Meet Jeannie!
The hardest thing that people who hear voices have to deal with… is the way they get treated by those who don’t.
I once believed that receiving a schizophrenia spectrum diagnosis — schizoaffective disorder — would define my life forever. I had surrendered to the learned helplessness and internalized oppression that told me my future was limited by “severe and persistent mental illness.” But peer support changed everything. It was other people who’d been there — their stories and hope — that showed me another way forward. At first I borrowed their belief in me until I could build my own. Slowly, everything I knew began to transform. I found a community in the international Hearing Voices Movement. Through sharing our struggles, our successes, and strategies passed down through a living lineage of other voice hearers around the world, I built the life I have today.
I’ve realized I don’t have a choice about what I hear — but I do have a choice about what I listen to and what I obey. Some days, those choices are the hardest decisions in the world. Other days, setting boundaries with my voices makes me feel strong.
I accept that I can’t have power over my voices and other psychosis-related experiences, but I can have power with them. They haven’t disappeared, and I’ve stopped trying to eradicate them. Instead, I’ve built a life with meaning by accepting that my reality includes things others may never see, hear, or believe.
In addition to offering peer support and consulting, I hold a leadership role in the public mental health system. I’ve also served on the Hearing Voices Network-USA National Board of Directors for over a decade.
All of my work is grounded in the belief that no one is beyond reach. There is no such thing as being “too much,” “too disorganized,” “too delusional,” or, as is too often said, “too low-functioning.” I’ve dedicated my life to standing with people who others have written off. We all deserve to live with choice, meaning, and purpose — to be believed, not just treated.
There was a time when I couldn’t imagine a future beyond just surviving. Today, I live a life of my own choosing — and I help others do the same: building lives of meaning, not in spite of these experiences, but by learning to work with them.