Techniques on the practice of integrating hallucinations without freaking other people out, are helpful. The bp may benefit from teaching himself how to do 'opposite to emotion'. Tricky part is releasing fear. Once you are having visions/hearing/feeling things you may have little control over it, so take it's hand. Instead of trying to stay in Control, try working with it. Having understanding and acceptance of hallucinating phenomena can be at times a gift. Hallucinations serve a purpose. If they become terrifying it's problemmatic but it may be ameliorated and even conquered. One can get so used to them as to not often appear obviously mentally 'ill' to others. This is key to releasing fear, as when some others who have no experience see one acting mentally 'ill' (reacting overtly to hallucinations) the tendency is that they become afraid of or annoyed with that mentally 'ill' person. And of course fear begets fear.
We all have a responsibility to be sensitive to the affect our behavior has on others, and with psychotic folks it's just a little more challenging. I have utmost respect for folks schizophrenic as they have hallucinations much more strongly, and more like all the time. I also have the utmost respect for drug resistant bps or anyone else who experience hallucinations on a more involuntary basis. I imagine it's true for most that if we are able, we avoid having psychotic symptoms in the first place. It's like the dreams of being sucked into the ocean always had recurring daily for many childhood years. After a while, you succumb to the terror and learn to breathe underwater. Then it starts getting interesting, walking around on the bottom of the ocean.
Hallucinations are a curse, and your private gift. If you can weave the experience into some kind of art, it helps dramatically. I personally believe that at times I'm intuitive (clarvoyant) in addition and so some of what I experience is also natural phenomena. This can cause intense confusion at times, especially when I was young, unguided and inexperienced. Sensing energy fields, spirits, other planetary beings, communing with the universe itself, the earth and nature, human beings as a collective. For me Hallucinating doesn't happen consistently, as neither does sensing any of this stuff. It seems to be involved in overlapping cycles personally, and is of course influenced by the environment. Learning to recognize these and other bp symptoms, by recording them and trying to find a pattern (over years) (organization more of a challenge when manic.) If you like to write, date everything. Thank the advent of computers for this reason, but they are not mandatory.
Emotion is a power unsurpassed. Most animals experience their own. Bp amplifies emotion. How about these ideas? Practice imagining to ride it like a wave, learn to surf it. When you are alone or with those that it does not distress, let it all hang out, talk to whatever you see and hear. Stay centered, try to not allow yourself to become afraid, and destructive behavior is to be avoided in every way. You are loved, by god, or the gods or whatever you choose to believe or not in. We share this planet, the stewardship of the earth, and we are all responsible to one another on the higher levels of sprituality. Of course we are all individuals, part of a larger organism.
Acceptance is the infancy of loving. So you're a little unique maybe. Isn't everyone in some way? I had pain in my heart for too many of my years. Healing was a long, mostly solitary road. Isolating can be a natural 'coping' mechanism, but too much of it can become not good for sick puppies.
I've just now discovered bp blogs and I feel wonderful about it. It's like you're a little note floating around the air and suddenly you're in a sweet orchestra, and you can hang. Reading these fascinating diaries are slowly blowing me away. I feel like I'm finally with my own.
