Depression and voices

[bonjour16]

I've been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety and was wondering if anyone experienced hearing voices (angry ones) with their depression? And if so, did they go away once your depression was lifted. Feeling low and scared and in need of some reassurance. I'm on 20mg citalopram and 5mg olanzipine. Thank you in advance.

@Bakingqueen23 thank you for your kind reply. That is a large number of people! Such a horrible illness.

I did, and am now on Quetiapine, reasonably strong dose. Helped amazingly with the anxiety as well as voices. You take it at night and it knocks you out to sleep, so you can get 10 to 12 hours a night which helps with everything. I was terrified about taking antipsychotics but it has been the best decision. I have literally never felt this level.

@AngryFeminist thank you. That's great. I've read a few people who have had success with quetiapine for their anxiety. I wish olanzipine would help me. It's doing nothing for my anxiety and I'm still hearing things.

I'm quite a bit better now thanks hope you get better too. Maybe speak to them about changing if it doesn't work. the other thing about olanzapine is it can make you very hungry. I put on weight with it.

@Orangeblossom78 I know what you mean, Olanzipine makes me hungry too!

I wasn’t on anti-depressants but extreme sleep deprivation with a small baby made me hear voices. They were saying the same thing over and over again all day and night, which of course meant I was even less likely to sleep. I couldn’t get them to switch off and it was truly horrendous. So even if not the main cause, lack of sleep can be related, in my experience.

@Pinktornado Sleep deprivation/insomnia is horrible. Hope that has now passed and you are feeling better x

Mirtazapine can help with sleep if that is a problem

I saw a psychologist as part of recovery and they told me that about sleep too

@bonjour16 - tbh I can't really remember that period in my life very well at all, due to having been in such a depressive haze no doubt. At the time I genuinely didn't realise I was depressed, which is why I never sought treatment. Somehow it didn't even occur to me to see a doctor even when I was hearing voices. I was just completely out of it I think. My voices were not aggressive like yours; I heard a "neutral" narration of my life and also heard random conversations and noises, as if I was just overhearing people talking in the room, even though there was no one there. Both types of voices were very very real sounding but I knew they weren't real.

In my case it happened at uni and I just somehow managed to move on as I moved on in my life. I am fine now. I definitely don't recommend trying to go it alone without treatment, however. I really could have taken a wrong turn and not recovered. You are doing the right thing by speaking to your doctor. Good luck.

My brother did and was given a different diagnosis. I don’t think you can go if others experience tho, please go back to your doctor and alert them to this. Sometimes it can take while to get in so make sure you mention when booking the app.

@JanuaryJones20 thank you. May I ask what your brother was diagnosed with? Did the diagnosis change? Thanks in advance.

How did it go with the psychiatrist bonjour?

If it helps any the diagnosis they gave me was psychotic depression. However the GP feels it was an 'acute stress reaction' so I have both in my notes.

@HerRoyalFattyness psychiatrist has upped my olanzipine to 7.5mg. I hope it helps. My diagnosis is severe depression but wish I asked him if could be psychotic depression.

@Orangeblossom78 thanks. I wonder if that's what happened to me as I had a run up of stressful events before all this started.

Psychotic depression is my current diagnosis too.

Yes stress can cause it, mine was after emergency surgery - I found the MH team seemed to take it quite seriously and got to see a psych quickly. I have not met any others with the diagnosis, think I hid at the time, like a PP didn't want to tell anyone etc

@Orangeblossom78 I can imagine that was quite stressful. I hope you are feeling better now? I'm on 7.5mg olanzipine starting tonight..fingers crossed. I'm fed up of hearing strange noises. Did they worry/make you more anxious when you experienced them? xx

Anyone else on here experienced psychotic depression and hearing weird noises/voices/sounds? Thanks in advance

Bonjour you might find this site good for people sharing experiences, it is lovely and kind and run by Mind, I find it helpful.

www.elefriends.org.uk

www.mind.org.uk/information-support/support-community-elefriends/

Yes it does make you anxious and worried, which seems to make it worse, I have just been reading about how stress makes it worse in a book recently too. Something about dopamine.

So sleep / relaxing / anything like that can help, eating properly..but those can be the things you are too stressed / scared to do. So it can be a matter of breaking that pattern and it's not easy.

@Orangeblossom78 thank you. That's great I've signed up

@bonjour16 he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the end but I believe there were other facets. But voices was a big thing. He is on Olanzapine though. Although at one point I’m sure he was on something different that was injected and this turned his life around. He then had a very bad experience with a doctor who for reasons that remain unfathomable moves him off that and he had a very bad reaction to what they moved him in to. But has been on olanzapine ever since. This is good at controlling things but not as good as what he was previously on and I think he struggles with the fact that he really needs to be in bed by 9:30pm because of how long it makes him sleep.

@JanuaryJones20 thanks for your reply that must be tough. Hope he's better now. I agree olanzipine can make me very tired!