Demonic possession... OCD?

Sorry to hear your demons are struggling with self harm.
We still resort to self harm as a coping mechanism at times. Some of us more so than others. And many of us do it for vastly different reasons. Some to alleviate emotional pain, others in order to feel when they are numb, some to punish others in here or more often, to punish themselves in a bid to alleviate guilt or even to cause a switch. There are many reasons people self harm.
I hope in time your demons can find other ways to cope when things get overwhelming.

My 'demons' used to lash out at me too and said and did a lot of scary stuff.
What was really surprising to me is that no matter how harmful or callous their actions looked to me, their intentions turned out to be good. In my case they needed to be shown compassion to begin to trust me over time and to realise that they don't have to act threatening in order to get what they need.

Hope you can find some common ground with your inner demons too
all the best

There is another thread going right now about demonic possession etc in the Living With Mental Illness Forum, Advice Desired. Would someone here please invite interested readers of that thread to join us here?

Hello SelfStranger,

I'm the guy that started the Advice Desired thread: living-with-mental-illness/topic192367.html

Let me give my similar sounding story in a way.

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I have schizoaffective bipolar type disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, extra-pyramidal symptoms (EPS), and a verbal tic disorder. I also have migraine headaches with aura and seizures, though my neurologist thinks they are likely pseudo-seizures.

I have had very unusual voices since the onset of psychosis years ago in that my voices speak through me at times as if I am a medium channeling a spirit and then my voices go onto hold a conversation with me out loud. My therapist and I discussed this and he believed that this was an aspect of my mental illness and psychoses. His conclusion was that my brain may be smart enough to be generating very smart voices that can converse with me, claim to be demons, know what words to say to wound me, act purposefully in conversation, adapt inside a conversation just like a person, and such. However, it still is just my one brain and I. He believed the reason my voices may come out as if I am a medium channeling a spirit is that I have a verbal tic disorder.

However, I did say I wanted to see if someone could try and cast out a demon. He said it couldn't hurt just as long as I knew that if it didn't work, then that meant it was mental illness. I then discussed what was happening with my pastor in an email and he decided to come over the next day. He walked around my home and prayed over my house and I that we be delivered from demonic attack in Jesus Christ's name. I had two or three likely pseudo-seizures during the prayer and I heard a voice say "I hate you" very clearly, which I told my pastor. He left and I went into my room to journal, as he pointed out this all began when I had embraced certain sinful attitudes and desires. I repented of these attitudes and desires and just as I did so I started to convulse and shriek but surprisingly there was no pain. Then the voice that had talked to me the most like a spirit would through a medium was gone and has not returned since.

Now mind you I still have more voices talking through me and at least two more claim to be demons, so my pastor will continue to pray over me and in Jesus' name I know any spiritual aspect of my disorder will be dealt with. But of course, I am mentally ill and badly in need of treatment. It is only that some aspects of what I am going through seems to be the result of demonic attack

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After my story, I wanted to say what my pastor taught me, that we are both physical and spiritual entities. This is important because if you are not already seeing an LMHC therapist, seeing a psychiatrist, and gaining mentors at church who can pray over you, you can't be sure if what you have is spiritual or physical. If I were in your place, I would definitely want to know if therapy, medicine, and an unmovable foundation that I believe an active faith in Jesus provides would clear up my symptoms.

All of that said, I can definitely relate to voices that in my case would talk through me when alone or when socially awkward. I can also relate to being told on many occasions that I was the anti-christ and struggling with this for years and years. The voices talking through me would claim to be God and would give me false prophecy as well. The voices talking through me would claim to be demons all the time, and would direct me to the internet to look up the names they gave me on wikipedia, which was frightening in that it worked. On top of this the voices talking through me would command me to do many things I did not want to do.

As for the strong, sudden desire to murder people, break objects, and destroy lives. That can be caused by something called ideations (either homicidal or suicidal), which is part of mental illness. I struggled with those all the time until I got on medication that treated them well.

If this is causing you to be unable to draw a concrete line in the sand between the spiritual and the physical, then that is proper because I can't draw the line myself in my own life yet. That is why I so recommend that you connect with people: a psychiatrist, an LMHC therapist, a pastor, and church mentors to tackle this problem.

This question of possession vs mental illness is old and complicated. Historically and in many parts of the world today, all experiences of hearing voices, possession states, and so on have been understood to be spiritual in nature. Only in the last 200 years in Western culture has the concept of mental illness emerged as an explanation for these experiences. Is it ever strictly one or the other, or usually a mixture?

Here is an almost random selection of pertinent resources:

• Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer's book Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind: documented anomalous perceptions of otherwise "normal" persons.
  
• Exorcism and multiple personality disorder from a Catholic perspective: the author states a pastoral diagnosis of possession should not ever be made without consulting the Ordinary of the Diocese.
  
• Christianity Today: Alter Possession: Some 'demons' are better left unexorcised: this 2001 article reflects the aftermath of 1990's recovered memory therapies for MPD/DID.
  
• M. Scott Peck's book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil: late in his life Dr. Peck, a psychiatrist who wrote several popular psychology books, came to believe that most cases of apparent possession were spiritual warfare not mental illness, and in this book he describes his participation in many exorcisms.

estuary wrote:Hi selfstranger, when I was a teenager I had an alter that I thought was some form of demon trying to possess me. Of course I didn't know that he was an alter at the time. I was so scared it resulted in some sort of internal struggle that was so large it shut out everyone else. I somehow blocked out all the other alters. I even blamed this so called demon. I believed he buried the others. Somehow I couldn't entirely block him out. He became a second internal monologue that sounded just like mine but always negative and hateful towards me. Flash forward a little over two decades and we started opening up communication. We're now building trust, faster than I expected. I learned why he was behaving the way he was. I'm not sure why I'm saying this. Maybe it's so you don't feel so alone. Add another person to the list of having similar experiences.

I can say that finding a T that specializes in trauma and dissociation has been huge for my system. I'm sorry things are so hard right now. Things do get better. Are you currently seeing a T? If so do they have experience with did/osdd?

Hi Estuary, thank you for replying and sharing your own story. I don't really know how or when or why it came about. I think it's always been here. And always been hateful. Suicidal thoughts in an otherwise pretty normal, young child can't be normal, right? I have some ideas... I think my brain is basically broken, was born broken, I guess. I think its only purpose is to hate, and hurt and kill. Not seeing any sort of T. I tried to one time last year when things got particularly bad... but it was a terrible experience where I was completely taken advantage of (one might even say kidnapped) by a money-hungry, quack-run place... So that, and being broke, and afraid, and not having a lot of options where I now live...

Thank you again for sharing. It does help to not feel so alone.

-- Sat Feb 25, 2017 12:07 am --

Teatime wrote:Sorry to hear your demons are struggling with self harm.
We still resort to self harm as a coping mechanism at times. Some of us more so than others. And many of us do it for vastly different reasons. Some to alleviate emotional pain, others in order to feel when they are numb, some to punish others in here or more often, to punish themselves in a bid to alleviate guilt or even to cause a switch. There are many reasons people self harm.
I hope in time your demons can find other ways to cope when things get overwhelming.

My 'demons' used to lash out at me too and said and did a lot of scary stuff.
What was really surprising to me is that no matter how harmful or callous their actions looked to me, their intentions turned out to be good. In my case they needed to be shown compassion to begin to trust me over time and to realise that they don't have to act threatening in order to get what they need.

Hope you can find some common ground with your inner demons too
all the best

It's nice to know I'm not alone in that. Honestly hard to think about some of it. It gained control one time (or maybe a brief psychotic episode), and some serious, permanent, complication-inducing self-harm was committed. Not sure if it just wants to kill me/us, wants to hurt me/us, or was trying to make things so bad that we/me had to seek help. Other times, it seem

all or nothing all or nothing all the time in my head and I have to drive it out and put it back under the surface and self harm helps to drive it all away and appeases it so it leaves me alone and I can focus on the pain and it helps and I

another part of me loves the pain and the rush and it feels like sex in a way, that rush of chemicals to the brain

o h dosnn

This is kind of a scary thread for me so I wasn't sure I wanted to write anything.

I'm an alter not a demon or anything. I used to be really angry and did some stupid stuff but that doesn't make me evil. We even had some Littles who said they were demons because they were just kids and it sounded like if you're a demon they'll leave you alone and not hurt you anymore. They didn't mean it.

When we were in college somebody tried to cast us out. They told us we were evil and too broken to even live anymore and nobody wanted us around. That's what the abuser told us so it was like God was an abuser too! We decided to die. But then we figured out God doesn't tell people stuff like that. God loves us - even if we're alters.

Alters aren't demons! We're here because something really bad happened. Making us demons won't make the abuse not have happened. That's just stupid denial. The abusers are the real demons. They did evil things. If you want to fight demons go report abusers!

Iain

Sorry. Started to dissociate pretty badly while writing the last comment Scary. I appreciate all the replies and want to respond to everyone, but I feel like I need to take a break. Thanks. And sorry again.

IainEtc wrote:This is kind of a scary thread for me so I wasn't sure I wanted to write anything.

I'm an alter not a demon or anything. I used to be really angry and did some stupid stuff but that doesn't make me evil. We even had some Littles who said they were demons because they were just kids and it sounded like if you're a demon they'll leave you alone and not hurt you anymore. They didn't mean it.

When we were in college somebody tried to cast us out. They told us we were evil and too broken to even live anymore and nobody wanted us around. That's what the abuser told us so it was like God was an abuser too! We decided to die. But then we figured out God doesn't tell people stuff like that. God loves us - even if we're alters.

Alters aren't demons! We're here because something really bad happened. Making us demons won't make the abuse not have happened. That's just stupid denial. The abusers are the real demons. They did evil things. If you want to fight demons go report abusers!

Iain

I agree with everything you said here. Especially God loves us - even if we're alters. I am loved. We are loved. Moving past the messages of abusers is so difficult, but all it takes is a little reprogramming .. Thank you for posting this