TedTest

From the Ted Talk by Eleanor Longden: The voices in my head

Unscramble the Blue Letters

The day I left home for the first time to go to university was a bright day brimming with hope and optimism. I'd done well at school. Expectations for me were high, and I gleefully eteernd the student life of lerutces, parties and traffic cone theft. Now appearances, of course, can be deceptive, and to an extent, this feisty, energetic persona of lecture-going and traffic cone stealing was a veener, albeit a very well-crafted and convincing one. Underneath, I was actually deeply unhappy, ircseune and fundamentally frightened — frightened of other people, of the future, of failure and of the emptiness that I felt was within me. But I was skilled at hiding it, and from the outside appeared to be someone with everything to hope for and aspire to. This fantasy of invulnerability was so complete that I even deceived myself, and as the first semester enedd and the second began, there was no way that anyone could have predicted what was just about to hpeapn. I was leaving a seminar when it started, humming to myself, fnulbimg with my bag just as I'd done a hundred times before, when suddenly I hraed a voice cllamy observe, "She is leaving the room." I looked around, and there was no one there, but the ctrlaiy and decisiveness of the comment was uibatnskmlae. Shaken, I left my books on the stairs and hurried home, and there it was again. "She is opinneg the door." This was the beginning. The voice had arrived. And the voice persisted, days and then weeks of it, on and on, narrating everything I did in the third prsoen. "She is going to the library." "She is going to a lecture." It was neutral, ivsipsmae and even, after a while, sneltagry companionate and reassuring, although I did notice that its calm exterior sometimes slipped and that it occasionally mrroired my own unexpressed eotoimn. So, for example, if I was agrny and had to hide it, which I often did, being very adept at concealing how I really felt, then the voice would sound faurstrted. Otherwise, it was neither sinister nor disturbing, although even at that point it was clear that it had something to communicate to me about my emotions, particularly emotions which were remote and inaccessible. Now it was then that I made a fatal mistake, in that I told a friend about the voice, and she was horrified. A subtle cdioniinotng process had begun, the iiioptaclmn that nmroal people don't hear voices and the fact that I did meant that something was very seriously wrong. Such fear and mutissrt was infectious. Suddenly the voice didn't seem quite so benign anymore, and when she insisted that I seek medical attention, I duly cemolpid, and which proved to be mistake number two. I spent some time tielnlg the college G.P. about what I perceived to be the real problem: anxiety, low self-worth, fears about the future, and was met with broed indifference until I mentioned the vioce, upon which he dropped his pen, swung round and began to question me with a show of real ietrsent. And to be fair, I was desperate for interest and help, and I beagn to tell him about my strange commentator. And I always wish, at this piont, the voice had said, "She is digging her own grave." I was referred to a psychiatrist, who likewise took a grim view of the voice's presence, subsequently interpreting everything I said through a lens of ltaent insanity. For example, I was part of a student TV station that broadcast news bllinuets around the campus, and during an anipotmnpet which was running very late, I said, "I'm sorry, dcotor, I've got to go. I'm reading the news at six." Now it's down on my medical records that elanoer has donlseuis that she's a television news broadcaster. It was at this point that events began to rapidly overtake me. A hospital admission followed, the first of many, a diagnosis of schizophrenia came next, and then, worst of all, a toxic, tormenting sense of hopelessness, humiliation and despair about myself and my prospects. But having been encouraged to see the voice not as an eneixpcere but as a symptom, my fear and resistance towards it intensified. Now essentially, this represented taking an aggressive stance towards my own mind, a kind of pyhsicc ciivl war, and in turn this caused the number of voices to increase and grow psorgsrvileey hostile and menacing. Helplessly and hopelessly, I began to retreat into this nhiirasgtmh inner world in which the viecos were destined to become both my persecutors and my only peveicerd cpnnoomias. They told me, for example, that if I proved myself wrtohy of their help, then they could change my life back to how it had been, and a series of increasingly bizarre tasks was set, a kind of labor of Hercules. It started off quite small, for example, pull out three strands of hair, but gradually it grew more extreme, culminating in commands to harm myself, and a particularly dramatic instruction: "You see that tutor over there? You see that glass of water? Well, you have to go over and pour it over him in front of the other students." Which I actually did, and which needless to say did not eedanr me to the faculty. In effect, a vciious cclye of fear, avoidance, mistrust and misunderstanding had been established, and this was a battle in which I felt powerless and incapable of ehsbinsatlig any kind of pecae or reconciliation. Two years later, and the deterioration was daamitrc. By now, I had the whole frenzied repertoire: terrifying voices, grotesque visions, bizarre, intractable delusions. My mental health sattus had been a catalyst for dinsiirmicoatn, verbal asube, and physical and sexual assault, and I'd been told by my psychiatrist, "Eleanor, you'd be better off with cenacr, because cancer is easier to cure than schizophrenia." I'd been diagnosed, drugged and discarded, and was by now so totnemerd by the voices that I attempted to dlril a hole in my head in oedrr to get them out. Now looking back on the wreckage and despair of those years, it seems to me now as if someone died in that place, and yet, someone else was saved. A broken and haunted person began that journey, but the person who emerged was a srvuivor and would ultimately grow into the person I was destined to be. Many people have harmed me in my life, and I reemmebr them all, but the memories grow pale and faint in comparison with the people who've helped me. The felolw survivors, the fellow voice-hearers, the cdroames and collaborators; the mother who never gave up on me, who knew that one day I would come back to her and was willing to wait for me for as long as it took; the doctor who only worked with me for a brief time but who reinforced his belief that recovery was not only possible but inevitable, and during a devastating period of relapse told my terrified family, "Don't give up hope. I believe that Eleanor can get through this. Sometimes, you know, it snows as late as May, but summer always comes eventually." feuetron minutes is not enough time to fully credit those good and generous people who fought with me and for me and who waited to welcome me back from that agonized, lonely plcae. But together, they forged a blend of courage, creativity, integrity, and an unshakeable bieelf that my shattered self could become healed and whole. I used to say that these people saved me, but what I now know is they did something even more important in that they empowered me to save myself, and crucially, they helped me to understand something which I'd always suspected: that my voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood enetvs, and as such were not my eemneis but a source of ignhist into solvable emotional problems. Now, at first, this was very dcliifuft to believe, not least because the voices appeared so hostile and menacing, so in this respect, a vital first step was learning to separate out a metaphorical meaning from what I'd previously interpreted to be a literal truth. So for example, voices which threatened to attack my home I learned to interpret as my own sense of fear and insecurity in the world, rather than an actual, objective danger. Now at first, I would have believed them. I remember, for example, sitting up one nhgit on guard outside my parents' room to protect them from what I thought was a genuine threat from the voices. Because I'd had such a bad perolbm with self-injury that most of the cutlery in the huose had been hidden, so I ended up arming myself with a plastic fork, kind of like picnic ware, and sort of sat outside the room clutching it and waiting to spring into action should anything happen. It was like, "Don't mess with me. I've got a pstlaic fork, don't you know?" Strategic. But a later response, and much more useful, would be to try and deconstruct the message behind the words, so when the voices warned me not to leave the house, then I would thank them for driwang my attention to how unsafe I felt — because if I was aware of it, then I could do something positive about it — but go on to reassure both them and myself that we were safe and didn't need to feel frightened anymore. I would set boundaries for the voices, and try to interact with them in a way that was assertive yet respectful, establishing a slow process of cocomuianmitn and collaboration in which we could learn to work together and support one another. Throughout all of this, what I would ultimately realize was that each voice was closely related to aspects of myself, and that each of them carried overwhelming emotions that I'd never had an optripontuy to process or resolve, mmoereis of sexual trauma and abuse, of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth. The voices took the place of this pain and gave words to it, and poilbssy one of the greatest reletinovas was when I realized that the most hostile and aggressive voices actually represented the ptars of me that had been hurt most podfloruny, and as such, it was these voices that nedeed to be shwon the greatest compassion and care. It was armed with this knowledge that ultimately I would gethar together my sharetetd self, each fragment represented by a different voice, gradually wiahrtdw from all my medication, and return to psychiatry, only this time from the other side. Ten yreas after the voice first came, I finally gadeartud, this time with the highest degree in psychology the university had ever given, and one year later, the highest masters, which shall we say isn't bad for a madwoman. In fact, one of the voices actually dictated the answers during the exam, which technically possibly cutnos as cheating. (Laughter) And to be honest, sometimes I quite enjoyed their attention as well. As Oscar Wilde has said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. It also makes you very good at eavesdropping, because you can ltesin to two conversations simultaneously. So it's not all bad. I worked in mental hletah services, I spoke at cfcneernoes, I published book chapters and aeicmdac aelrctis, and I argued, and continue to do so, the relevance of the following concept: that an important question in psychiatry shouldn't be what's wrong with you but rather what's happened to you. And all the while, I listened to my voices, with whom I'd finally lraneed to live with peace and respect and which in turn reflected a growing snese of csimooapsn, acceptance and respect towards myself. And I remember the most moving and exrataniordry mnmoet when supporting another young woman who was trzrorieed by her voices, and becoming fully aware, for the very first time, that I no longer felt that way myself but was finally able to help someone else who was. I'm now very proud to be a part of Intervoice, the organizational body of the intanaenoritl Hearing Voices Movement, an initiative inspired by the work of Professor Marius Romme and Dr. Sandra Escher, which lcetoas voice hearing as a survival saetrgty, a sane reaction to insane circumstances, not as an aberrant symptom of schizophrenia to be endured, but a complex, significant and meaningful experience to be explored. Together, we envisage and ecnat a society that understands and respects voice hearing, supports the needs of individuals who hear voices, and which values them as full citizens. This type of society is not only possible, it's already on its way. To paraphrase Chavez, once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot osrppes the people who are not afraid anymore. For me, the avteicenhmes of the Hearing Voices mmeoenvt are a reminder that empathy, fellowship, justice and respect are more than words; they are convictions and befiels, and that beliefs can change the wrlod. In the last 20 years, the Hearing Voices Movement has eashstleibd hearing voices networks in 26 countries across five continents, working together to promote dtinigy, solidarity and emmoerpnewt for individuals in mental distress, to create a new language and practice of hope, which, at its very center, lies an unshakable belief in the power of the individual. As Peter Levine has said, the human animal is a uqiune being endowed with an instinctual caciptay to heal and the intellectual spriit to harness this innate capacity. In this respect, for members of society, there is no gatreer honor or privilege than facilitating that process of hlaeing for someone, to bear wnestis, to reach out a hand, to share the burden of someone's suffering, and to hold the hope for their recrevoy. And likewise, for svrrovuis of distress and adversity, that we remember we don't have to live our lives forever defined by the damaging things that have happened to us. We are unique. We are irreplaceable. What lies within us can never be truly colonized, contorted, or taken away. The light never goes out. As a very wonderful doctor once said to me, "Don't tell me what other people have told you about yourself. Tell me about you." Thank you. (Applause)

Open Cloze

The day I left home for the first time to go to university was a bright day brimming with hope and optimism. I'd done well at school. Expectations for me were high, and I gleefully _______ the student life of ________, parties and traffic cone theft. Now appearances, of course, can be deceptive, and to an extent, this feisty, energetic persona of lecture-going and traffic cone stealing was a ______, albeit a very well-crafted and convincing one. Underneath, I was actually deeply unhappy, ________ and fundamentally frightened — frightened of other people, of the future, of failure and of the emptiness that I felt was within me. But I was skilled at hiding it, and from the outside appeared to be someone with everything to hope for and aspire to. This fantasy of invulnerability was so complete that I even deceived myself, and as the first semester _____ and the second began, there was no way that anyone could have predicted what was just about to ______. I was leaving a seminar when it started, humming to myself, ________ with my bag just as I'd done a hundred times before, when suddenly I _____ a voice ______ observe, "She is leaving the room." I looked around, and there was no one there, but the _______ and decisiveness of the comment was ____________. Shaken, I left my books on the stairs and hurried home, and there it was again. "She is _______ the door." This was the beginning. The voice had arrived. And the voice persisted, days and then weeks of it, on and on, narrating everything I did in the third ______. "She is going to the library." "She is going to a lecture." It was neutral, _________ and even, after a while, _________ companionate and reassuring, although I did notice that its calm exterior sometimes slipped and that it occasionally ________ my own unexpressed _______. So, for example, if I was _____ and had to hide it, which I often did, being very adept at concealing how I really felt, then the voice would sound __________. Otherwise, it was neither sinister nor disturbing, although even at that point it was clear that it had something to communicate to me about my emotions, particularly emotions which were remote and inaccessible. Now it was then that I made a fatal mistake, in that I told a friend about the voice, and she was horrified. A subtle ____________ process had begun, the ___________ that ______ people don't hear voices and the fact that I did meant that something was very seriously wrong. Such fear and ________ was infectious. Suddenly the voice didn't seem quite so benign anymore, and when she insisted that I seek medical attention, I duly ________, and which proved to be mistake number two. I spent some time _______ the college G.P. about what I perceived to be the real problem: anxiety, low self-worth, fears about the future, and was met with _____ indifference until I mentioned the _____, upon which he dropped his pen, swung round and began to question me with a show of real ________. And to be fair, I was desperate for interest and help, and I _____ to tell him about my strange commentator. And I always wish, at this _____, the voice had said, "She is digging her own grave." I was referred to a psychiatrist, who likewise took a grim view of the voice's presence, subsequently interpreting everything I said through a lens of ______ insanity. For example, I was part of a student TV station that broadcast news _________ around the campus, and during an ___________ which was running very late, I said, "I'm sorry, ______, I've got to go. I'm reading the news at six." Now it's down on my medical records that _______ has _________ that she's a television news broadcaster. It was at this point that events began to rapidly overtake me. A hospital admission followed, the first of many, a diagnosis of schizophrenia came next, and then, worst of all, a toxic, tormenting sense of hopelessness, humiliation and despair about myself and my prospects. But having been encouraged to see the voice not as an __________ but as a symptom, my fear and resistance towards it intensified. Now essentially, this represented taking an aggressive stance towards my own mind, a kind of _______ _____ war, and in turn this caused the number of voices to increase and grow _____________ hostile and menacing. Helplessly and hopelessly, I began to retreat into this ___________ inner world in which the ______ were destined to become both my persecutors and my only _________ __________. They told me, for example, that if I proved myself ______ of their help, then they could change my life back to how it had been, and a series of increasingly bizarre tasks was set, a kind of labor of Hercules. It started off quite small, for example, pull out three strands of hair, but gradually it grew more extreme, culminating in commands to harm myself, and a particularly dramatic instruction: "You see that tutor over there? You see that glass of water? Well, you have to go over and pour it over him in front of the other students." Which I actually did, and which needless to say did not ______ me to the faculty. In effect, a _______ _____ of fear, avoidance, mistrust and misunderstanding had been established, and this was a battle in which I felt powerless and incapable of ____________ any kind of _____ or reconciliation. Two years later, and the deterioration was ________. By now, I had the whole frenzied repertoire: terrifying voices, grotesque visions, bizarre, intractable delusions. My mental health ______ had been a catalyst for ______________, verbal _____, and physical and sexual assault, and I'd been told by my psychiatrist, "Eleanor, you'd be better off with ______, because cancer is easier to cure than schizophrenia." I'd been diagnosed, drugged and discarded, and was by now so _________ by the voices that I attempted to _____ a hole in my head in _____ to get them out. Now looking back on the wreckage and despair of those years, it seems to me now as if someone died in that place, and yet, someone else was saved. A broken and haunted person began that journey, but the person who emerged was a ________ and would ultimately grow into the person I was destined to be. Many people have harmed me in my life, and I ________ them all, but the memories grow pale and faint in comparison with the people who've helped me. The ______ survivors, the fellow voice-hearers, the ________ and collaborators; the mother who never gave up on me, who knew that one day I would come back to her and was willing to wait for me for as long as it took; the doctor who only worked with me for a brief time but who reinforced his belief that recovery was not only possible but inevitable, and during a devastating period of relapse told my terrified family, "Don't give up hope. I believe that Eleanor can get through this. Sometimes, you know, it snows as late as May, but summer always comes eventually." ________ minutes is not enough time to fully credit those good and generous people who fought with me and for me and who waited to welcome me back from that agonized, lonely _____. But together, they forged a blend of courage, creativity, integrity, and an unshakeable ______ that my shattered self could become healed and whole. I used to say that these people saved me, but what I now know is they did something even more important in that they empowered me to save myself, and crucially, they helped me to understand something which I'd always suspected: that my voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood ______, and as such were not my _______ but a source of _______ into solvable emotional problems. Now, at first, this was very _________ to believe, not least because the voices appeared so hostile and menacing, so in this respect, a vital first step was learning to separate out a metaphorical meaning from what I'd previously interpreted to be a literal truth. So for example, voices which threatened to attack my home I learned to interpret as my own sense of fear and insecurity in the world, rather than an actual, objective danger. Now at first, I would have believed them. I remember, for example, sitting up one _____ on guard outside my parents' room to protect them from what I thought was a genuine threat from the voices. Because I'd had such a bad _______ with self-injury that most of the cutlery in the _____ had been hidden, so I ended up arming myself with a plastic fork, kind of like picnic ware, and sort of sat outside the room clutching it and waiting to spring into action should anything happen. It was like, "Don't mess with me. I've got a _______ fork, don't you know?" Strategic. But a later response, and much more useful, would be to try and deconstruct the message behind the words, so when the voices warned me not to leave the house, then I would thank them for _______ my attention to how unsafe I felt — because if I was aware of it, then I could do something positive about it — but go on to reassure both them and myself that we were safe and didn't need to feel frightened anymore. I would set boundaries for the voices, and try to interact with them in a way that was assertive yet respectful, establishing a slow process of _____________ and collaboration in which we could learn to work together and support one another. Throughout all of this, what I would ultimately realize was that each voice was closely related to aspects of myself, and that each of them carried overwhelming emotions that I'd never had an ___________ to process or resolve, ________ of sexual trauma and abuse, of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth. The voices took the place of this pain and gave words to it, and ________ one of the greatest ___________ was when I realized that the most hostile and aggressive voices actually represented the _____ of me that had been hurt most __________, and as such, it was these voices that ______ to be _____ the greatest compassion and care. It was armed with this knowledge that ultimately I would ______ together my _________ self, each fragment represented by a different voice, gradually ________ from all my medication, and return to psychiatry, only this time from the other side. Ten _____ after the voice first came, I finally _________, this time with the highest degree in psychology the university had ever given, and one year later, the highest masters, which shall we say isn't bad for a madwoman. In fact, one of the voices actually dictated the answers during the exam, which technically possibly ______ as cheating. (Laughter) And to be honest, sometimes I quite enjoyed their attention as well. As Oscar Wilde has said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. It also makes you very good at eavesdropping, because you can ______ to two conversations simultaneously. So it's not all bad. I worked in mental ______ services, I spoke at ___________, I published book chapters and ________ ________, and I argued, and continue to do so, the relevance of the following concept: that an important question in psychiatry shouldn't be what's wrong with you but rather what's happened to you. And all the while, I listened to my voices, with whom I'd finally _______ to live with peace and respect and which in turn reflected a growing _____ of __________, acceptance and respect towards myself. And I remember the most moving and _____________ ______ when supporting another young woman who was __________ by her voices, and becoming fully aware, for the very first time, that I no longer felt that way myself but was finally able to help someone else who was. I'm now very proud to be a part of Intervoice, the organizational body of the _____________ Hearing Voices Movement, an initiative inspired by the work of Professor Marius Romme and Dr. Sandra Escher, which _______ voice hearing as a survival ________, a sane reaction to insane circumstances, not as an aberrant symptom of schizophrenia to be endured, but a complex, significant and meaningful experience to be explored. Together, we envisage and _____ a society that understands and respects voice hearing, supports the needs of individuals who hear voices, and which values them as full citizens. This type of society is not only possible, it's already on its way. To paraphrase Chavez, once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot _______ the people who are not afraid anymore. For me, the ____________ of the Hearing Voices ________ are a reminder that empathy, fellowship, justice and respect are more than words; they are convictions and _______, and that beliefs can change the _____. In the last 20 years, the Hearing Voices Movement has ___________ hearing voices networks in 26 countries across five continents, working together to promote _______, solidarity and ___________ for individuals in mental distress, to create a new language and practice of hope, which, at its very center, lies an unshakable belief in the power of the individual. As Peter Levine has said, the human animal is a ______ being endowed with an instinctual ________ to heal and the intellectual ______ to harness this innate capacity. In this respect, for members of society, there is no _______ honor or privilege than facilitating that process of _______ for someone, to bear _______, to reach out a hand, to share the burden of someone's suffering, and to hold the hope for their ________. And likewise, for _________ of distress and adversity, that we remember we don't have to live our lives forever defined by the damaging things that have happened to us. We are unique. We are irreplaceable. What lies within us can never be truly colonized, contorted, or taken away. The light never goes out. As a very wonderful doctor once said to me, "Don't tell me what other people have told you about yourself. Tell me about you." Thank you. (Applause)

Solution

bulletins
years
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progressively
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achievements
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clarity
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interest
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mistrust
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peace
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civil
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articles
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appointment
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enemies
psychic
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house
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cancer
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insecure
cycle
telling
began
normal
world
survivor
compassion
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extraordinary
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doctor
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lectures
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listen
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Original Text

The day I left home for the first time to go to university was a bright day brimming with hope and optimism. I'd done well at school. Expectations for me were high, and I gleefully entered the student life of lectures, parties and traffic cone theft. Now appearances, of course, can be deceptive, and to an extent, this feisty, energetic persona of lecture-going and traffic cone stealing was a veneer, albeit a very well-crafted and convincing one. Underneath, I was actually deeply unhappy, insecure and fundamentally frightened — frightened of other people, of the future, of failure and of the emptiness that I felt was within me. But I was skilled at hiding it, and from the outside appeared to be someone with everything to hope for and aspire to. This fantasy of invulnerability was so complete that I even deceived myself, and as the first semester ended and the second began, there was no way that anyone could have predicted what was just about to happen. I was leaving a seminar when it started, humming to myself, fumbling with my bag just as I'd done a hundred times before, when suddenly I heard a voice calmly observe, "She is leaving the room." I looked around, and there was no one there, but the clarity and decisiveness of the comment was unmistakable. Shaken, I left my books on the stairs and hurried home, and there it was again. "She is opening the door." This was the beginning. The voice had arrived. And the voice persisted, days and then weeks of it, on and on, narrating everything I did in the third person. "She is going to the library." "She is going to a lecture." It was neutral, impassive and even, after a while, strangely companionate and reassuring, although I did notice that its calm exterior sometimes slipped and that it occasionally mirrored my own unexpressed emotion. So, for example, if I was angry and had to hide it, which I often did, being very adept at concealing how I really felt, then the voice would sound frustrated. Otherwise, it was neither sinister nor disturbing, although even at that point it was clear that it had something to communicate to me about my emotions, particularly emotions which were remote and inaccessible. Now it was then that I made a fatal mistake, in that I told a friend about the voice, and she was horrified. A subtle conditioning process had begun, the implication that normal people don't hear voices and the fact that I did meant that something was very seriously wrong. Such fear and mistrust was infectious. Suddenly the voice didn't seem quite so benign anymore, and when she insisted that I seek medical attention, I duly complied, and which proved to be mistake number two. I spent some time telling the college G.P. about what I perceived to be the real problem: anxiety, low self-worth, fears about the future, and was met with bored indifference until I mentioned the voice, upon which he dropped his pen, swung round and began to question me with a show of real interest. And to be fair, I was desperate for interest and help, and I began to tell him about my strange commentator. And I always wish, at this point, the voice had said, "She is digging her own grave." I was referred to a psychiatrist, who likewise took a grim view of the voice's presence, subsequently interpreting everything I said through a lens of latent insanity. For example, I was part of a student TV station that broadcast news bulletins around the campus, and during an appointment which was running very late, I said, "I'm sorry, doctor, I've got to go. I'm reading the news at six." Now it's down on my medical records that Eleanor has delusions that she's a television news broadcaster. It was at this point that events began to rapidly overtake me. A hospital admission followed, the first of many, a diagnosis of schizophrenia came next, and then, worst of all, a toxic, tormenting sense of hopelessness, humiliation and despair about myself and my prospects. But having been encouraged to see the voice not as an experience but as a symptom, my fear and resistance towards it intensified. Now essentially, this represented taking an aggressive stance towards my own mind, a kind of psychic civil war, and in turn this caused the number of voices to increase and grow progressively hostile and menacing. Helplessly and hopelessly, I began to retreat into this nightmarish inner world in which the voices were destined to become both my persecutors and my only perceived companions. They told me, for example, that if I proved myself worthy of their help, then they could change my life back to how it had been, and a series of increasingly bizarre tasks was set, a kind of labor of Hercules. It started off quite small, for example, pull out three strands of hair, but gradually it grew more extreme, culminating in commands to harm myself, and a particularly dramatic instruction: "You see that tutor over there? You see that glass of water? Well, you have to go over and pour it over him in front of the other students." Which I actually did, and which needless to say did not endear me to the faculty. In effect, a vicious cycle of fear, avoidance, mistrust and misunderstanding had been established, and this was a battle in which I felt powerless and incapable of establishing any kind of peace or reconciliation. Two years later, and the deterioration was dramatic. By now, I had the whole frenzied repertoire: terrifying voices, grotesque visions, bizarre, intractable delusions. My mental health status had been a catalyst for discrimination, verbal abuse, and physical and sexual assault, and I'd been told by my psychiatrist, "Eleanor, you'd be better off with cancer, because cancer is easier to cure than schizophrenia." I'd been diagnosed, drugged and discarded, and was by now so tormented by the voices that I attempted to drill a hole in my head in order to get them out. Now looking back on the wreckage and despair of those years, it seems to me now as if someone died in that place, and yet, someone else was saved. A broken and haunted person began that journey, but the person who emerged was a survivor and would ultimately grow into the person I was destined to be. Many people have harmed me in my life, and I remember them all, but the memories grow pale and faint in comparison with the people who've helped me. The fellow survivors, the fellow voice-hearers, the comrades and collaborators; the mother who never gave up on me, who knew that one day I would come back to her and was willing to wait for me for as long as it took; the doctor who only worked with me for a brief time but who reinforced his belief that recovery was not only possible but inevitable, and during a devastating period of relapse told my terrified family, "Don't give up hope. I believe that Eleanor can get through this. Sometimes, you know, it snows as late as May, but summer always comes eventually." Fourteen minutes is not enough time to fully credit those good and generous people who fought with me and for me and who waited to welcome me back from that agonized, lonely place. But together, they forged a blend of courage, creativity, integrity, and an unshakeable belief that my shattered self could become healed and whole. I used to say that these people saved me, but what I now know is they did something even more important in that they empowered me to save myself, and crucially, they helped me to understand something which I'd always suspected: that my voices were a meaningful response to traumatic life events, particularly childhood events, and as such were not my enemies but a source of insight into solvable emotional problems. Now, at first, this was very difficult to believe, not least because the voices appeared so hostile and menacing, so in this respect, a vital first step was learning to separate out a metaphorical meaning from what I'd previously interpreted to be a literal truth. So for example, voices which threatened to attack my home I learned to interpret as my own sense of fear and insecurity in the world, rather than an actual, objective danger. Now at first, I would have believed them. I remember, for example, sitting up one night on guard outside my parents' room to protect them from what I thought was a genuine threat from the voices. Because I'd had such a bad problem with self-injury that most of the cutlery in the house had been hidden, so I ended up arming myself with a plastic fork, kind of like picnic ware, and sort of sat outside the room clutching it and waiting to spring into action should anything happen. It was like, "Don't mess with me. I've got a plastic fork, don't you know?" Strategic. But a later response, and much more useful, would be to try and deconstruct the message behind the words, so when the voices warned me not to leave the house, then I would thank them for drawing my attention to how unsafe I felt — because if I was aware of it, then I could do something positive about it — but go on to reassure both them and myself that we were safe and didn't need to feel frightened anymore. I would set boundaries for the voices, and try to interact with them in a way that was assertive yet respectful, establishing a slow process of communication and collaboration in which we could learn to work together and support one another. Throughout all of this, what I would ultimately realize was that each voice was closely related to aspects of myself, and that each of them carried overwhelming emotions that I'd never had an opportunity to process or resolve, memories of sexual trauma and abuse, of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth. The voices took the place of this pain and gave words to it, and possibly one of the greatest revelations was when I realized that the most hostile and aggressive voices actually represented the parts of me that had been hurt most profoundly, and as such, it was these voices that needed to be shown the greatest compassion and care. It was armed with this knowledge that ultimately I would gather together my shattered self, each fragment represented by a different voice, gradually withdraw from all my medication, and return to psychiatry, only this time from the other side. Ten years after the voice first came, I finally graduated, this time with the highest degree in psychology the university had ever given, and one year later, the highest masters, which shall we say isn't bad for a madwoman. In fact, one of the voices actually dictated the answers during the exam, which technically possibly counts as cheating. (Laughter) And to be honest, sometimes I quite enjoyed their attention as well. As Oscar Wilde has said, the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. It also makes you very good at eavesdropping, because you can listen to two conversations simultaneously. So it's not all bad. I worked in mental health services, I spoke at conferences, I published book chapters and academic articles, and I argued, and continue to do so, the relevance of the following concept: that an important question in psychiatry shouldn't be what's wrong with you but rather what's happened to you. And all the while, I listened to my voices, with whom I'd finally learned to live with peace and respect and which in turn reflected a growing sense of compassion, acceptance and respect towards myself. And I remember the most moving and extraordinary moment when supporting another young woman who was terrorized by her voices, and becoming fully aware, for the very first time, that I no longer felt that way myself but was finally able to help someone else who was. I'm now very proud to be a part of Intervoice, the organizational body of the International Hearing Voices Movement, an initiative inspired by the work of Professor Marius Romme and Dr. Sandra Escher, which locates voice hearing as a survival strategy, a sane reaction to insane circumstances, not as an aberrant symptom of schizophrenia to be endured, but a complex, significant and meaningful experience to be explored. Together, we envisage and enact a society that understands and respects voice hearing, supports the needs of individuals who hear voices, and which values them as full citizens. This type of society is not only possible, it's already on its way. To paraphrase Chavez, once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. For me, the achievements of the Hearing Voices Movement are a reminder that empathy, fellowship, justice and respect are more than words; they are convictions and beliefs, and that beliefs can change the world. In the last 20 years, the Hearing Voices Movement has established hearing voices networks in 26 countries across five continents, working together to promote dignity, solidarity and empowerment for individuals in mental distress, to create a new language and practice of hope, which, at its very center, lies an unshakable belief in the power of the individual. As Peter Levine has said, the human animal is a unique being endowed with an instinctual capacity to heal and the intellectual spirit to harness this innate capacity. In this respect, for members of society, there is no greater honor or privilege than facilitating that process of healing for someone, to bear witness, to reach out a hand, to share the burden of someone's suffering, and to hold the hope for their recovery. And likewise, for survivors of distress and adversity, that we remember we don't have to live our lives forever defined by the damaging things that have happened to us. We are unique. We are irreplaceable. What lies within us can never be truly colonized, contorted, or taken away. The light never goes out. As a very wonderful doctor once said to me, "Don't tell me what other people have told you about yourself. Tell me about you." Thank you. (Applause)

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation	frequency
hearing voices	4
traffic cone	2
mental health	2
voices movement	2

ngrams of length 3

collocation	frequency
hearing voices movement	2

Important Words

aberrant
abuse
academic
acceptance
achievements
action
actual
adept
admission
adversity
afraid
aggressive
agonized
albeit
anger
angry
animal
answers
anxiety
anymore
appearances
appeared
applause
appointment
argued
armed
arming
arrived
articles
aspects
aspire
assault
assertive
attack
attempted
attention
avoidance
aware
bad
bag
battle
bear
began
beginning
begins
begun
belief
beliefs
believed
benign
bizarre
blend
body
book
books
bored
boundaries
bright
brimming
broadcast
broadcaster
broken
bulletins
burden
calm
calmly
campus
cancer
capacity
care
carried
catalyst
caused
center
change
chapters
chavez
cheating
childhood
circumstances
citizens
civil
clarity
clear
closely
clutching
collaboration
college
colonized
commands
comment
commentator
communicate
communication
companionate
companions
comparison
compassion
complete
complex
complied
comrades
concealing
conditioning
cone
conferences
continents
continue
contorted
conversations
convictions
convincing
countries
counts
courage
create
creativity
credit
crucially
culminating
cure
cutlery
cycle
damaging
danger
day
days
deceived
deceptive
decisiveness
deconstruct
deeply
defined
degree
delusions
despair
desperate
destined
deterioration
devastating
diagnosed
diagnosis
dictated
died
difficult
digging
dignity
discarded
discrimination
distress
disturbing
doctor
door
dr
dramatic
drawing
drill
dropped
drugged
duly
easier
eavesdropping
effect
eleanor
emerged
emotion
emotional
emotions
empathy
empowered
empowerment
emptiness
enact
encouraged
endear
ended
endowed
endured
enemies
energetic
enjoyed
entered
envisage
escher
essentially
established
establishing
events
eventually
exam
expectations
experience
explored
extent
exterior
extraordinary
extreme
facilitating
fact
faculty
failure
faint
fair
family
fantasy
fatal
fear
fears
feel
feels
feisty
fellow
fellowship
felt
finally
forged
fork
fought
fourteen
fragment
frenzied
friend
frightened
front
frustrated
full
fully
fumbling
fundamentally
future
gather
gave
generous
genuine
give
glass
gleefully
good
gradually
graduated
grave
greater
greatest
grew
grim
grotesque
grow
growing
guard
guilt
hair
hand
happen
happened
harm
harmed
harness
haunted
head
heal
healed
healing
health
hear
heard
hearing
helped
helplessly
hercules
hidden
hide
hiding
high
highest
hold
hole
home
honest
honor
hope
hopelessly
hopelessness
horrified
hospital
hostile
house
human
humiliate
humiliation
humming
hurried
hurt
impassive
implication
important
inaccessible
incapable
increase
increasingly
indifference
individual
individuals
inevitable
infectious
initiative
innate
insane
insanity
insecure
insecurity
insight
insisted
inspired
instinctual
integrity
intellectual
intensified
interact
interest
international
interpret
interpreted
interpreting
intervoice
intractable
invulnerability
irreplaceable
journey
justice
kind
knew
knowledge
labor
language
late
latent
laughter
learn
learned
learning
leave
leaving
lecture
lectures
left
lens
levine
library
lies
life
light
listen
listened
literal
live
lives
locates
lonely
long
longer
looked
madwoman
marius
masters
meaning
meaningful
meant
medical
medication
members
memories
menacing
mental
mentioned
mess
message
met
metaphorical
mind
minutes
mirrored
mistake
mistrust
misunderstanding
moment
mother
movement
moving
narrating
needed
needless
networks
neutral
news
night
nightmarish
normal
notice
number
objective
observe
occasionally
opening
opportunity
oppress
optimism
order
organizational
oscar
overtake
overwhelming
pain
pale
paraphrase
part
parties
parts
peace
pen
people
perceived
period
persecutors
persisted
person
persona
peter
physical
picnic
place
plastic
point
positive
possibly
pour
power
powerless
practice
predicted
presence
previously
pride
privilege
problem
problems
process
professor
profoundly
progressively
promote
prospects
protect
proud
proved
psychiatrist
psychiatry
psychic
psychology
published
pull
question
rapidly
reach
reaction
reading
real
realize
realized
reassure
reassuring
reconciliation
records
recovery
referred
reflected
reinforced
relapse
related
relevance
remember
reminder
remote
represented
resistance
resolve
respect
respectful
respects
response
retreat
return
revelations
reversed
romme
room
running
safe
sandra
sane
sat
save
saved
schizophrenia
school
seek
semester
seminar
sense
separate
series
services
set
sexual
shaken
shame
share
shattered
show
shown
side
significant
simultaneously
sinister
sitting
skilled
slipped
slow
small
snows
social
society
solidarity
solvable
sort
sound
source
spent
spirit
spoke
spring
stairs
stance
started
station
status
stealing
step
strands
strange
strangely
strategic
strategy
student
students
subsequently
subtle
suddenly
suffering
summer
support
supporting
supports
survival
survivor
survivors
swung
symptom
talked
tasks
technically
television
telling
ten
terrified
terrifying
terrorized
theft
thought
threat
threatened
time
times
told
tormented
tormenting
toxic
traffic
trauma
traumatic
truth
turn
tutor
tv
type
ultimately
understand
understands
unexpressed
unhappy
unique
university
unmistakable
unsafe
unshakable
unshakeable
values
veneer
verbal
vicious
view
visions
vital
voice
voices
wait
waited
waiting
war
ware
warned
water
weeks
wilde
withdraw
witness
woman
wonderful
words
work
worked
working
world
worse
worst
worthy
wreckage
wrong
year
years
young