I’m doing some research for a family member so I’m not looking for a diagnosis. This person will be seeing a psychiatrist post-haste.
A couple of weeks ago, a family member began having auditory hallucinations. There was nothing specific that I know of that occured around that time (no sickness, injuries, etc.). Auditory hallucinations commonly occur as part of schizophrenia but this person has no other symptoms that I know of that would lead me to believe this is the cause.
However, this person does have classic symptoms of depression and in my research, I’ve found that severe depression can result in auditory hallucinations, especially ones that degrade/demean/insult the person. For example, this person has heard that she is gross and ugly.
If you have had/do have severe depression, has this happened to you? Is this more common than I thought? Did treatment for the depression resolve the hallucinations or were they treated as two seperate problems?
Thanks for any information. She will be visiting a doctor soon but I’d like to be prepared with information if events unfold like I think they will.
I was treated for depression a few years ago (after years of being in denial, but that’s another story). I had some very disturbing auditory hallucinations*.
When I saw my doctor she wasn’t really concerned about them. She got me on some medicine and said if they didn’t go away we could discuss other options for treating that. The hallucinations did go away and even stayed away once I got off the meds.
I wish your family member much luck. But remember that you can’t solve their problems for them. You can be there to remind them that someone loves them unconditionally, though.
I kept hearing cell phone ringers going off and even though I couldn’t hear anyone speaking, I knew they were calling about me. This lasted for a few months until one night I was at home alone and I actually started hearing people talking. I heard people downstairs talking on their cell phones planning on killing me. I was so scared that I actually locked myself in the bathroom and had 911 entered into my phone, but I didn’t call because I kept trying to convince myself it wasn’t real. I sat there all night listening to them.
A person I know has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At one time she was having what seemed to be auditory hallucinations. Her doctor explained that at certain times she was hypersensitive to all stimuli because of the underlying disorder. Her brain, trying to make sense of all of the random tiny sounds that were not usually perceived simply translated them into something more familiar and interpreted them as distant voices, radio or tv somewhere else in the house, and so on. With continued therapy and medicine adjustments, I don’t think she currently has the problem.
From time to time, I hear music - specifically, oldies pop tunes, just like the radio!
I can sometimes call the tunes, but not usually. I was really hoping the “radio” would play the lyrics I never could make out - but it seems to be limited to my concious memory’s version of the tune.
Best wishes for your family member and his/her loved ones
IANAD, but in my own experience, and in that of nearly all of the people I have known with depression, there is definitely an interior “voice” which constantly spews negative messages and reinforces negative ideas about oneself. This voice can be very real, and quite devastating, and judgmental in the extreme. However, I am not familiar with any adults who believed this voice to be outside themselves; it is an internal monologue, in essence, a persistent series of negative thoughts. But that doesn’t really convey its potency. While I never thought I was actually hearing this voice with my own ears, I can tell you that it often does seem distinctly alien when compared to ordinary, mundane thoughts; it’s like having a little demon inside your head who condemns you at every turn. Particularly when I was younger, that feeling was much more palpable, and there was a distinct sense of otherness (“this can’t be me”) about it. Back then, before I had concepts and labels like “depression,” it felt more like there was something within me that was foreign and evil. If depression is diagnosed, I suspect the psychiatrist will recommend therapy in addition to medication; for my own part, therapy was much more helpful in coming to terms and dealing directly with this voice, and I’d encourage you not to underestimate its value. I wish you and yours the best.
I’m a psychiatrist and treat a lot of depression. It’s not uncommon for severe depression to be accompanied by hallucinations, paranoia, obsessive ruminations, or other psychotic-type symptoms. As the depression clears up, they resolve.
Adding an antipsychotic medication to the antidepressant seems to help speed recovery, and can be tapered and stopped after the hallucinations are cleared up.
Auditory hallucinations was among one of the questions asked in a recent Alzheimer questionnaire I filled out for www.forgetMemory.org.
I do have them, and I am also being treated for depression as well as the dementia.
However, these hallucinations only ever consist of hearing my name called very emphatically, (“BILL!”) and that’s it. I don’t hear voices telling me to do goofy shit or hurt myself or anyone else.
They can happen if I am wide awake or in REM sleep. Scares the shit out of me, because it’s usually a female voice and I live alone.
Don’t forget there are many forms of schizophrenia too. Not all schizophrenics are as you think. Some can be borderline and fully functional with only mild symptoms.
Also there are many physical causes too. When I was younger I would work two job and on Saturday I worked straight through so I often would be up more than 30 hours. After that point, I would literally start to hear things, due to lack of sleep. It would be like I kept hearing a radio on or people talking. Not talking to me, but things talking around me that weren’t there. But that was a lack of sleep.
I had an apartment once and it had a bed that came out of the wall, and it was a metal frame next to the radiator. And when I lied down in it I swore I was hearing things. I discovered. I later discovered if I slept a cetain way, the pillow touched the frame, which touched the raditator, which went up the pipes and it WAS my neighbors radio I was hearing.
By sleeping the other way on the bed, I couldn’t hear the sound.
Another thing to consider is Frontal Lobe Epilepsy. A friend of mine spent fifteen years being treated for depression (including auditory hallucinations), then got diagnosed with FLE. With medication for that, his condition improved.
IIRC, he heard fragments of sentences, not antagonistic or sinister. He said it was more like hearing one half of a phonecall. It was a while ago now, but there was some aspect he described about the voices that triggered the correct diagnosis.
Something like this has been happening to me for years–it sounds like a ballgame off in the distance. I have had problems with depression before but I always assumed the cause of the disturbance was tinnitus. I can hear the noise of the crowds and the announcer talking, then the announcer yelling with excitement when someone gets a home run ( I can’t actually make out any words.) It tends to happen late in the evening when I’m tired.
Well, I got to drinking one night while on the stuff (despite the warnings) and apparently started arguing with someone who wasn’t there.
The only reason I’m aware of any of this is because my room mate told me so. According to him, he said he found me on the balcony yelling out to some one “Fuck you bitch! you’re a fucking cunt, No I didn’t, No I FUCKING DIDN’T…”
My room mate come running out there to see who the hell I was yelling at. Only except all he saw was an empty parking that our balcony over looks.
This freaked me out so bad that I immediately quit taking the Paxil and have since not had such an episode.
My example may be rare, but still, I’d look at the mixing of antidepressants with alcohol as one possible cause.
I found that my episodes are induced by a lack of sleep. Fortunately, the sounds I heard were not negative inlfuences - muffled music, muffled voices. It did bring about more of a paranoia, though. Another trigger was anemia.
You might want to look into Hearing Voices Network. You should be advised that it has a significant anti psychiatric bias (don’t let it keep you from seeking help), but it does provide a different perspective on the problem. The NY Times had an article on them, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/magazine/25voices.t.html. I have no personal experience either with the problem or the organization, this is just information that has crossed my path & I found interesting.
Thanks for all the information. I’m glad to hear it’s not uncommon. After a doctor’s visit, it appears she is suffering from depression. In addition to medication, she will be going thru counseling to learn some coping skills which should help in the future once this is resolved. Having never dealt with this before, I was surprised that I did not know this was an effect of depression. I definitely learned something new this last week.
Many, many years ago I was a teacher in a rural area. I was isolated and extremely lonely. I actually quit my job and moved to an urban area (where my future wife was living but we weren’t a ‘couple’ then) for many reasons. One was similar to the above.
I was woke up at night by the fire alarm going off. I immediately hopped off the bed, turned on the lights and saw no smoke. I went from room to room of my apartment looking and smelling for smoke.
Nothing.
I went into the room that had the fire alarm going off. It was LOUD. I tried to turn it off…no luck. So, I took the battery out.
The alarm kept going off.
This freaked me a bit…but I assumed it had an electrical connection. I took the whole thing off and laid it down on a chair. No wires.
The thing kept going off.
I was now completely freaked. I found a tape recorder and turned it on record near the fire alarm…and went back to bed.
Next morning , the alarm was off and I listened to the recording.
Nothing.
I then realized that I needed to leave that place and carry forth with the plans I had been thinking about…and do it fast because I ‘literally’ was going crazy.
I went in for depression treatment shortly afterwards and was diagnosed…as the doctor said ‘you are definitely depressed’. I was afraid it was scitzophrenia (sp?) but it wasn’t, though I asked to be tested.
Oliver sacks in his book Musicophilia has a chapter on people who have musical auditory hallucinations. That is, they believe they constantly hear music, often the same thing repetitively, and often very loud.