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The day I left home for the first time

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to go to university was a bright day

3
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brimming with hope and optimism.

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00:00:07,516 --> 00:00:10,439
I'd done well at school.
Expectations for me were high,

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00:00:10,463 --> 00:00:12,614
and I gleefully entered the student life

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00:00:12,638 --> 00:00:16,213
of lectures, parties
and traffic cone theft.

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00:00:16,236 --> 00:00:18,890
Now appearances, of course,
can be deceptive,

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and to an extent, this
feisty, energetic persona

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of lecture-going and traffic
cone stealing was a veneer,

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albeit a very well-crafted
and convincing one.

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Underneath, I was actually
deeply unhappy, insecure

12
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and fundamentally frightened --

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frightened of other people,
of the future, of failure

14
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and of the emptiness
that I felt was within me.

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But I was skilled at hiding
it, and from the outside

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appeared to be someone
with everything to hope for

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and aspire to.

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This fantasy of invulnerability
was so complete

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that I even deceived myself,

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and as the first semester
ended and the second began,

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there was no way that anyone
could have predicted

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what was just about to happen.

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I was leaving a seminar when it started,

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humming to myself, fumbling with my bag

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just as I'd done a hundred times before,

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when suddenly I heard
a voice calmly observe,

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"She is leaving the room."

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I looked around, and there
was no one there,

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but the clarity
and decisiveness of the comment

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was unmistakable.

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Shaken, I left my books
on the stairs and hurried home,

32
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and there it was again.

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"She is opening the door."

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This was the beginning.
The voice had arrived.

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And the voice persisted,

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days and then weeks of it, on and on,

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narrating everything I did
in the third person.

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"She is going to the library."

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"She is going to a lecture."

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It was neutral, impassive
and even, after a while,

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strangely companionate and reassuring,

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although I did notice that its
calm exterior sometimes slipped

43
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and that it occasionally mirrored
my own unexpressed emotion.

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So, for example, if I was angry
and had to hide it,

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which I often did, being very adept
at concealing how I really felt,

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then the voice would sound frustrated.

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Otherwise, it was neither
sinister nor disturbing,

48
00:02:00,669 --> 00:02:02,755
although even at that point it was clear

49
00:02:02,779 --> 00:02:04,779
that it had something to communicate to me

50
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about my emotions, particularly emotions

51
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which were remote and inaccessible.

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Now it was then that I made
a fatal mistake,

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in that I told a friend
about the voice, and she was horrified.

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A subtle conditioning process had begun,

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the implication that normal
people don't hear voices

56
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and the fact that I did meant
that something was very seriously wrong.

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Such fear and mistrust was infectious.

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Suddenly the voice didn't
seem quite so benign anymore,

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and when she insisted
that I seek medical attention,

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I duly complied, and which proved to be

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mistake number two.

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I spent some time telling the college G.P.

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about what I perceived
to be the real problem:

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anxiety, low self-worth,
fears about the future,

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and was met with bored indifference

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until I mentioned the voice,

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upon which he dropped his pen, swung round

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and began to question me
with a show of real interest.

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And to be fair, I was desperate
for interest and help,

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and I began to tell him
about my strange commentator.

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And I always wish, at this
point, the voice had said,

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"She is digging her own grave."

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I was referred
to a psychiatrist, who likewise

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took a grim view of the voice's presence,

75
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subsequently interpreting
everything I said

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through a lens of latent insanity.

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For example, I was part
of a student TV station

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that broadcast news bulletins
around the campus,

79
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and during an appointment
which was running very late,

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I said, "I'm sorry,
doctor, I've got to go.

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I'm reading the news at six."

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Now it's down on my medical
records that Eleanor

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has delusions that she's a television
news broadcaster.

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It was at this point that events began

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to rapidly overtake me.

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A hospital admission
followed, the first of many,

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a diagnosis of schizophrenia came next,

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and then, worst of all,
a toxic, tormenting sense

89
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of hopelessness, humiliation and despair

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about myself and my prospects.

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But having been encouraged
to see the voice

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not as an experience but as a symptom,

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my fear and resistance
towards it intensified.

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Now essentially, this represented taking

95
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an aggressive stance towards my own mind,

96
00:04:02,904 --> 00:04:05,271
a kind of psychic civil war,

97
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and in turn this caused
the number of voices to increase

98
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and grow progressively
hostile and menacing.

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Helplessly and hopelessly,
I began to retreat

100
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into this nightmarish inner world

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in which the voices
were destined to become

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both my persecutors
and my only perceived companions.

103
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They told me, for example,
that if I proved myself worthy

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of their help, then
they could change my life

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00:04:28,573 --> 00:04:29,746
back to how it had been,

106
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and a series of increasingly
bizarre tasks was set,

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a kind of labor of Hercules.

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It started off quite small, for example,

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pull out three strands of hair,

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but gradually it grew more extreme,

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culminating in commands to harm myself,

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and a particularly dramatic instruction:

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"You see that tutor over there?

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You see that glass of water?

115
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Well, you have to go over and pour it
over him in front of the other students."

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Which I actually did,
and which needless to say

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did not endear me to the faculty.

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In effect, a vicious cycle
of fear, avoidance,

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mistrust and misunderstanding
had been established,

120
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and this was a battle
in which I felt powerless

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and incapable of establishing
any kind of peace or reconciliation.

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Two years later,
and the deterioration was dramatic.

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By now, I had the whole
frenzied repertoire:

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terrifying voices, grotesque visions,

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bizarre, intractable delusions.

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My mental health status
had been a catalyst

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for discrimination, verbal abuse,

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and physical and sexual assault,

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and I'd been told by my psychiatrist,

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"Eleanor, you'd be better off with cancer,

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because cancer is easier
to cure than schizophrenia."

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I'd been diagnosed, drugged and discarded,

133
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and was by now so tormented by the voices

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that I attempted to drill
a hole in my head

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in order to get them out.

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Now looking back on the wreckage
and despair of those years,

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it seems to me now as if someone
died in that place,

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and yet, someone else was saved.

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A broken and haunted
person began that journey,

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but the person who emerged was a survivor

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and would ultimately grow into the person

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I was destined to be.

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Many people have harmed me in my life,

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and I remember them all,

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but the memories grow pale and faint

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in comparison with the people
who've helped me.

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The fellow survivors,
the fellow voice-hearers,

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the comrades and collaborators;

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the mother who never gave up on me,

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who knew that one day
I would come back to her

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and was willing to wait for me
for as long as it took;

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the doctor who only worked
with me for a brief time

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but who reinforced
his belief that recovery

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was not only possible but inevitable,

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and during a devastating period of relapse

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told my terrified family,
"Don't give up hope.

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I believe that Eleanor
can get through this.

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Sometimes, you know, it
snows as late as May,

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but summer always comes eventually."

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Fourteen minutes is not enough time

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to fully credit those
good and generous people

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who fought with me and for me

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and who waited to welcome me back

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from that agonized, lonely place.

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But together, they forged
a blend of courage,

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creativity, integrity,
and an unshakeable belief

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that my shattered self could
become healed and whole.

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I used to say that these people saved me,

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but what I now know is they did something

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even more important
in that they empowered me

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to save myself,

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and crucially, they helped
me to understand something

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which I'd always suspected:

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that my voices were a meaningful response

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to traumatic life events,
particularly childhood events,

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and as such were not my enemies

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but a source of insight
into solvable emotional problems.

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Now, at first, this was very
difficult to believe,

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not least because the voices
appeared so hostile

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and menacing, so in this
respect, a vital first step

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was learning to separate
out a metaphorical meaning

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from what I'd previously
interpreted to be a literal truth.

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So for example, voices
which threatened to attack my home

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I learned to interpret
as my own sense of fear

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and insecurity in the world, rather
than an actual, objective danger.

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Now at first, I would have believed them.

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I remember, for example,
sitting up one night

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on guard outside my parents'
room to protect them

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from what I thought was a genuine
threat from the voices.

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Because I'd had such a bad
problem with self-injury

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that most of the cutlery
in the house had been hidden,

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so I ended up arming myself
with a plastic fork,

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kind of like picnic ware,
and sort of sat outside the room

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clutching it and waiting to spring
into action should anything happen.

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It was like, "Don't mess with me.

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I've got a plastic fork, don't you know?"

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Strategic.

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But a later response,
and much more useful,

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would be to try and deconstruct
the message behind the words,

200
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so when the voices warned
me not to leave the house,

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then I would thank them
for drawing my attention

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00:08:44,733 --> 00:08:45,926
to how unsafe I felt --

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because if I was aware of it, then I could
do something positive about it --

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but go on to reassure both them and myself

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that we were safe and didn't
need to feel frightened anymore.

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I would set boundaries for the voices,

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and try to interact with them
in a way that was assertive

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yet respectful,
establishing a slow process

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00:09:01,313 --> 00:09:03,645
of communication and collaboration

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00:09:03,669 --> 00:09:06,944
in which we could learn to work
together and support one another.

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00:09:06,968 --> 00:09:09,588
Throughout all of this,
what I would ultimately realize

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was that each voice was closely related

213
00:09:11,496 --> 00:09:13,781
to aspects of myself,
and that each of them

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carried overwhelming
emotions that I'd never had

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00:09:16,115 --> 00:09:18,169
an opportunity to process or resolve,

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00:09:18,193 --> 00:09:20,729
memories of sexual trauma and abuse,

217
00:09:20,753 --> 00:09:23,640
of anger, shame, guilt, low self-worth.

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00:09:23,664 --> 00:09:26,140
The voices took the place of this pain

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and gave words to it,

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and possibly one of the greatest
revelations

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00:09:29,490 --> 00:09:32,490
was when I realized that the most hostile
and aggressive voices

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00:09:32,514 --> 00:09:34,237
actually represented the parts of me

223
00:09:34,261 --> 00:09:36,450
that had been hurt most profoundly,

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and as such, it was these voices

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that needed to be shown
the greatest compassion and care.

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It was armed with this
knowledge that ultimately

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I would gather together my shattered self,

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each fragment represented
by a different voice,

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gradually withdraw from all my medication,

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and return to psychiatry, only this
time from the other side.

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Ten years after the voice first
came, I finally graduated,

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this time with the highest
degree in psychology

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the university had ever
given, and one year later,

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the highest masters, which shall we say

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isn't bad for a madwoman.

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In fact, one of the voices
actually dictated the answers

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during the exam, which technically
possibly counts as cheating.

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00:10:14,101 --> 00:10:15,478
(Laughter)

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And to be honest, sometimes I quite
enjoyed their attention as well.

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As Oscar Wilde has said,
the only thing worse

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than being talked about is not
being talked about.

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It also makes you very
good at eavesdropping,

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because you can listen
to two conversations simultaneously.

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So it's not all bad.

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I worked in mental health services,

246
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I spoke at conferences,

247
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I published book chapters
and academic articles,

248
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and I argued, and continue to do so,

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the relevance of the following concept:

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that an important question in psychiatry

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shouldn't be what's wrong with you

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but rather what's happened to you.

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And all the while,
I listened to my voices,

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with whom I'd finally learned
to live with peace and respect

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and which in turn
reflected a growing sense

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of compassion, acceptance
and respect towards myself.

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And I remember the most moving
and extraordinary moment

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when supporting another young woman
who was terrorized by her voices,

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and becoming fully aware,
for the very first time,

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that I no longer felt that way myself

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but was finally able to help
someone else who was.

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I'm now very proud to be
a part of Intervoice,

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the organizational body of the International
Hearing Voices Movement,

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an initiative inspired by the work
of Professor Marius Romme

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and Dr. Sandra Escher,

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which locates voice hearing
as a survival strategy,

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a sane reaction to insane circumstances,

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not as an aberrant symptom
of schizophrenia to be endured,

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but a complex, significant
and meaningful experience

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to be explored.

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Together, we envisage and enact a society

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that understands
and respects voice hearing,

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supports the needs
of individuals who hear voices,

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and which values them as full citizens.

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This type of society is not only possible,

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it's already on its way.

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To paraphrase Chavez, once
social change begins,

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it cannot be reversed.

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You cannot humiliate
the person who feels pride.

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You cannot oppress the people

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who are not afraid anymore.

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For me, the achievements
of the Hearing Voices Movement

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are a reminder that empathy, fellowship,

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justice and respect are more than words;

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they are convictions and beliefs,

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and that beliefs can change the world.

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In the last 20 years,
the Hearing Voices Movement

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has established hearing voices networks

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in 26 countries across five continents,

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working together to promote
dignity, solidarity

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and empowerment for individuals
in mental distress,

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to create a new language
and practice of hope,

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which, at its very center,
lies an unshakable belief

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in the power of the individual.

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As Peter Levine has said, the human animal

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is a unique being

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endowed with an instinctual
capacity to heal

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and the intellectual spirit
to harness this innate capacity.

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In this respect, for members of society,

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there is no greater honor or privilege

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than facilitating that process
of healing for someone,

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to bear witness, to reach out a hand,

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to share the burden
of someone's suffering,

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and to hold the hope for their recovery.

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And likewise, for survivors
of distress and adversity,

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that we remember we don't
have to live our lives

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forever defined by the damaging
things that have happened to us.

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We are unique. We are irreplaceable.

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What lies within us can
never be truly colonized,

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contorted, or taken away.

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The light never goes out.

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As a very wonderful
doctor once said to me,

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"Don't tell me what other people
have told you about yourself.

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Tell me about you."

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Thank you.

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(Applause)