What I wish I’d known

When my son told me he was hearing voices I turned to the psychiatric professionals to help me understand what he was going through, as I knew nothing about these experiences. They told me the voices were dangerous and I needed to babysit him 24/7. This started our three-year odyssey in the public mental health care system that resulted in several hospitalizations and boat loads of psychiatric medications with little to no improvement in his quality of life. There were times when it made him worse.

I had thought my son would be safe and cared for in the hospital but discovered the mental health care system was mostly concerned with containment over harm reduction or healing. After three years of this we had had enough and started looking for alternatives. As parents we thought there had to be something better!? We discovered the Intl. Hearing Voices Network-USA and, importantly, a local network of people: voice hearers, family members, and clinicians who were also looking for alternatives to the medical model.

After attending a workshop with HVN network founder Ron Coleman an important shift occurred for me, I started looking beyond the voices as the “problem”. I realized that his voices were real experiences and that invalidating them, fixing him, or talking him out of them did not work. In fact they alienated him from me. Instead, I started looking at the voices’ content, meanings, messages, and my reactions to them.

A big part of this was acknowledging my own feelings as a parent. I realized my fears, uncertainties, family background, and anxiety for his safety had guided my beliefs and actions toward his voices. Looking back I regret that I was not able to partner with him, talk to him from a place of curiosity, validation, and understanding and learn from him what could actually help him. Thankfully, shifting my point of view did a couple of important things: it changed our relationship, relieved many of my fears, and empowered him to define his concerns and a path forward. It also improved our communications as I learned to validate his fears, owned my own feelings, and learned to just listen.

I have discovered that this is a lifelong process and that many parents with loved ones who have mental health challenges go through this journey. Building an inclusive network, creating community and a support system with other families and voice hearers.has been the key for me to come out of isolation and throw off the burden of stigma for me and my son.