Question: Hello, I have a question that perhaps you can help me with. A while ago I discovered that my aunt had been diagnosed with a scary mental illness (Schizophrenia) when she was younger, around 19. Ever since I found this out, I have developed a very, very deep and overwhelming fear/ phobia of inheriting this illness. I realize it's an irrational fear, and most likely I am okay however I can't seem to shake the worry that I'm at an increased risk of developing some type of illness like she did due to genetics (and various life experiences, such as being a very stupid and experimental youth). I am currently a 30 year old woman, so I hope I am out of the 'at-risk' age.

One of my huge fears involves an irrational worry about auditory hallucinations. I've always been told that when people 'hear' 'voices' they hear them as if someone is really talking to them like as if a conversation. They actually 'hear' the voice with their ears as if someone is speaking to them in the room - but no one is there. Recently, I was reading an article online and it was mentioned that people have 'auditory hallucinations' in their head (like thoughts?) which frankly, terrifies me to no end. The article mentioned that some people experience auditory hallucinations as if their 'inner speech' has gone awry and they have lost control of it. After reading this article, my anxiety went into overdrive. I've since stopped reading articles about the illness online because I realize it feeds my anxiety, but I guess I just wanted to reach out to a mental health expert for your opinion on auditory hallucinations and the experience of them.

I've always thought that if I was going to experience hallucinations, I would 'hear' them like someone was physically speaking to me from somewhere in the room or from an inanimate object in my environment. Am I correct in this assumption? My fear of this is so huge, that when I read the scary online article my mind started imaging what this internal experience would be like and my anxiety got really bad.

Thank you very much for any info you can provide! I greatly appreciate it.

Hello Dr. Bishnoi, thank you very much for your prompt response! I appreciate your reply, and the information you provided is very detailed. I do agree with your comment, when you said I am experiencing Health Anxiety. This is definitely true and it is very hard to deal with. I constantly doubt myself and what I feel, it's a very emotionally draining experience.

My health anxiety about Schizophrenia first appeared when I was 23 years old, and then faded away for a period of 6 years. I thought I had beaten it, but now my anxiety has reappeared. Sometimes I scare myself thinking that perhaps I am in the prodrome for Schizophrenia, but I try and reassure myself that if I was going to get this illness I would have developed it when I was younger. It’s a bit of a daily battle reassuring myself, so I will ask my doctor to refer me to a psychiatrist for health anxiety treatment. Thank you for the suggestion.

It is a relief for me to read that hallucinations would be experienced as voices or sounds in my environment, external to me. When I read that article, about how people with Schizophrenia may experience auditory hallucinations as internal ‘thoughts’, I had a jolt of fear because I didn’t know that this was possible. I started ruminating on this and scaring myself. The article was apparently written by a medical doctor, but I don’t believe it was a psychiatrist so hopefully it is false information.

I do not currently hear any voices or odd sounds right now from outside myself - I was mostly concerned with imagining internal things after I read that scary article online. Everyone else I have asked (family and friends) also say that hallucinations would be in my environment, and would sound like either people talking to me, or music, a radio or other various sounds. Your response has helped me believe them.
Dr. Bishnoi, I have a super quick follow up question that I was thinking of.

A lot of my current anxiety about auditory hallucinations is because after I read that scary article, I thought to myself “what would that experience of hearing an internal hallucination be like?” And then immediately, my mind conjured up a scary word. Every time I tried to relax, I felt as if my anxiety would kick in and cycle on this scary worry and I would imagine the scary word-thought again. I tried to reassure myself that it’s just my imagination and that I’m scaring myself for no reason, but I became worried that maybe this was the start of psychotic, schizophrenic hallucinations. I now realize that schizophrenics hear external, 'outside the body' hallucinations but I suppose I'm a little worried that me, imagining a scary word counted as a hallucination? I hope this makes sense, I'm still just a little worried about this and felt I should include this follow up question. Thank you very much for your assistance!

Thank you very much for your help! I appreciate the reassurance :)