The young woman is petite and blond. She wears stylish glasses and is a graduate student, hoping to write a novel some day. She is direct and unassuming. She also hears voices.
"I started hearing them when I was a teenager. They would come and go. Now, there are a lot of voices. I hear them all the time...sometimes louder, sometimes so deafening I can't even speak and just lie in bed for days..."
She has had breakdowns which usually land her in a psychiatric hospital. For now, the voices are under control, but she is having trouble in her classes as they drown out her professors' lectures. When she is stressed, the voices are degrading, demeaning, demanding. Since exams are coming up, she is concerned. The verbal attacks are getting more insistent.
While she talks intelligently with a sense of humor, she has not been able to develop many relationships. "It's hard for them to understand. I have been living with this all my life (her mother was schizophrenic and her father was bipolar), so I actually had an idea how debilitating this could be." Having an immediate family member with schizophrenia increased her risk of developing it by 15%.
Finally, she finds a medication that calms the voices to be "friendly and non-threatening" but not gone. They are her constant companion and will be there for the rest of her life. Can you imagine living like that??
Her one small respite is sleep. Every night, she dreams in peace.
The voices are silent.
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