I have seven children. Two of my boys experienced episodes of hearing voices when they were very small. 6 years old for son 1. Son 2 was around 7 or 8.
Son number 1 started hearing voices when he was 6 years old. In his childhood, he was on different meds, in the psych unit a couple of times, etc. As a teen, he decided he was fine and stopped taking any medicine and has refused any therapy or psychiatric care. He has been doing well and is now a young adult. Recently, he became very ill so I made the ten hour drive to stay with him. While there, the subject of his voices came up and the way he was talking I was prompted to ask him if he still hears them. He said yes!
I became very worried and I've been asking him and his best friend lots of questions. I've discovered that he has about 7 different voices. Only one sounds as though it is an external voice. The others are all internal. They usually only do things like make comments about what is going on currently around him. They don't tell him to do bad things or harm himself (which is different than when they first started as a child.) One of the voices is female and he tells me that's where he gets his "sass." Only the external voice has a name. He says none of them are new. He has always had them with him since he was six and he was lying when in his teens and he told us he wasn't hearing them anymore. He says sometimes he misses time. His friend told me of a couple of times when my son didn't seem himself and later didn't recall what he had done or said. He doesn't want to take meds to make them go away. He says he would be lonely and miss them if they were gone.
Now on to son number 2. When I returned home from visiting my older son, I mentioned to my other son that I had learned that son 1 was still hearing his voices. It was at that time Son 2 confessed that he also still hears HIS voices! He went on to tell me that he has two voices; one good and one bad. They are both external and have names. He told me of a recent episode where he ended up in the fetal position in a parking lot clawing at his head to make them go away. He doesn't have missing time or anything like that. He has been in counseling for years and is on antidepressants but he refuses to tell anyone about the voices bc he doesn't want to be labeled. He has sworn me to secrecy as well. He is 19 so I can't force him to do anything.
I don't know what to do. I'm very worried. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Since neither boy wants help and they don't want anyone to know about their voices I really have nobody to turn to.