dealing with the voice ·
14 June 07

Thinking about the voice makes me want to smoke, take drugs, or even drink. There are different ways to cope with schizophrenia and depression. I’ve been fighting the bitch for years, and at 26 I still don’t have a sure fire answer on how to deal with it.

This is my present view of what works and what doesn’t, or at least what has and hasn’t worked for me. Each person is an individual, and stating this is an obvious fact, therefore the experience each person has is different also.

Music
Listening to music is perhaps one of the best things that help with dealing with a voice. Music is something that plays inside your head, distracts you and you can do other things while listening to it. Simply put it’s one of the best distractions. Now depending on who you are, and depending on what you listen to can vary. I know people who can’t listen to heavy metal because it gets them depressed, for me it works as a release.

You may find some tracks work better than others, the same with genres. Playing music is also a good way to cope with the voice. It provides a really good distraction. I don’t know what sort of music helps, but I listen to all types and enjoy most genres, with the exception of the obvious ones like country & western or pop music. If you can get into the music, then it’s a very free and versatile method of managing to deal with the voice.

Alcohol
I can’t drink like I used to. I could manage a bottle or two of vodka and be completely plastered. I remember once Paul and I bought two bottles of vodka from a theatre club place. We sat down, and Paul and I were practically daring each other to a drinking contest.

Elizabeth was there, and so was Nick, obviously, since he got us in there. We sat at the far right of the entrance, with our glasses in front of us. Elizabeth being the unconventional bitch at the time decided to drink her vodka with skittles, therefore crimping the wall paper stripper flavour.

Paul and I, however, got on with the business of drinking. I found drinking a way of not being myself, and most of the time it worked because I would become so shit faced that I’d smash my skull against anything that was solid. This wasn’t a gentle thump, but smashing my skull till it hurt. It’s a surprise that there was no blood, but I believe I did some lasting damage that now affects my memory loss.

These days I can drink a pint and get drunk, or at least merry if not decidedly drunk. I just don’t have the liver to drink any more, plus I’m dead out of shape, having put on 10kg in weight.

Alcohol for me never helped with the voice, instead it increased the volume, and the commands the voice presented. It made it difficult to communicate with others, often I found myself drinking with others, but feeling incredibly isolated. Though there were people sitting around me, I felt a million miles away from them and what they conversed about. All of this was to do with my own discomfort of the type of people we sat around, but I felt weak and out of control that to say anything would be a bad thing.

Drinking now still releases the vocal inhibitions but now I keep it under control. Drinking with a friend or friends is easier, particularly when feeling comfortable. I wouldn’t recommend drinking alone, as I often used to when I was younger, and drink below your limit, because afterwards you may end up blacking out and hurting yourself. I know I did.

Smoking
Smoking simply adds to the problem, because it increases the blood pressure, causes stress on the heart, lungs and the respiratory system as a whole. This can cause panic attacks, when you find it difficult to breathe and when you have asthma like I do.

Calm, deep long breathing in and out helps, smoking simply aggravates the lungs causing difficulty in breathing. If you have an inhaler carry it with you.

Smoking isn’t all bad, because it helps to focus your mind on the smoke rather than thoughts in your head, it’s all about creating a habit to distract your mind. Smoking works, but at the cost of a bad health. It does work, though.

Marijuana
Bad stuff, because it induces paranoia. I’ve only ever pulled a whitey once, and that was some killer Jamaican weed that I just wasn’t experienced enough to smoke. It knocked me for six and I ended puking up in an alley way.

Weed is good for some people, but it simply adds to the difficulty in being schizophrenic. I don’t believe it can cause schizophrenia, as most people who are called schizophrenic under weed are simply stoned off their tits.

The problem I have with weed is that it doesn’t make me feel as though I’m in control, like a trip, you have to go with the flow, be it good or bad. If it’s bad, it gets depressing, you feel lonely because no one can follow your wave of thinking.

Things such as depression are exaggerated with smoking the herb. Sure it tastes good, and it feels good for a while, but if you’re with company you’re not sure of, or even company you are sure of, it’s not a compassionate drug, making it harder to deal with the voice (or voices). If you don’t feel yourself, then how can you control the voice?

I would put LSD and magic mushrooms in the same category. Anything that radically alters your state of mind or can induce paranoia has to be a bad thing for a schizophrenic.

Coke
I’m not talking about the drinking kind, but the type you take up the nose. Coke for me is not a magic solution, or a magic bullet to my problems. I can take it on my own, or with a friend, generally with someone I would trust rather than not. Unlike weed, coke slows me down, reduces my constant thinking about the pointless, and generally makes me feel relaxed. I don’t feel good per se, but I do feel in control more.

There is the question of addiction or habit forming with coke, but this really depends on your will power and the time you’ve taken coke. It’s not habit forming if you’re taking it every so often. It’s only habit forming if you have taken it every day, for at least a few months. No one I know is rich enough to buy it every day for a few months, so the chances of forming a habit are less.

I know the stigma coke has, it being the most fashionable drug after crystal meth (which has only increased in popularity due to it’s immediate addiction, and cheapness), I know it can corrode the septum and cause stomach problems. Still being able to say no is in your favour, and you know you have a habit when you can’t say no. But then that applies to anything.

With coke I don’t hear the voices so much, and I’m never in a bad or depressed mood. If anything my mood is heightened positively, and I can still get a hit from a minor snort.

But times have changed, and I haven’t had weed in years. Well actually I did have it a year ago, it was just to see what it was like again. It was a boring experience, made the voice more dominant and did very little in making me feel good. It’s a very lazy drug.

With regards to alcohol, I had that earlier this year, it wasn’t so bad actually. I thought this would be worse, but it turned out quite pleasant. I can see myself drinking again, I don’t really have a problem with it as I no longer drink to be paralysed from alcohol. I think the most important thing for me is to drink with friends only if I want to be paralytic. I don’t mind drinking with strangers or acquaintances as long as I still have a friend around. See, when with friends I drink well, without them I drink and get pished pretty quickly.

So to cocaine, and it’s like a love hate relationship for me. I haven’t had any since February I believe. That’s four months. I like cocaine but it doesn’t affect me as much as it used to. I’m not saying that I need more than I do normally.

But I do feel the high I get is dampened than previously. I suspect it has something to with the receptors or something. I’m no doctor or scientist, so I can’t say for sure, but if I wanted to then I guess I could find out and arm myself with that information.

Although I keep telling myself I won’t do coke again, I know that when I hook up with Paul I will possibly buy some more. It’s not that we can’t function without it, I think Paul has more of an issue with that than I do, but I am a social user. I take it with others, and share it with others. I do take it on my own too, but not often and I only get it when I visit. Like I say it’s a love hate relationship.

Smoking is similar to the cocaine in that I do it socially and it can be another love hate relationship. However, I think I have this one under wraps and can’t see myself smoking again. I started smoking 60 Marlboro reds a day, and then over the past ten years it’s gone down.

Now I only smoke on social occasions, and even then I don’t like it that much. So I think I’ve stopped that. But then I start smoking again because I think I’m gonna get cancer more quickly from passive smoking than I am with first hand smoking. It’s probably a delusional idea, but it’s one that bothers me.

I don’t know what my objective was in writing this piece, but I think it might be to just give my view of the different distractions I have used and experienced myself. I’m not telling you not to do this, or do that. My experience may be the complete opposite for you, and I won’t dispute that since I agree that different people can have different experiences with similar distractions.

Perhaps one of my aims for writing this was also to remind myself of what I have tried, what has succeeded and what has failed for me. So you can call this a reflective piece, and one that I don’t mind sharing.

If you want to use drugs or alcohol to cope with depression and psychosis, from my experience it’s not the best solution. They are useful tools but they do carry a risk. But then you risk yourself every time you walk out of your house. Shit can happen and before you know it you’re dead. But I’ve tried it and it’s worked in half measures.

Mentally I far stronger than what I was, and I have learned how to manage the voice and the impulses better than I thought I could. So I hope that soon, or in the very near future I will be able to manage without the narcotics and use sober methods to deal with the issues.

END