16/12/2025
It's a WRAP for 2026! A big thank you to all who have been a part of The Voice Sanctuary and made it such a special year.
I got a bit soppy at the last Voices & Visions group... is an excerpt from my reflection that I shared with the group....
REFLECTION
At the end of this amazing year of change, I want to reflect on the meaning of voices groups like this one.
When I left my role as peer worker for Prahan Mission in 2016, I wrote this message as a thank you to all those who helped me. It felt relevant to share with you all now.
I walked into a Hearing Voices group about two or three months after my first psychosis. I was just a mess, I couldn't even look at anyone; I was just sat there in this little circle of people. As Janet (group facilitator) affectionately says, I was ‘shaking like a leaf’ because I was trembling a lot. I just totally looked like someone who had a severe mental illness. They would go around the circle asking people how their week was and I would just say ‘oh sorry I can’t talk today’ and keep looking at the floor.
After a few sessions I started to realize that these people were my equals and that was really nice because up until that point I’d been feeling that everyone else was normal. There were the clinicians and the carers and they were all professional, but where were the people like me? I needed to be with people like me to feel accepted and validated. So that’s exactly what they gave me.
I cannot even remember how I found out about those hearing voices groups. But there I was, making my way through the torture of even getting to the group in the first place. To do this, I had to ignore the voices in my head that laughed at what I was wearing, and jeered at me as I walked along the street. “She’s a crazy person”, they would say. It was constant abuse in my head. The voices didn't like that I went to the group, not at first. Sue Belmore remembers that I used to stare at the carpet a lot! I got to know that old carpet pretty well.
But even though I felt so broken, so crazy and so shameful, the people at Voices Vic didn't judge those things. Somehow they saw through the “mental illness” and into the goodness within me. Even though I felt like the “worst of me” was on display, in those groups I wasn't judged – it was all okay.
With the people I met at Voices Vic, I had found emotional safety, along with little glimpses of confidence. I started to make friends, develop a support network, and take on some responsibilities. Eventually, with a lot of encouragement from Janet, Sandi and Indigo, I started working a tentative nine hours a week as a support worker on the Voice Exchange research program. Nine hours seemed colossal to me then. I remember waking up some days an anxious wreck and thinking, God, I can't do this, I’ll have to call in sick. But then I'd make myself go anyway, because I also knew that the people who were at my workplace were understanding and would help me if I needed it. And so with that sense of safety, I would walk to work and by the time I got there, I would be okay.
I remember that even four hours a day was stressful. I would have to take naps or have little cries on my lunchtime. But miracles happen when you do a job you love and you are surrounded by a supportive organisation like Prahran Mission. You start to grow in confidence. You start to believe you’ll be okay. You start to feel like you are worthwhile, that there's a point to living, and that maybe it's better if you look after yourself, because you want to role model that to the people you work with.
I read back on those words now, another ten years later, and I am filled with the same emotions when I think of the Voices & Visions Group. You are the hearing voices movement, and you are a part of my hearing voices family. You are also a part of something much larger, a global community that actually believes in people’s ability to change, to grow, to learn, and to turn this hearing voices experience into something beautiful. Like all human tribulations, our suffering is real, but our response to that suffering is up to us.
True healing is possible when you tune into your own inner voice of wisdom. That is the only voice whose advice is worth following! You know that voice because it doesn’t yell or push or coerce – it is quiet and gentle, it has a loving energy and when you follow its advice, everything works out.
The kindness and the care for each other that I witness in this group is one of the reasons it feels like a place to belong, a place to feel supported. Thank you to each and every one for creating that energy, for helping each other, for showing up, for listening and caring.
I wish you all a wonderful Christmas.
With love,
Louisa
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At the end of this amazing year of change, I want to reflect on the meaning of voices groups like this one. When I left my role as peer worker for Prahan Mission in 2016, I wrote this message as a thank you to all those who helped me. It felt relevant to share with you all now. I walked into a Heari...
