"What's it like, hearing voices?"

I hear voices. I'm pretty open about it, and people sometimes ask what it's like.
Actually, most seem scared to ask for fear of triggering something, but I'm not easily triggered that way. But some people do ask, and I usually just say "it's scary" or "it's rough".
I want to give a more in-depth explanation, so I figured I'd do it here. It's about time I wrote a blogpost anyways.
By the way, did you know there are people who only hear positive voices? Or that a lot of people who hear voices don't have any diagnoses?

Anyways, imagine you have four people in your life. Four people who pop up at random times, two of which follows you around wherever you go. They whisper in your ears, sometimes they yell if you ignore them, and they have opinions about EVERYTHING. Every choice you have to make, every interaction with other people, every thought you have. Everything.
That's what it's like.

I have four voices, two of which I hear daily. There's a second group of voices called "The Audience", but they only appear when I'm not doing well mentally.
(I know the voices are figments of my imagination, but to me, they still seem like individuals.)

The two main voices are called Mia and Azelia.
Mia seems evil, and is pretty harsh on me. She tries to correct most of the things I do, and influence me to do things that don't seem good for me. She has opinions on everything, most of which are negative, and she judges everyone. Especially me.
When I feel cornered or aggravated, she pops out and takes control. Bad things usually follow, but at least she helps me get some opinions out I wouldn't otherwise dare to express.

Azelia is brave and strong, yet soft, and emotional. She gives me assurance that it's okay to have negative emotions like "I'm scared" or "I'm sad", and she steps up for me when Mia has been too harsh.

Through therapy, I've learnt that Mia is not all evil like I thought. It seems she has been trying to strengthen me to take what ever negative things people might fling at me.
I've also learnt she's a representation of my insecurities. "People don't like you", "You're weak" and "do bad things to yourself and others" are things she often says. The first two are symptoms that I'm scared others will say those things to me, and the last is usually a sign I'm in a situation I want out of.

I've also learnt Azelia is a representation of the emotional support I found missing when I was a teen. I was twelve when she appeared, and I was going through a very hard time back then.
Her main goal seems to be assuring and guiding me through negative emotions. She often tells me to calm down and take a breath, while at the same time acknowledging that I do have negative emotions.


I used to become scared when Mia and The Audience, the latter being a chorus of people screaming negative commands at me, were getting loud. Mia is always there, but usually she's just background noise. Easily ignorable.
On days where my defenses are lowered, like if I'm stressed out or missing sleep, she gets louder, and her commands get darker, until all I can focus on is trying not to obey. I've been told I've been near impossible for people to contact or talk to during those times because I've been withdrawn into my own little world.
It's pretty hard to not do things when someone is screaming in your face that you have to do it, getting louder until you either comply or take medicines to make them go away (or at least be bearable.)

People often give the well-meaning advice of "don't listen to the voices". It's good advice, but it's not that simple. They're there all day every day, and they get louder if I ignore them instead of acknowledging them. Acknowledging them isn't the same as obeying them, though.
I have in the past made the mistake of thinking they would leave me alone if I did just what they told me to. Boy, was I wrong. One thing leads to another, and before you know it, you've been throwing up your food for a week because they screamed at you until you did.

I could go on and on about them, but to sum it up, hearing voices is, to me, scary and confusing, sometimes consuming, and sometimes even comforting.
Never be afraid to ask about them, I'll answer to my best ability. If you ask something I can't or won't answer, I'll let you know. But it haven't happened yet.