Welcome to Rumbel Strip, America Heilman, and this is part six in a series I produced for Vermont Public Radio called They Are Us.

Today's show is called I Could Be Well. Welcome.

I mean, these are just very lonely, alienating experiences because no one wants to hear about it.

Nothing will clear a room quite as quickly as telling everyone you hear

voices. That's Leslie Nelson and ever since she can remember she's been

seeing things and hearing things that other people don't see or hear.

Her adult life has been punctuated by departures from reality.

She's been involuntarily hospitalized six times.

But even though Leslie acknowledges that she lives with mental illness,

and even though this mental illness has been the cause of tremendous pain and difficulty,

she doesn't like to give it a name.

Naming her mental illness, finding her place in the diagnostic and

statistical manual of mental disorders has never been awfully useful in

helping her get better.

Most of this series looks at the world of mental illness from the outside end.

In this story, Leslie shows us what it's like from the inside, what it's like to be normal from her

point of view, what it's like to hear voices, to depart from reality, and the incredible power

of finding people like herself to talk with about their normal lives with mental illness.

Can you talk a little bit about hearing voices?

Sure.

I will hear very clear and very direct shouting in my head.

It's not necessarily always male in nature, but it quite often is.

...