up until recently, i thought that having several voices inside my head was perfectly normal. i know a lot of people talk to themselves, but apparently most people don't have other versions of themselves who talk back. and i mean distinct, different, multiple versions who have their own distinct personalities and full on disagreements with each other that i had to settle. all within my head, of course. or sometimes out loud, but the voices used to tell me not to tell other people about them, so i did my best not to slip up and mediate them out loud. there were 2 other versions of me with their own personalities, plus a couple male voices that popped up every once in a while to talk to each other, but they mostly mumbled so i couldn't understand them. and then there were the voices i didn't know that suggested i do bad and scary things, but they didn't show up very often. i never told people about the scary voices or the man voices, but i did frequently mention the other 2 versions of myself to my close friends throughout high school and the years following. they always acted like it was weird but i thought they were joking, and they thought i was joking, so i never figured out that this wasn't normal until a couple years ago. i actually can't remember the exact moment when i realized the voices were a cause for concern. i think i was talking to my best friend one day about a conversation i'd had with them earlier when i suddenly noticed she was making a face, and i was like "what?" and then she started asking me more questions about them. like a lot of questions. deep questions. and that's when i realized she didn't have lots of voices inside her head, too. so naturally i started asking her if i should be concerned and if she had always known this was a bad thing, and she very kindly suggested i mention it to my therapist. i told my therapist about them the next time i saw her. she asked me several questions about the types of things they say and what they're like. i told her that i'm the default me and the first other one was always very pleasant and happy, but the second other one was usually kind of confrontational. i explained that i, being the default me, felt it was my duty to make sure they always got along. i told her about how i'd have to step into their conversations sometimes to mediate or calm things down and i told her that no, i didn't control anything they said. they were their own people just as much as i was my own, and their conversations were just as real as the one i was currently having with her. she asked if there were any other voices and i told her about the man voices i couldn't understand, the ones that periodically popped up to tell me to drive off a bridge or grab a knife and stab the people i love, and the ones that used to scream warnings at me as i drifted off to sleep. the screamed warnings only happened during that few month period when i was living away from home and having the worst mental period of my life, so those didn't worry my anymore because i hadn't heard them in years. the man voices were weird and distracting sometimes, but the only ones that actually scared me were the ones that randomly told me to do violent things to the people in my life who i would NEVER want to hurt for any reason, ever. i loved them more than anything in the world, but those voices would randomly tell me to hurt them and it terrified me. these thoughts--more like visions, actually--were always fleeting and i never thought i would act on them, but the chance that maybe one day i actually would terrified me. she seemed the most concerned with the other two versions of myself, however, and i wasn't sure why. apparently they were the main cause for concern, maybe because they were the most persistent? either way, that's when she suggested i start an anti-psychotic. my 2nd psychiatrist had tried to get me to take those several times while i was living away from home, but i had always refused. but this time around, seeing how concerned both my therapist and my best friend were about these other versions of myself made me agree to finally try them. so my therapist emailed my psychiatrist to set up the soonest appointment we possibly could, and about a week later i started two anti-psychotics in addition to my usual medication.
the first thing that stopped once the new meds kicked in was the sound of random people calling my name. i forgot to mention this part in the paragraph above, but i used to hear people calling my name all the time when no one was around or no one had said anything. that suddenly stopped, and i was no longer asking my friends what they'd said and getting the response that they hadn't said anything. so that was pretty nice. next i realized that i was no longer seeing random shadows go by when no one was around, so that was pretty great, too. but one day, probably about 2 weeks into the medication, i realized my head was silent. i had my own thoughts and the constant music that's always playing in my head (does constant music happen to everyone else? i'm still not sure), but there were no extra voices. no one was telling me to do violent things and i was ecstatic about that, but the other me's were gone. they were completely gone. when i called their names no one answered. when i asked them questions, no one answered. when i tried to converse with them no one was there to respond and i suddenly realized i was completely alone. now during this realization my girlfriend at the time was sitting right beside me, and i turned to her in a complete panic. she asked what was wrong and i broke down in tears. like hysteric, suffocating, sobbing, rocking back and forth, completely uncontrollable tears. i had betrayed my best friends and the voices i was so used to were gone. the two other versions of myself who i had grown to love, who i'd talked to 24/7 for as long as i could remember were completely gone. all i could say out loud was "i betrayed them. i betrayed them and now they're gone. i didn't know it would get rid of them too" because i knew that if i'd known the medication would get rid of the other me's, i never would've started it. my crying got progressively worse to the point where my girlfriend was panicking and didn't know what to do because i was hyperventilating and couldn't stop. i don't know how long passed before i calmed down and i don't know how long i sat on her bed rocking back and forth after the crying stopped. i don't know what she was saying to me or what else i said out loud. all i knew was my friends were gone, i had betrayed them, and it was all my fault. i think a few days passed before my girlfriend was finally able to convince me that this was a good thing. but still, my head felt alarmingly empty and i had no one to keep me company when i was alone. for once in my life, i was really, truly alone.
the next time i saw my therapist i told her about my realization/freakout/breakdown and she asked how i was doing now. i told her i was okay and asked if those voices going away was a good thing. i honestly can't remember her answer. all i know is that i finally had the epiphany that this was good and i was normal and maybe my two favorite voices weren't my friends, after all. eventually i was elated. i felt so free and happy knowing that i was like everyone else now and that when i talked to myself i was doing just that; talking to myself. i got used to living a life free of voices and shadows and random name-calling and violent instructions, and i swore i would never go back to the voices again. this lasted for about a year and a half until recently, when i had to stop the anti-psychotic for reasons i listed in my "happy pills" post. i was absolutely petrified of going back to the life of hallucinations and voices. i had several panic attacks and random bouts of crying as i prepared to ween myself off the anti-psychotic because i just knew everyone i'd gotten rid of would come back. surprisingly, the return of everyone else hasn't been as bad as i expected. yeah, the voices are back. all of them. but it's a decision i had to make and i'm doing my best to live with it. the other me's are back to their antics of disagreeing with each other and mentally chiming in on conversations i'm having with other people--real conversations with actual people out loud, but now that i know they're not normal i'm better able to control them. i can tell them to go away and sometimes they listen. i can ignore them without feeling bad or like i'm neglecting someone or being rude. i'm perfectly aware that this isn't the typical way a person's mind works. it's a little inconvenient to have them all back again, but that year and a half of living a life without extra voices taught me something: no matter how many voices invade my mind and how real they may seem, they're not real. and now that i know, i'm not so scared of them.