Impact of hallucination subthemes with participant quotes
| Theme 3: impact of hallucinations | Quote |
| Fear and distress | ‘He’s normally just quite scared, I don’t think he really understands. At times I’d say he’s beside himself. He’s completely and utterly freaked out.’ (P1) ‘I get quite panicked and get an urge to just shut my eyes. But I know that won’t help because it’ll still be there even if I shut my eyes. It kind of pops up and there’s no warning of when it does. It’s scary because it just comes and goes, kind of like as it pleases.’ (C2) ‘I was dancing outside, I thought I saw someone pop out behind the wall, and then I was just too scared to go over there. It just scared me too much that I couldn’t walk that way anymore.’ (C5) |
| Impact on routine activities | ‘He saw a witch on the staircase looking up the stairs at him. His gran had kitted out all of her spare room for him with all of his toys and his bed in there. After that happened he would not even go in there. To the day that she died he would not go there—he was so disturbed by what he’d seen in that room.’ (P1) |
| Impact on sleep | ‘She’s not sleeping very well at all because of her hallucinations now, the doctor has actually given us something to help her sleep and she’s been referred to a psychiatrist for further support because she’s really struggling.’ (P3) ‘He would be in his bedroom, and he’d be screaming because he wouldn’t be able to get up. He wouldn’t be able to leave the room because all these things had come around him.’ (P6) |
| Impact on schoolwork | ‘When I’m sitting doing my homework and I’m like almost done and then it just pops up and then I can’t finish it because I can’t see what I’m doing. That annoys me—well it makes me quite angry because one minute I’m doing something like reading and the next minute I can’t see anymore.’ (C2) |
| Impact on physical safety | ‘She got an image and she fell so badly in the alleyway that she hurt herself.’ (P3) ‘I came home from school, but it was in winter so it was pitch black by four o’clock. When I came back—it frightened me so much that I actually ran home without looking back for anything. I just ran across roads as well. It can influence my life quite significantly sometimes.’ (C6) |
| Impact on social activities | ‘She’s almost like a recluse in the evenings because she’s very conscious of people knowing about her condition.’ (P3) ‘I can explain it to people but I have to think how am I going to explain this to somebody who’s never had it before or possibly never is going to have it. So that’s why I’m a little bit nervous. I think oh how am I going to explain this?’ (C2) |
| Nature and proximity of hallucinations | ‘Sometimes it can just be kind of weird feeling, and then some of them can be scary, like, if I see like a face, that would scare me.’ (C5) ‘If it’s further away I’m less frightened of it. But if it’s in my house and really close to me, that’s quite scary, that’s quite frightening.’ (C6) |