I am 42 years old and I started hearing voices when I had just turned 21, so for 21 years. My voices started off by pretending to be actual people I know, and kinda chatting with me or reliving memories of things in my past. Then after a couple of years like that they turned extremely aggressive and sadistic.

I went through hell for many many years. I won’t go into the things that would say, aside from saying that they were making extremely horrific threats about what they were going to do to myself and my daughter. I had a few breakdowns over the years, resulting in quite a few stays in the psych ward in hospital. I’m posting this as I’m kind of in shock and disbelief.

About 18 months ago the sadists became very quiet. There was no more threats, and the voices were very quiet. And now recently they have surprised me by becoming a little more frequent again and a little bit louder, but now they are there in a kind of conversational way, they’ve even given me a few compliments about my new job, even a bit of a compliment about how I’m looking.

I never thought we’d get go this stage, I read all the literature over the years, and I spent a LOT of time attempting to forge a relationship with them. I actually got to the point where I could not try anymore and I became just as threatening and antagonist as they are. It was actually Darren Smith who encouraged me to stand up for myself. I’ll be eternally grateful as I was that beaten and broken that it didn’t even occur to me to tell them where to go. It’s very unexpected that they actually did fuck off when I put my foot down!! And now they’re back on and off but they are pleasant. What a revolutionary experience.