This is crap. As someone who has suffered with schizophrenia and heard voices for over 7 months when I was symptomatic and after 1 month of meds became completely "normal" again. It's been over 7 years since then and I'm still just fine. I can tell you that if you hear voices you should go to the emergency room at your nearest hospital. They have mental health workers there that can evaluate you and get you treatment - most likely in the form of a 5150 hold. They will give you meds to stop the voices (if your lucky, some people don't respond to the meds).
The reason you should deal with it immediately is with every "episode" you have you get worse, eventually hitting a baseline where you don't get any worse but you don't get better either. My sister has the same thing and is permanently screwed with the meds barely doing anything for her. If she would have delt with the voices as soon as she heard them and started taking meds for it she may be just fine today - shes not and never will be because of trying to "Learn to live with voices" crap. Just a heads up... maybe this will help someone.
Please don't make such a strongly worded blanket judgment of what someone should (or for that matter, shouldn't) do, especially when it concerns mental health.
Our understanding of mental health issues, and especially schizophrenia, is still very rudimentary. For all we know there are multiple forms of schizophrenia that require different approacher. Furthermore, there already is evidence that (some) schizophrenics are best helped not by medication, but by learning to 'deal' with their voices (by not suppressing them, or setting 'limits', etc.).
For my part I have one friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and who is, so far, managing okay without medication. He's also talking to a therapist, which I would definitely recommend to anyone suffering from anything (even if just for a while).
My point is not to advocate one approach over the other, but to nuance what you said. I can understand that your experiences play a big role in the strength of your recommendation, and I by no means want to tell you to shut up or anything. I'm also happy to hear medication worked for you.
I'm just asking you to be a little more cautious when telling others how to deal with mental health issues, especially if there's no consensus on how to treat them.
And I'm saying it's not crap. It's desperately needed for people to hear this, make their own decision, and hopefully support Intervoice. Patients should be informed about Intervoice by doctors when they experience voices. I had to find it on my own.
Who you gonna trust a new account 3 hours old or my account?
The reason you should deal with it immediately is with every "episode" you have you get worse, eventually hitting a baseline where you don't get any worse but you don't get better either. My sister has the same thing and is permanently screwed with the meds barely doing anything for her. If she would have delt with the voices as soon as she heard them and started taking meds for it she may be just fine today - shes not and never will be because of trying to "Learn to live with voices" crap. Just a heads up... maybe this will help someone.