It took 18 months to get someone who was a babbling mess, unable to keep themselves housed or fed, into mandatory treatment. And that was with the police, social workers, the district attorney, the judge, two lawyers, and several family members and friends all working their asses off to get this person help.
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:05 PM on February 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

Criteria for involuntary psychiatric holds depends on state laws in the US, so they vary by state. In California, to put someone on an involuntary 72-hour hold, the person would have to, as a result of symptoms of mental illness, be (a) suicidal, with intent to hurt themselves and a viable plan to do so in the very near future, or (b) presenting a credible threat of serious harm to an identifiable person or people, or (c) so disabled by their mental illness that they are unable to provide for their basic survival needs or refusing assistance from others to provide for those needs (e.g., refusing to eat at all because of delusions that all food is poisoned, or hearing and obeying voices telling them that they should walk into traffic to prove that they are invulnerable). One of my jobs is evaluating people for involuntary holds in California; someone who was hearing voices but not actively suicidal, not actively homicidal, and not actively endangering their life is not someone I'd even consider for a hold.

If someone is placed on a hold in California, after 72 hours they are re-evaluated, and they would need to still be experiencing that level of severity of symptoms to be placed on a longer two-week hold. They would continue to be evaluated during that time, and if at any point during those two weeks the symptom severity went down, they'd be taken off the hold. If the symptoms remained at that severe level after two weeks, then a month-long hold could be initiated. Again, if the symptom severity/danger was less after a month or at any time during that month, they would be released. With all of this, anyone who is on an involuntary hold in California still cannot be medicated against their will; the treating psychiatric team needs to go in front of a judge to order forced medication, and in my experience, clients often win those hearings, even while they are on holds saying they need to stay in the hospital longer.

Like I said, each state is different, so it may help you to look up your state (or country's) laws, but as everyone else has said: It's really, really difficult to get "committed."

As others have said, this may be a neurological issue; it also may just be anxiety. If it is schizophrenia, then early treatment can be super helpful. You owe it to yourself to be evaluated for both medical and psychiatric issues so that you can get the care you need and/or stop worrying about it.
posted by lazuli at 9:39 PM on February 20, 2018 [2 favorites]

On the off chance you are in Australia, I would be flabbergasted if you were held for this. You need to be of danger to yourself or others for that to happen and it is a big deal. I am friends with people who have been involuntarily held and the behaviour required to warrant it is extreme.

That said, when your brain is telling you something it pays to listen and get it checked.
posted by deadwax at 9:40 PM on February 20, 2018