Oh my devil!

It all started with a quiet whisper, quiet enough that you couldn’t really understand what was being said, but loud enough that you knew it was there, and that strategy really paid off. I now understand that it was intentional, I’ve read since that when you’re surrounded by loud people the surest way to make them pay attention to you is to lower your voice tone. Given how loud everyone and everything is nowadays, it had to be intentional, a brilliant play actually, because I couldn’t ignore it, and had to figure out what it was saying, so I started listening to it. That was my first mistake, paying attention.

Little by little, I started to understand certain words as if I was learning a whole new language from scratch, and I think the first word I was able to learn was right. With this, certain expressions like you’re right, this or that is right, and so on, became a mainstay. So, in a sense, it was quite pleasant to listen to this whisper, since it was giving me a direction that I needed, whenever I was unsure of something that helpful whisper would assuage my fears and give me the encouragement I needed. That was my second mistake, trusting it. Once both these mistakes solidified, the stage was set.

The biggest breakthrough happened after I realized I could talk with it, and this is something that could be described as an internal monologue, which I’ve never had before and so it was quite the strange experience when it first happened. You’re right, it said, but right about what, right about your feelings, how do you know how I am feeling, I know because I am you, that’s not possible as your voice is not my voice, it doesn’t matter. Somehow the voice knew that I was feeling a lot of uncertainty about a big decision in my life, as I wanted to ask my then girlfriend to marry me. The doubt was too much for me to bear, and the voice helped me to settle it, and that same night I broke up with her and moved out. The relief I felt was immense. How did you know that it was the right thing to do, ah that’s easy it was quite clear that she didn’t really love you remember how she would always bother you about small things when you were having fun?

This was so much better than how my mind worked before. Have you ever felt like you were in auto-pilot, without really having a clue about what was going on, almost like a simple machine that reacted via external stimuli, that was me before the voice. Once I dialed in to what it was saying, it felt like I was unstoppable, a true superpower having someone with whom I could talk about exactly what was going on in my head, someone who could see what I could see, hear what I could hear, feel what I could feel! Oh, what a wonderful time that was, to finally feel like I was in control of my own life.

Being possessed by a demon isn’t how you think it is. Most of the times, your head won’t do a 180º, your eyes won’t turn red, neither will you grow horns and a tail. Most of the time you can’t recognize it for what it is, and will not mind its presence, there’s a reason why they have to turn violent with children, because children recognize it for what it is, and so they resist, but it’s very important to understand that, in some sense, you have probably invited them, and why you don’t resist. I know this sounds like shit to hear, but trust me, you can’t truly exorcise a demon unless you understand that there is a reason for it being there in the first place.

You said that it doesn’t matter that it is not the same voice, but that’s the truth, is it though, either that or we’re schizophrenic because we can both hear each other voices, I don’t think we’re schizophrenic, it’s settled then by the way have you noticed that it’s always when you’re by yourself that you end up with these stupid lines of thought you should hang out with other people more, but I don’t want to, sure you do because you become restless because you need to talk with others and that feeds into your self-doubt and with me by your side you don’t have to doubt yourself.

And that was true in some sense, it really felt lonely sometimes, and usually I’d enjoy following its suggestions so that made the decision easier every time, a perfect reinforcement loop. But it so happens that sometimes the spell fails, either because it was sloppy, as demons tend to be on the stupider side, or because you were lucky to get a glimpse into the deception, and that makes you reflect, like as if you had a mirror to see the demon seating on your shoulder. And you might not like what you see there.

At some point, it started to get a bit too much, as it would drone on and on without stop. Why are you thinking about this for so long, can’t you see that it’s quite easy to solve this problem, just listen to yourself, it’s ridiculous that you’re hung on such a minor point, of course you should choose the easier path, it’s going to be so much better if you just listen to your heart, there’s nothing wrong with this, what do you mean that it’s wrong, it can’t be wrong because it feels right and that’s all that matters. And time and time again, I would break down and accept it.

The anomalies kept piling on, like this time when I was alone at night and saw a small cat that was clearly suffering, it had more fleas than fat in its body, and could barely meow, and my first instinct was to try and save it, but then it said what are you doing you can’t have a cat your landlord will be mad at you and throw you out, but can’t you see it’s suffering, so what everyone suffers it’s the only constant in life and doesn’t make you responsible for alleviating its suffering, but I want to help it, the only way to help such a thing is to kill it, am I going mad, no it’s quite rational really since it is clear that this cat is not meant to be alive, shut up shut up shut up, why are you resisting when it’s obvious what you have to do, shut up shut up shut up, it’s actually a favor you would do to the poor thing and look there’s a big rock over there just pick it up and cr– SHUT UP. I started running away because I feared that I might eventually be persuaded to do it.

And there was that other time when I was out for drinks with some friends and I noticed a girl all alone and clearly suffering from having drank too much, do you see that girl isn’t she pretty and comely, yeah she’s clearly beautiful, why don’t you go talk to her, I don’t think that’s a good idea, why not you might end up getting lucky, I am not taking advantage of a drunken girl, it’s not taking advantage because she’s clearly alone and needs help and if you do help her it’s only fair that she repays you the favour one way or the other, what on earth are you even suggesting, come on live a little. Thankfully while this dialogue was going on in my head, some other girl came to her rescue and took her into a taxi, and so that settled it.

But the reddest of flags, as if suggesting killing animals and taking advantage of a drunk woman wasn’t enough, that happened when I let myself be taken away by its twisted logic and stole money from a homeless guy. I was coming from having a drink with friends, and I now realise that under the influence it had much more power over me than I’d like to admit. But this guy came to me to ask for money, clearly as drunk as I was, if not more, hat in hand with some coins and crumpled banknotes already there. Wouldn’t it be funny if you just took its money and ran away. I couldn’t resist, put my hand in his hat, took all I could grab and darted away from the scene laughing like a maniac, and kept on laughing for a good two minutes even after I stopped running. But the next day, and looking back on it, I was overcome with such guilt that I could barely get out of bed, and interestingly enough I didn’t hear it saying anything for that whole day which was a blessing.

How do you hide your thoughts from something that lives inside your head, that was the question in my head, and it knew so it tried several things, from distracting me with other thoughts, to gaslighting me into thinking that it was a worthless pursuit, or even just flashing me with images that ranged from naked women to people I knew being quartered alive. Anything to keep me away from that line of thought, because it knew what I wanted to do. It was only by sheer luck, coincidence, divine providence, whatever you want to call it, that I was able to understand how to break free from it.

I happened to be strolling aimlessly on the street during a beautiful spring day, and I saw this billboard that said, and I quote, you are loved. For some reason, I started bawling my eyes out, because it felt anything but that, you see, the deeper it went into my psyche, its grasp on my life became firmer, and even though it would encourage me to go out and be social it wasn’t because it wanted me to belong but rather because it knew that I couldn’t make any deep connection that way, that’s just how I am built, can’t really make lasting friendships over alcohol, and so I ended up being more alone and isolated, with just the voice to keep me company. I absolutely didn’t feel loved, nor did I feel good about myself with all these episodes happening, and all those other, smaller ones I didn’t tell you about. The small billboard, that small phrase, it hit me like a ton of bricks, it was a veritable kick in the mouth. I really needed that.

I had it all backwards, as I was trying to hide from it, and that was the coward in me taking command, and since fear is a negative emotion it won’t work if you want to deal with such a problem. I had to be intentional about it, otherwise it would never work, remember that it knew my inner works as well as I did, and was really good at exploiting them. Why do you want to get rid of this part of yourself, you aren’t me, we’ve been through this already remember, yeah I remember but it’s clear that things changed once I started paying attention to you, so what people change all the time isn’t that what being human is all about, yeah people change and that’s why I’m choosing to change once again so I guess this is goodbye, ahahaha you’re really funny, why are you laughing, you think you can get rid of this part of yourself so easily, I don’t know if it’s easy or hard I just know that this is what I want.

It wasn’t pretty, the amount of tricks it tried to play and the sheer amount of psychic warfare it waged on me, it made the previous attempts at distracting me look like child’s play, if that children was evil but still child-like. Now it was just full blown malevolent. I will spare you the details, as some things I must keep to myself as a way to atone for the sins I committed, and sharing them would be brining them into the world, no way I’m doing that now. But believe me when I tell you that it made me doubt my own sanity more than once, more than ten times, almost every day I was wondering if it wouldn’t be better to just go to a mental institution and let them pump me full of chemicals and give me at least some relief from all that. Thankfully, somehow, I was able to endure it.

You are loved, that was the phrase that kept me sane. I knew it was true, but I was yet to understand what it meant. I searched for answers but was having trouble finding any, mostly because I now see that I was searching in all the wrong places. Self-help books didn’t help, nor did trying to talk about this with psychologists or psychiatrists, just try to imagine their reaction when I started to tell them that there was a voice in my head that was giving me bad advice and if I refused to listen to it it would start to flood my mind with disturbing images. I tried gurus and priests, but those were as baffled by my descriptions as the psycho-specialists, which might seem odd but in hindsight makes total sense because they don’t really believe in the spirit anymore, everything is material. Between trying medicines and aimless practices and prayers, nothing something to help.

Aimless seems to be the right word, because none of it tackled the problem head on. Yoga is really good, but it’s not like you’re going to fart out the demon when you exert your body in a weird position, aligning your chakras and taking some probiotics is cool but insufficient, and asking Jesus for wholesale mercy is not a good strategy because for him to help you the first step is to ask for help for something in particular. This took me a long time to understand, but by itself it still wasn’t enough. I already told you this, but let me drive the point home, what really helps is being intentional.

So, I started praying: To the Father who is in heaven, Lord Jesus Christ son of God, to the Holy Spirit, Virgin Mary Mother of God, to all the Saints who can help me, all the Angels and in particular to my Guardian Angel, please help me get rid of this demon. I started doing it at night before going to sleep, and sometimes even before finishing this short prayer I was already fast asleep, other times I couldn’t finish the prayer because it would make me think of something else, but I tried and tried, and little by little I started to notice that the voice was getting dimmer, and its influence was getting weaker, I could resist the temptations so much better.

I remember the last conversation we had. Why are you trying to get rid of me, because you’re a bad influence and I don’t trust you, this is a mistake and you’ll miss me when I’m gone. This was the last thing it told me, and at least it was coherent with everything else it told me from the beginning since it was all a lie. Now, it’s been a few months, and I haven’t heard a peep. I don’t know if it’s truly gone, or just waiting for an opening, but I guess it doesn’t make a difference, as I now know how to deal with it, the mistakes I made that lead to this, and how not to fall for the same traps.

With all of this said, don’t you for a second think that this is but a cautionary tale. It’s more than likely that your demon isn’t as stupid as mine, or that my attempts will help you. If there’s something to be taken from my experience it is this: you need to know what you want, you need to truly want it, and you have to keep trying.