I firmly now believe that there is nothing wrong with hearing voices. I was in fact disturbed when I was a child and first heard it said that it was a pathology

I firmly now believe that there is nothing wrong with hearing voices. I was in fact disturbed when I was a child and first heard it said that it was a pathology. Now let's be clear: someone who hears phantom malicious voices, someone who takes drugs and hallucinates false things, someone whose voices impel them to cause harm: those are pathologies and should be addressed. "Hallucination" carries a negative connotation, a judgement that head-voices are invariably bad, and can't be true, because "empirical science" entirely denies the supernatural and the metaphysical reality of head-voices. But someone who hears good voices, someone hearing voices who encourage them, or tell them to do the right thing, or calming and comforting voices: that is natural, and that should never be discouraged. I've experienced the entire gamut of these, and I discovered that my solution is to begin to discern the good ones, to hearken to them, to obey the good voices, and little by little, they overpower the malicious types, and I'm able to withstand onslaughts of not only evil voices, but actual derision and mockery from real people near me. The voices I hear, they've come to me because of what I've heard, who I've listened to, in the past; they're composites, they're archetypes, they're echoes and memories, but they were once based in reality, and uttered by real human beings near me. Racism and prejudice is real, and the actual tangible hatred I imbibed for decades, in reality and on the Internet, were the genesis of evil and malicious voices in my head. So: medicate all voices away and tranquilize my thoughts? We'd throw out the baby with the bathwater. Why shouldn't I hear good, encouraging voices and obey them? The mental health system can encourage people to return to rational thought and be grounded in reality. Mentally ill people can learn appropriate behavior, it can be modeled and imitated, and people can be trained, even to discern voices and learn how to ignore or discount the bad ones. If someone feels stalked, harrassed, targeted by technological means, the most important thing they need is reassurance and respite from that paranoia. They need to be disconnected from the ENVIRONMENTS which foster fear, hatred, and distrust. They need to be extracted from echo chambers that spread F.U.D. because it will rub off on them and drive them to harmful and hateful actions against themselves, or other innocents. Drug 'em if you must, but remember that drugs are band-aids, and it hurts to rip off a band-aid.