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I recently had the privilege of participating in a training session at Community Access titled "Hearing Voices That Are Distressing."

The main focus of the training was for the participants to experience what it is actually like to attempt to function, as best as possible, in various situations while constantly being barraged by voices.

After watching an introductory video by Pat Deegan, PhD, the creator of the program, (and also a long time voice hearer), we were each given a Walkman and told to play the tape in it. Our only limitation was that once we set the volume we could not change it.

So then off we went. We had four stops to make: a psychological assessment, a day treatment session, a psychiatrist and a trip to a local store.

First was my psychological assessment. I was given a reading comprehension test. I normally ace these, but with the constant voices in my head, some calling me every name imaginable, I got only 15% of the answers correct.

Next it was on to day treatment. Once again I was given a relatively easy task to perform, (making shapes out of matchsticks), but was unable to concentrate due to the non-stop voices. To make matters worse, whenever the day treatment worker spoke to me, I could barely comprehend her. I had to constantly ask her to repeat herself.

From there it was on to the psychiatrist. Once again, I had to ask the psychiatrist to repeat almost every question he asked me. What I most remember from that visit was that I had no problem talking with him about my true life history of depression, hospitalizations, ECT treatments, etc., but I actually felt embarrassed when I started to tell him about my feelings of experiencing the shame and frustration of the voices.

My last stop was to go to a local store and ask a few simple questions about one of their products. Once again, I had to constantly ask the store clerk to repeat herself, as I either couldn't hear her response or couldn't concentrate well enough to understand her answers. This store clerk, who unlike the people I met in my first 3 stops, had no idea I was hearing voices, became very annoyed at me for constantly asking her the same questions and also told me: "You don't have to yell at me. I hear you just fine." I felt very embarrassed, as I had no idea how loud my voice was.

Although the entire experience took only 45 minutes (it felt much longer), I felt that to some extent I really understood what it is like to try and accomplish everyday tasks with voices, words and sounds thrashing through my head. What I remember most is the constant feelings of embarrassment and frustration. Much of the embarrassment came from constantly having to ask people over and over again to repeat themselves. Most of the frustration came from having the inability to focus on even the easiest of tasks.

Now, if I could feel such strong emotions in only 45 minutes, imagine someone who must endure this on an everyday, continuing basis. When I was finished with my tasks, I was simply able to stop the tape. People who hear distressing voices unfortunately don't have the option of an on/off switch.