31-year-old WONG Ka-kit is a peer support worker in a psychiatric rehabilitation organisation and a schizophrenia patient himself. Ka-kit first experienced auditory hallucination after graduating from university. At first, he heard how the juvenile gang near his home harassed him, then a man and a woman gossiping. These “voices” all sounded so real that he once thought someone installed a tapping device in the air-conditioner in order to surveil his home.
The “voices” cost Ka-kit his job and left him no choice but to receive Comprehensive Social Security Assistance. On one occasion when he was sweeping leaves in a park as part of community work, an old man said to him, “We are in the lowest stratum of society.” Ka-kit was thunderstruck and felt that life was frustrating – he was a university graduate but had descended into poverty. For a period of time, he marginalized himself, staying at home all day long and saying nothing every day except his food orders. In the meantime, he was obsessed with philosophy forums on the Internet, being desperate to do something to counteract the “voices”. He even imagined developing his own school of philosophy.
After a 3-year torment by the “voices”, Ka-kit finally sought medical advice with the assistance of social workers, and understood that the “voices” were a symptom of psychiatric illness. He was actually relieved to be diagnosed as he believed he would recover. Since then, Ka-kit has become more proactive and joined various support groups in psychiatric rehabilitation organizations to share his experience of having auditory hallucination. In addition, he signed up to be a peer support worker so as to help those who had also been agonized by “voices”. In September 2017, he even left Hong Kong by plane for the first time to attend an international conference on psychiatric rehabilitation in Thailand, which gave him even more experiences and revelations.
Although Ka-kit still experiences auditory hallucination now, he
今年三十一歲的黃家傑，在精神康復機構擔任朋輩支援工作員，而他本人亦患有精神分裂症。家傑大學畢業起開始有幻聽病徵，最初是聽到住所樓下有童黨對他滋擾的聲音，繼而聽到一男一女在說三道四，聲音來得極為真實，令他一度以為家中冷氣被人安裝偷聽器，掌握他的屋內情況。
「聲音」令他失去工作，無奈要領取綜援；其後在一次社區工作中家傑要到公園掃樹葉，一位伯伯跟他說了一句：「我們都是社會最低層的一群」，令家傑覺得十分震撼，覺得身為大學畢業生，竟淪落至此，感到很坎坷。曾經一段時期，他將自己邊緣化，終日躲在家中，每天唯一的說話，就是在茶餐廳跟侍應說的ABCD餐；同時，他又沉迷網上的哲學論壇，希望能做些事情抗衡「聲音」，甚至幻想能夠發展出一門屬於自己的哲學。
被「聲音」困擾三年後，在社工的協助下，家傑終於去求醫，並了解到「聲音」是精神病的病徵。確診反而令他鬆一口氣，因為他認為既然這是病，就能治癒。從此家傑變得積極，在精神病康復機構參加各種小組活動，分享自己的幻聽經歷，亦擔任朋輩支援工作員，幫助同樣受聲音困擾的同路人。2017年9月，他更首次坐飛機離港，到泰國出席精神康復的國際會議，令他有更多經驗和體會。
雖然家傑現在仍然有幻聽，但他已學懂接納這情況，「聲音」的角色，亦已轉化為「媽媽」，經常與他談心事；他寄語幻聽人士，既然不能將聲音消滅，倒不如學懂與「聲音」共存。
