I am with you on this. I admire your strength.
I am not religious either. In fact, recovering from my delusions made me re-evaluate all of my beliefs and I'm pretty much Atheist.

There are some Atheist or Secular support groups on the internet you could search for. Also on this site: http://www.meetup.com/ ...you could possibly find local people with similar beliefs.

I live in a very religion-oriented state but there are still hundreds of Atheists and Secularists that have local meetings in my town. I found out abotu them from MeetUp.com

When I have delusions I find that religious talk and ideas just confuse me and make the delusions worse and harder to cope with. Also the religious people can tend to be really pushy and argumentative and alot of them have delusions too. Some say religion itself is delusion of the masses.

Some people might argue with this, but we are just as entitled to religious freedom as anybody else.

I can understand your frustrations. People at the support groups might have some suggestions on how to gently talk to or not talk to your family about not being religious or at least to tell them that it's not "the devil" or whatnot.

Good luck

thank you very much

I'm so sorry you have to deal with this, Unfortunately a lot of religious people do think the words of the voices in your head are the devil but they are actually subvocal speech.

With subvocal speech, when you hear the voices, your vocal cords are moving but your lips aren't. The Schizophrenic brain has a broken brain circuit that can't delineate when you are speaking and not speaking plus the ability to move the vocal cords without moving the lips.

Everyone has the ability to do subvocal speech, not everyone does it all the time. it's basically thinking so loud that you forget it's you and think you're speaking to another entity. I have spent hours and multiple tarot spreads trying to differentiate who I was talking to. Demons, my dead wife, who knows? Probably myself.

Perhaps this is why i enjoy spending so much time alone, because talking to myself is simply more interesting that talking to other people. My hallucinations are terribly entertaining. I'm sorry that yours are not and are rather something you are afraid of.

I can assure you that your hallucinations are not the devil talking to you anymore than it's aliens, ghosts, faeries, God, the Goddess in her many faces or spirits or anything els you may enjoy believing that you are talking to, take your pick.

You have the power to carry on a conversation with whoever you want to talk to. Your subconscious mind can pretend to be anyone and you can carry on a conversation with them. it's really quite an amazing power actually and great for entertaining yourself with.

Those listed are some of my favorites that I have cast as explanations for the voices in the past. Also I used to believe I could read people's thoughts from a long distance away. Some others chose the FBI or celebrities or surveillance and get paranoid. I used to too. it's not worth it.

Believe the voice is whatever you want to believe and remember deep inside that it is you telling you what you want to hear or are perhaps afraid to hear. Sometimes we hear our fears and concoct elaborate explanations for the phenomena that can made us act quite erratic while acting on our own twisted logic of what must be done. I have made some major mis-steps this way.

That is one way that as a Schizophrenic can end up in quite a lot of trouble especially unmedicated if acting on one of these delusions. Don't fall for it. Remind yourself that it is just you talking to yourself.

If you really don't want to listen to the voices in your head put in headphones and drown it out with music. That can be done. Then they have to shout to be heard and may get tired and give up.

Intereting comments, Andrea.

Something I forgot to mention...
Even though I am an Atheist, there is a caveat...

I actually do have some belief in interdimensional beings and experiences that aren't mutually exlusive of mental illness and brain-generated illusions.

Sometimes weird stuff is exactly that--wierd stuff.

I consider myself lucky in that I don't experience hallucinations since for most people the seem to be extremely unpleasant experiences.

But I've had some really really wierd things happen to me in my life, and not all of it was explainable by conventional knowledge.
And I'm not alone in that.

Thankfully, I don't believe that all interdimensional beings nor experiences are bad... or even good, or even noticed most of the time.

But if astrophysicists can tell us that 80% of the universe is dark matter or whatnot and get away with not much tangeable proof, I think there's some room for people like us and others to have some modest concepts of the transcendental.

Peace be with you.

Thank you your comments have been helpful.

I still consider myself Christian; even though I no longer believe in the infallibility of Church Ministers or subscribe to one particular Church; but I still deal with the demons inside.

Super Furry Animals - Demons.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfAbAayEps

Hi Kurineko, I don't pretend to know where the voices originate, although the voices themselves have offered several theories. I do know they can be very dangerous. And very alienating if you haven't a social group or doctor to share your experiences.

The voices can also take over your life. Make decisions for you. Take away your need to have an original thought.

They can provide companionship. And be healing.

I went through my psychotic experience with other functioning, working voice hearers. No one really knows where the voices come from. Albeit, some people share a theory.

You didn't mention that you were paranoid or delusional. If you can, I'd try to work. It really helps a lot. And then try to connect with a spiritual meet up group or the therapist of your choice. I interviewed several psychologists before I met one with a Stanford/UCLA education and an expanded consciousness.
And if the voices overwhelm or harm you, please see a psychopharmacologist for medication. Not everyone has to take them for life. It takes time to find the right medication and the right dosage, but once you find the sweet spot, it really helps.

Anyway, I hear that you are frustrated with sharing this with your mom. But you do need to share it with someone. The voices in my head lead me to people who were open and heard voices themselves. I would have had no idea that we shared this experience. If you don't function that way, please see a weekly psychologist with an expanded consciousness. I did it for six months and it really helped me find my bearings. Good luck.

My parents also tell me the devil is talking to me with all the voices in my head. They tell me to just ignore him and tell him to go away. I do believe in God and Jesus, but i'm not super religious like my parents are. I pray all the time about having the voices go away and it does help, but I am certain the meds i'm on are also helping. I also find it really annoying that my parents are always bringing religion into it when I tell them about the voices in my head. It sure does sound as if you're pretty strong.

My family told me that I need to have a deamon cast out of me because in bi. They also say that depression and anxiety is just the devil trying to keep me from God. I feel ya. My dads a minister so he's very stubborn about it. I mean science has proven that psychosis is a medical condition not a supernatural phenomenon so...

My fathers side of the family was religious. I'm sure they thought schizophrenia had something to do with religion too. They took me to see a priest but never talked to me about anything I needed to. I stopped talking with them. It was not my fault that schizophrenia happened to me. If they see it as the Devil, the way I see it is it was something negative that was happening to me. God would always be seen as positive not no one lives are perfect. People use religion to blame something instead of getting to the core of problems. They would rather ignore it and have someone else deal with it.