‘The voice made me slash my own skull and then told me I’d murdered someone’ – schizophrenia sufferers reveal what the voices in their heads are really saying to them
One in ten people hear voices that nobody else can and, for some sufferers, the consequences can be extreme
WHEN Kyle came round, he was drenched in blood - and a voice whispered in his right ear: "You just killed a man."
But the truth is that Kyle is no killer, the blood splattered all over his clothes was his own, and the voice telling him he was a murderer was actually in his head.
Kyle had reached breaking point and slashed his own skull with a knife in a bid to drown out the voice that had been terrorising him for months.
One in ten people regularly hear voices that others don't as a result of illnesses like schizophrenia - a mental health condition which affects 220,000 people in the UK- and Kyle is one of them.
After a messy break up and losing his job, Kyle tumbled into a bout of depression and began hearing a voice which told him he was worthless and should kill himself.
'I slashed my own head open to try get the voice out'
Kyle first heard the voice ten months ago, and since then it has been constantly telling him to jump off buildings and cliffs.
"I was very, very lost and I think this is why the voice took hold so easily and took control," Kyle says on BBC3 documentary .
He didn't tell anyone about the voice at first. Instead, he tried to block it out - using music as a distraction.
But after months of torment, Kyle resorted to trying to cut the sinister presence out of his head once and for all.
In pure desperation, he took a blade and hacked into his skull just above his right ear - the point where it sounded like the voice was coming from.
He passed out from blood loss. When he came to, the voice told him he'd killed someone and Kyle believed it.
Scared and confused, Kyle told a stranger that he'd committed murder, and she called the police.
Kyle then ran - fearing he'd be locked up - and called his mum.
When she found him, he had blood all over his face and had no choice but to confess everything about the voice.
He was sent to a mental health ward, where he stayed for a month.
He's now using a combination of medication and therapy to get rid of the voice which has ruined his life - or at least quiet it down - and has a new job as a valet.
In many cases, talking with therapists about the origins of voices can help to ease sufferers' worries, and many can use the same coping mechanisms as people with anxiety to remain calm during intense episodes.
But he'll always bear the knife scar on his head, and for many people with schizophrenia, they must live their lives in the knowledge that the voices will never fully go away.
What to do if you think you have schizophrenia
Symptoms of schizophrenia can include having muddled thoughts, undergoing behavioural changes, and experiencing hallucinations and delusions.
In some people, schizophrenic behaviours start suddenly, while they develop over time for others.
Mental health charity says: "Some people think hearing voices means someone is dangerous, when voices are actually more likely to suggest that you harm yourself than someone else.
"It's also important to remember that people have a choice in whether they do what the voices say."
The says you should see your GP as soon as possible if you are experiencing the symptoms of schizophrenia.
.
'The devil tells me he'll kill me if I go out'
Emmalina is sweeping the floor in her kitchen when she's interrupted by a sinister voice.
"I'm going to kill you when you go outside," it says.
Nobody else can hear it, but according to Emmalina, it's the voice of the devil - a regular presence who torments her at her lowest moments and leaves her too scared to leave the house.
She's been hearing voices since she was eight and talking back to them for the past three years.
As well as the devil, she lives with a voice called Katie - her "closest friend" - and the voice of her mother.
"Katie helped me get through really tough times when I was younger," Emmalina says.
Emmalina endured sexual abuse and bullying in her childhood, and experts say that early trauma is often associated with hearing voices or developing multiple personalities.
"I wouldn't have got through childhood without Katie," Emmalina says. "My life was unbearable."
But Katie isn't always supportive of her.
Emmalina says that in the past, Katie's voice has told her to cut herself and to smash her own wrists with a hammer.
The voice also routinely abuses her, calling her a "fat b***h" while she eats and even filling her head with racial slurs on the rare occasions when she ventures away from home.
These days, Emmalina finds it difficult to leave the house at all, thanks to the increasingly frequent influences of the voice she attributes to the devil.
Speaking in a sinister, upper-class accent, it routinely tells her that she'll be killed if she steps outside.
"I'm going to burn the skin off your bones," it says. "I'm going to drag you down to hell. I'm going to get you."
The voice's threats have become so debilitating that Emmalina had to leave her job as a nursery assistant, and now relies on a support worker to try and control her condition.
People with schizophrenia reveal their most shocking delusions on ABC TV
Hearing the voices of dead relatives and unborn children
Schizophrenia is often misunderstood, and Australian TV show You Can't Ask That recently aired an episode where sufferers address misconceptions about the condition.
Sufferers say that taking medication can suppress the voices, but at the height of their illnesses some reported hearing the voices of dead relatives, unborn children and - like Emmalina - the devil.
Sandy can hear two voices, one male and one female.
“They used to sound really crass in the way they spoke, but in the last 10 years they’ve done elocution," she says on the show.
"So now my voices abuse me with a posh accent.
“They will tell me how evil I am, how disgusting I am, how disgusting I look, how my face is revolting, how if people touch me they will die because I will contaminate them with my oozing evil.”
Other schizophrenic episodes have seen sufferers starve themselves - believing they were being told to by the Grim Reaper - and become convinced that they're the target of government conspiracies.
"I have this lingering delusion in the back of my mind that Tony Blair has implanted a micro-chip in my left ear to delete my thoughts," Sandy adds.
Fellow sufferer Steve adds: "I hear voices all the time. Even just sitting here.
“In the early days when I was unwell, if I didn’t do what the voices told me to do they would just get louder and louder and louder."
'The voice pushed me to suicide'
For Chaz, the emergence of a voice which she calls Victor almost proved fatal.
Victor has been an unwelcome fixture in Chaz' life since 2013, but she was too scared of being sectioned to tell anyone about it.
The voice heaps constant abuse on her, telling her that she has no right to be alive and that she can end the torment by killing herself.
"You should die," the voice says, during one particularly nasty outburst. "Just die."
After eight months of Victor's constant goading, Chaz jumped from a bridge.
"I didn't want to hear it any more and I wanted everything to disappear," she says. "I don't really remember being on the bridge.
"The police shouted my name. I turned towards them, turned back towards the bridge and just stepped off."
Today, the former skateboarder is in a wheelchair as the result of the suicide attempt, which left her with a broken foot, two smashed wrists, a fractured pelvis and a fractured sternum.
Chaz still hears Victor's voice, and it sometimes even teases her about the day she almost died.
"I put you in a wheelchair," Victor says, and Chaz hears a foul-spirited laugh inside her head.
Now, Chaz refuses to let Victor control her life. She writes and recites poetry about her condition to try and drown the voice out, and hopes to find love soon.
"I know it's hard for anyone to be my friend," she says. "But I do actually want to meet people. I'd like a girlfriend.
"But it's hard to get someone to stay around. It's terrifying to meet someone who doesn't necessarily want to live all day, every day."
If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health issues, or someone you know is, call the Samaritans free of charge on 116 123