Mum's voice filtered up the stairs. ‘Claire love, time to get ready for school!' she called. I hid under my duvet not wanting to face the day. I was nearing my 13 th birthday and prayed to be left alone – just this once. But my hope was short lived. The voices in my head that constantly taunted me were back by the time I got to school. ‘See that girl at the back of the class?' one of the voices snipped cruelly. ‘She's laughing at your new jacket.' ‘She's not!' I protested in my mind, trying to be strong. But the voice went on regardless. ‘You must have seen the way she looked at you. She thinks you're a waste of space'.
Every day was the same. A constant chorus of voices making me feel worthless and I didn't know how much more I could take. I was seven when I first became aware of a voice holding conversations with me that no one else could hear. It was a man – he didn't have a name – and to begin with he was friendly. I assumed everyone, including my brother Michael, 12, heard a voice too. But as I grew older I realised they didn't. I was different. As the years past that first voice was joined by another, then another. Then in Year 8 at secondary school, there were four of them: men's voices – they sounded in their twenties – all with distinct personalities, and they were full of hate.

If anybody paid me any attention the voices would seize their moment. ‘They're only being nice to you because they want something. You're nothing special.' I began to believe them and was soon convinced the world and everyone in it was against me. Lessons became a nightmare. I could see the teacher's lips moving but her words were drowned out by men's voices. ‘You're a thicko, Claire. You're useless.' Who was I to argue? My confidence was at rock bottom. I stopped speaking, even to mum and dad. My 15 th birthday came and went and things grew worse. It wasn't just the voices; I felt listless, like my life was being sucked out by some unseen force.

I longed to tell my family about my plight but the men convinced me my loved ones couldn't be trusted. ‘They'll just laugh and say you're mad,' they mocked, so I kept my secret. My one comfort was my ‘suicide kit' – 20 paracetamol tablets stashed in a box I kept in the bottom of my bag. ‘If things get too bad.' I thought, ‘at least I've got this.' Of course, my mum Anne, and Bryan my dad, weren't blind. ‘Claire can you please tell us what the matter is?' mum pleaded. But the voices cut in ‘She's lying. She doesn't care about you,' they clamoured. So I brushed her aside, retreating to my room. Then, after a particularly bad day, I did something drastic. ‘I'm not happy!' I blurted out to mum. I handed her a note stained in teardrops. I'd scribbled down as much as I could explain. I couldn't bring myself to tell her about the evil voices, but simply said ‘I'm not alone.' It was all jumbled up and probably didn't make much sense.
‘Oh love,' she said, embracing me. Mum made an appointment with a child psychologist but my ‘unseen friends' didn't like it one bit. Don't trust him, don't speak to him,' they demanded. Dutifully, I obeyed and the meeting was cut short. We got an appointment with a different specialist. This time I opened up a bit and told him about the four men in my head. I felt like some crazy person. It was the hardest thing I'd ever had to admit. ‘Mrs Sibley, I'm afraid your daughter is quite ill and will need to be prescribed medication,' he said. I was put on three different types of antidepressant but the voices didn't subside.
A week before I was due to sit my GCSE's, I was admitted to the adolescent unit of a psychiatrist hospital near our home in Cardiff . As I looked around the room I shared with three other troubled teenagers, I realised I'd never felt so wretched. The drugs made my weight balloon from 11 stone to 19 stone. I hated myself, just like the voices said I should. One night the voices made a suggestion.
Take a pillow and hold it over your face until you stop breathing,' a male voice whispered. I obeyed them but something stopped me going through with it. ‘You can't even manage to kill yourself!' the voices scoffed. After nine months in hospital and several more suicide attempts my doctors reached a verdict. ‘We think Claire may be schizophrenic,' they told my mum. The shock of hearing the word was awful but at last I could get treatment.
Once back at home they suggested an extra strong drug. It could disrupt the body's red blood cell count, so I'd need tests every two weeks to monitor it. It was awful but what choice did I have? Then, just three days before I was due to start the treatment, I was flicking through the paper when an advert for a psychic fair caught my eye. I couldn't explain it, I just felt I had to go, and mum agreed to come too. Neither of us had ever had a psychic reading but we found ourselves seated with a grey-haired man in his sixties named Leo. I didn't tell him a thing about myself as he reached across and touched my hand. I felt a rush of energy like an electric current. Leo explained he was tuning into his spirit guides who were giving him messages about me. Then he said ‘You are clairvoyant, meaning dead people talk to you and you can hear them. These are the voices you hear in your head. My jaw fell open. I'd never met this man. How could be possibly know about the voices? I hadn't said a word about them. I felt strongly I could trust him. So as mum looked on, I spilled out my story. We talked for ages and he said ‘I don't think you're mentally ill. I can see spirits around you, and they've been trying to control you.' Leo said he could help me and we exchanged phone numbers. As I walked away I felt elated. Although it was a lot to take in, instinctively I knew what he'd said was the truth.
A few days later I met up with another medium called Yvonne, recommended by a friend. She believed the men in my head were earthbound spirits who had not passed over into the next life. They were angry and had attached themselves to me through the negative energy I was giving off. As long as I was depressed and unhappy they could thrive – that explained why they had tried to make me feel so bad about myself. I was horrified but Yvonne vowed to help. ‘By developing your psychic powers you can learn to rid yourself of the voices,' she said.

Next day I went back to my doctor and told him about the spirits, and that I'd decided I wasn't going on the new drugs. ‘If that's what you feel is right then I will back you all the way,' he said. I knew that if I was going to open myself up spiritually I'd have to come off all the other antidepressants I was taking too.

At first the voices became far worse, ‘It's because you're standing up to them, fighting back,' Yvonne said. When I was ready she taught me to strengthen my protective psychic energy. ‘Visualise a white light pulsating around you,' she said. ‘When the voices start, imagine that light. Feel it making you stronger. Draw on your inner strength and push the voices away.' The first few times I tried it the voices mocked me, but I was determined not to give in. It began to work. Soon I could go for hours without hearing a single carping voice. After 12 weeks not only was I free of all the drugs, I was also free of all the voices. My mind was my own again. I was ecstatic.

Yvonne says that not all spirits are negative ones, and I'm curious to know how I can develop my psychic powers to communicate with peaceful spirits. With Yvonne's help I'm learning to do this. Already, I've found I can do psychometry, where you hold an object such as a piece of jewellery or a wallet to help you pick up psychic vibes about the owner. To my relief I don't hear spirit voices giving me this information; it's more of an intuitive feeling and it's not scary at all. I lost my entire childhood to the voices and they could so easily have cost me my life. I recently turned 18 and I'm looking forward to the future. If I hadn't met Leo and Yvonne then I wouldn't be here right now. That's a fact. It's the greatest feeling to be able to think what I want to think, and not be controlled by the voices of the dead.

Claire's mum Anne says:

When Claire was little, everyone was bowled over by her cheeky smile and sweet nature. But between the ages of seven and 11 she gradually changed. The smiling and the laughing stopped and she retreated into her shell. She'd wear black clothing, wouldn't speak or go anywhere and refused to tell us what was wrong. Her eyes were black and lifeless. It was as if she was dead inside. She was very young and I prayed it was just a growing-up thing. But as the years went on it was clear there was something badly wrong. We desperately wanted to help Claire but just didn't know how. I will never forget the day we met Leo. Afterwards Claire and I headed to a café. ‘Mum,' she said. ‘I could feel his love, I feel wonderful.' It was the first time in 10 years I'd seen her smile, like a veil had been lifted. Some people might dismiss the idea that spirits were controlling Claire as rubbish, but the change in her since she got psychic help speaks for itself.