I think that one of the hardest things for me to deal with in all of this experience is that after the demon was gone, I still had work to do.
The first months after the de-possession were in fact the hardest time I’d had in years. The shock waves of coming to fully understand what I’d been through, figuring out who I was without all the demon’s games going on inside me, and what I wanted, was hard enough. But I had to do all of that in the midst of huge life changes because of the path that I’d taken (and that had lead to me successful de-possession) as well as the strongest demonic pressure I’d ever experienced.
The demonic phenomena that I experienced after my de-possession were much more extreme and in-my-face than anything I’d seen before. While the internal symptoms were fading, resolving as I worked through them and sifted myself from what had been demonic intrusion, externally I was being bothered more than ever. During the months following my de-possession, I experienced audible voices waking me almost every night, being touched by unseen hands, objects moving, visible shadows of figures, temperature drops and even the one instance of ectoplasm I’ve ever seen! (I didn’t believe that ectoplasm was real until then!)
For the first time, the phenomena were affecting the people around me – although that may have been the company I was keeping, who were very sensitive and already training in animism. I was very fortunate at this time to have the support of some amazing people, who gave me the space, time and energetic strength to get through all of this.
Why was this such an intense time? I think that after you rid yourself of the demon, there’s a period of testing. Do you really mean it? Are you really strong enough to live without them? Have you done all the healing you need to? The demonic energy hangs around, putting on the pressure, to see if it can get to you again.
Also, after you’ve lived with an alien energy inside you for years it takes some time to get used to being ‘alone’ again. The only sensation that comes close, and it’s a strange example, is after a woman has had a baby. For 9 months, another energy has been nestled within your own and now it’s gone. There’s a sense of space inside you. Of course, a baby isn’t trying to influence your mind or hurt you all that time, unlike a demon. When your demon is gone, the space inside you is less of a space and more of a ragged wound that you have to stitch up and allow to form scar tissue. I’m not sure if the energy system will ever completely lose the traces of that invasion and the wounds it leaves, and possibly it shouldn’t (more on that later).
After these difficult months passed, and then another year or so of improvement when I was suddenly finding that my life was my own, things settled down. It was easier to forget what happened, and to try and ignore the impact it had on me. But even after the first cascade of change following the de-possession, a complex process of recovery was going on.