I had a difficult realization over this last week.

That most of the “neighbors” that I hear talking amongst themselves on my walks are still hallucinations.

*sigh*

I had noticed that there’s usually not one person outside when I hear the conversations.

My complex is really quiet, and people keep to themselves, which is nice.

I honestly just figured I wasn’t seeing them – I don’t know why I thought that, but I did.

And looking back, that’s kinda irrational.

Because I don’t know where they could’ve been, ya know?

Like, I don’t know what I’ve been thinking.

That’s exactly what I did for the last few decades too, half ignored them, and when I did listen back then I just chalked it up to me being “psychic”.

It makes me mad at myself.

Frustrated is probably a better word.

The thing is, these voices, they aren’t always talking about me like the hallucinations are when my episodes get really intense.

I’m going to be more conscious about listening for a subject matter now because it’s seemingly random.

But if they’re not murmurs, and they’re not talking about me, they’re talking about the grass, or Bruce, or the weather, or something random and general.

Except for Bruce, that’s pretty specific, and still sorta geared towards me I suppose.

But it’s usually just sorta nonsense conversational material that I honestly don’t pay much attention to.

And I honestly thought it was just the neighbors in the complex until this weekend.

Even though I never see anyone outside.

I do look around for people, but I never see anyone.

I heard someone talking about nothing really.

They were going on about something – it was the weather and the recent rain, and then they turned to how the grass was getting long.

But I heard them, and I had thought, yeah, the grass is getting long.

And suddenly the conversation turned to me, where I’m going, what I’m thinking, feeling, seeing and touching, just like the episodic and common hallucinations do.

I kept walking but I thought “what the fuck?!” like I had acknowledged them and they ran with it.

And then instantly I thought – is this a hallucination?

And the next second I thought “fuck you”.

And they went into the whole “fuck her”

“Fuck her”

“Fuck that bitch”

“Yeah fuck her”

And on and on for a moment and I was so surprised.

This was the first time that I think I consciously linked these mystery, background, random conversational voices with actually being hallucinations.

It lasted all of a few seconds before fading out into nothing again.

It’s wild because it’ll surface as I start to come around the corner of a building, basically as I start to walk past a building, and it fades as I pass by – not that it lines up completely because it doesn’t, my mind just thinks it lines up that easy.

My complex is a series of stand alone two or three story buildings, by the way.

So I was under the impression that it was someone on their balcony, talking to someone, or on their phone or something.

But now that I think about it, the tone is always too “close” sounding to be that far away, or too “far away” sounding to be that close.

And now I’m wondering how often this happens.

How often do I hear the “neighbors” talk about their cooking or kids or their car or something and it’s really a hallucination?

Fuck me.

That’s a really intense realization.

I’m really gonna have to be more aware of this now.

Today is Tuesday and I literally just realized this on Sunday while out walking around 8:30 at night.

So it’s been tough to deal with this week so far.

Tough to process.

As the week has progressed, and the days have passed, I have noticed more of this, but at the same time it’s really tough to remind myself to pay attention to the chatter that I’ve purposely ignored my whole life.

But how much of what I passively hear is still a hallucination?

I gotta say, it’s pretty disheartening.

And kinda shocking.

I mean, I’m sure half of what I hear as background noise now is real.

But half of it probably isn’t still.

And that’s super frustrating and scary for trying to go back to work next year.

It makes everything harder.

Even though i’m incredibly used to it, I mean, I’ve been hearing these background conversations for literal decades.

Oh, to totally switch the subject, I went back with my old therapist, Hannah.

Our first session back was Tuesday this week.

She’s the therapist I had when I first started this blog, and first got out of the hospital in the beginning of 2022.

The only reason why I stopped seeing her is because she went on maternity leave and had to stop practicing for a few months.

Anyway, we had an awesome first session back, and I’m going to continue working with her for the foreseeable future because she’s the only therapist I can trust right now.

I told her about it because I need her to know, and because I need help trying to explain to my psych NP why I need to be on Paliperidone daily and Haloperidol weekly, or at least bi-weekly.

The psych NP doesn’t want me on two antipsychotics because it’s a lot of medicine, and there’s a heavier possibility of tardive dyskinesia.

So I understand his apprehension, but Hannah gave me some good wordage for explaining to him why it’s so helpful for me to be on both, at least semi-regularly.

The thing is, I had undiagnosed psychosis for like, over twenty years, so to me, being on two different antipsychotics seems kinda reasonable.

Especially if one of them is only taken like one or two times a week – which is what I’m going to propose as a compromise.

Hopefully it’ll work and he’ll approve.

And I have got to tell my psych NP about this “neighbor” stuff that’s going on too.

It’s hard because it’s not a totally irrational thing to hear – your neighbors talk as you walk by their apartments.

Not that I know if it’s really their voice or not.

I have no idea who I’m hearing, it’s just people talking.

If I’ve heard the person that lives there, the voices will mimic them for sure though, so there is that.

But the bulk of the time, I have no idea who sounds like who.

The key takaway is that there’s no one outside when I hear the voices.

There’s no one there to create the sounds.

There are no windows open – people do not open their windows in Texas, it’s seriously the strangest thing, they just don’t, even in the fall, winter, or spring.

There are no screen doors open.

So it’s not that either.

It sounds like someone is just sitting there, right in the doorframe or on the balcony, chatting with a roommate or a partner or something.

But like I said, when I really think about it, it sounds too “close by” or too “far away” to be rational in the moment.

But my mind makes it okay, that’s the delusion kicking in.

Just like it always has.

It’s my delusional thinking that is saying they’re the neighbors, regardless of the tonal quality or subject matter, and that makes it “normal” to me.

And I just today found out that there is such a thing as conversational auditory hallucinations – that are exactly this.

So I’m still not out of the rough yet apparently.

And this doesn’t happen every walk.

I don’t think, at least.

I say that but it seemingly does because I forget that I hear conversations about me at the same exact apartments every walk.

But I gotta say, it’s hard to tell because I zone it out.

I had my walk tonight for example, it’s now Friday, and I didn’t notice anything.

But I didn’t honestly really pay attention that well either.

But I did hear conversations about me from the same two apartments that I always hear it from.

So, my delusions hide that shit from me even.

And I do that, I really do zone that shit the fuck out.

But I do have to say that I hear random conversations in the background quite a bit, I heard some Wednesday and Thursday this week while walking.

And I rarely see anyone outside, or see windows or doors open.

And I brush it off constantly.

Just like I used to.

I do not want to fall back into my old ignorance.

My anosognosia was terrible and that’s a very slippery slope.

And the last thing I need is to become that unaware again.

I do not want my life to fall apart again.

I just got it back.

I have got to really keep track of my surroundings – more so than other folks have to.

Which is fine, I just needed to know that, now I do.

It’s part of my learning process I suppose.

I have to remember to stay aware, not hypervigilant.

Because ever since my EMDR work, my hypervigilance hasn’t been as intense.

It’s still there, don’t get me wrong, it still is definitely a problem for me at times.

It’s just not as intense as it was when I was first coming out of psychosis in early 2022.

So I consider that growth for sure.

– Keren