No. I don't. The only voices in my head I hear are my own thoughts, my practice conversations and some "replays" (such as music or sentences I heard somewhere, similar to echolalia but not voiced out). My voice imagination is rich - whatever I hear in my head is as clear as real sound - but I never experienced "hearing voices" as in "voices telling me what to do against my will". Of course, I have my inner conversations - there is a part of me that is and adult and there is the anxious child too - but it's totally normal, they are both me and I can control both of the voices. It goes like this:
Anxious child: It's so scary!
Adult: It is. But you can deal with it.
Anxious child: I don't wanna. It's too hard! I can't do it!
Adult: You can. It's just like many times before. You always freak out, only to discover there was nothing to be afraid of.
Me: That's right. I can do it. It's going to be fine. It always is.
Anxious child: But...
Me: Shut up. I've decided.
It's my method to calm down when anxiety kicks in and I have something important to do. It's not like the voices are not me - they are personification of my emotions and my logic. Together they are me. Separating them like this makes it easier to think clearly when emotions run wild.
And actually "hearing voices" is not a sign of autism.
When autistic people tell you "yes" when you ask if they hear voices in their head they think about their thoughts, inner dialogues and replays, not evil beings telling them stuff. Unless they have schizophrenia too.
Of course, there is also auditory processing disorder. I happened to mistake sound of door closing to my mom calling my name for example. But those are simple mishearing.
27 Aug 2016, 12:46 am
