Andrew has been attending our Wiltshire Hearing Voices group after struggling with voice-hearing and unusual beliefs. For Mental Health Awareness Week, he shares how the group’s welcoming and supportive environment has helped him to live a more peaceful life.

I started hearing voices and originally did not realise that they weren't real until I got COVID-19. Then I started hearing a lot more voices. This is when I realised that what I had been hearing for several months prior to getting COVID-19 may not have been real.

But who could I tell? I was too scared of going to see the doctor for help as I had seen what happens to people when they get sectioned, and I did not want this to happen to me. So a lot of time had passed, I was still hearing voices and had started to have some very unusual beliefs.

A family member realised that I was not myself and got me to go to counselling. I wasn't sure how counselling would cure me from hearing voices, but I knew that talking to someone about what I was experiencing might help me get a better understanding of what was going on with me. I was also very lucky in that my counsellor was an ex-employee of Rethink Mental Illness and had a very good understanding of what mental health support was out there, which put me at ease.

The counselling service which I attended got in touch with my GP and assured me that I would not be sectioned. It was after my original appointment with a mental health professional that I received a text message notifying me about a hearing voices group. From then on everything started to change for the better.

Originally I thought, "What would they think of me?" But here was a group of people whose stories were not too dissimilar to mine. It was a safe space where I could go, and the first time I spoke about what I had been experiencing to the group felt like a massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I certainly felt freer from the voices. I found the group to be very welcoming and supportive; there was no one there judging me, and people would share helpful advice, tips, and coping strategies on managing their mental health.

I found Gavin, the group lead, very informative and easy to talk to, as well as two of the volunteers. Each time I attended the group, I felt better about myself and less anxious about my voices. I was also learning not to give power to the voices, which was really helping me.

The group kindly gave attendees a copy of the book "Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery." Having read it, I felt like there was a lot of hope, something which I had not felt for quite some time. Despite not being given the opportunity to work with the voices to see if this would help me, I slowly started to feel them have less power through things I had learned from the group.

I have now reached the point where I have made peace with them. Although I still hear them, I am no longer anxious or interested in what they are saying. I know that I may hear them for the rest of my life, but they no longer worry or have any power over me. My only disappointment about the hearing voices group was that I did not find them sooner when I was at my worst, but I am so glad that I did, as who knows where my life might have gone. I still go to the group, and I find everyone who attends very inspiring, particularly being able to talk about their mental health so openly.