Do demons actually exist?
Yes, they do. The world is full of demons and they do not always look like the evil mythical creatures you see in Hollywood movies. Real demons are much scarier, because you can not just run away from them: they’re living in the darkest underworld of your own mind. In today’s post, I’ll write about the different faces of my personal demons: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
If you’re suffering from OCD, GAD or Panic Disorder, it’s very likely that you have already met your demon: a cruel monster who has millions of faces and who whispers terrifying things into your ears. And this demon has a much less dramatic name: Negative Self Talk.
It’s a perfectly natural and healthy thing to have an inner dialogue with yourself: and let’s be honest, self talk can not always be positive.
But if your inner voice is often (or always) negative, it will make your life a living hell. I’ve been suffering from OCD for a long time and one of the biggest challenges that I always face is fighting my negative inner voice.
What do you see when you’re in the dark and the demons come?
4 faces of our Personal Demons
Your inner demon has four different faces. Or maybe even more? Please do not hesitate to share your thoughts in the comment section! 🙂
The Critic
One of the faces of your inner demon is the critic – and this monster loves telling you things like:
– you are a loser!
– you’re not good enough for your partner!
– and you’re worth nothing!
I guess the majority of people have similar thoughts from time to time, but if you’re suffering from nay kind of anxiety disorder, it’s much more likely that your negative self talk will get out of control. I’ve been single for a very long time and one of the reasons why I’ve not been able to find the love of my life is definitely “the critic”: how can you even go on a date if your inner demon keeps telling you that you’re nothing more than a loser and that nobody would ever fall in love with you?
While having an inner critic in your head will not give you OCD – as OCD is likely to be caused by a combination of different things (check this post for more details: http://over-coming-ocd.com/2019/12/23/why-do-i-have-ocd-causes-and-risks/) – but it will definitely worsen your anxiety and your symptoms.
How to fight the critic?
I will be honest with you: winning the war against the critic is not an easy thing to do. And it definitely takes a lot of time. One of my biggest mistakes of my OCD journey was that I used to believe I could cure my OCD overnight. Fighting your demons can take a long time, but believe me: it’s worth it!
I think the first step is to learn how to recognize the critic (I’ve already given a few examples above) and then, you can fight this demon by replacing your negative thoughts by positive ones. One of the things that actually works for me is asking the “so what?“question. So if the critic tells me that I’m a loser, I’ll just ask myself: So what? So what If I am a loser? I can be a happy loser, can I not?
And also, when I was a kid I used to think I was a prince, have these thoughts turned me into a prince? Unfortunately an answer is no. So if my critic tells me I’m a loser, It will not mean that I am one!
The “Anxious” demon
The Critic is an evil and cruel monster: it wants you to feel that you’re worth nothing. Now, the anxious demon is a little bit different from that: it’s not necessarily evil, it’s just annoying and it can turn your life into a living hell by asking you things like:
– what if I get a heart attack?
– what if I accidentally harm someone?
– what if I can never sleep again?
– what if people notice that I have a panic attack? They’ll think I’m totally crazy!
The anxious demon does not want to hurt your feelings. It just can not stop worrying over any single event in your life. This demon is as dangerous as the critic, and in my case, this is the one that is the most difficult to fight. For me, it’s always been easier to tell myself that I’m not a loser than convincing myself that the disaster I’m so scared of will not happen!
What can you do to get rid of the “anxious” demon?
I think the first step is learning how to make a difference between your rational and irrational thoughts. If you have way too many “what if” questions that’s very likely that your fears are not the most rational ones.
Another thing that worked for me is trying to agree with my thoughts: okay, I know it sounds pretty crazy but believe me, your anxious demon will always be able to come up with a new “what if” question and it’ll be a never ending story.
Want to read more about my fights with the Anxious Demon? Check:
In the prison of your own mind: Responsibility OCD
Set yourself free: How to break the vicious cycle?
OCD: Living a lie
The Victim
I’m giving up! I can’t take this anymore! I’ll never be able to overcome my fears and I’ll never be able to change my life for the better. The Critic has already told me that I am worth nothing and I think it was right.
Sounds familiar? Guess many of us have similar thoughts, the problem is when these kind of thoughts take over your life.
I used to think I wasn’t strong enough to overcome my OCD but learning more about the behavior of the Victim demon helped me a lot.
What helped me:
Everyone’s different. Some people feel much better after reading inspirational quotes, others will find it helpful to think about all the amazing things they have achieved in their life. As for me, what truly helped me was being angry at my “victim” demon: so it tells me I’ll never get better, let me show this monster that I will!
The Perfectionist
I have to admit that I’ve always been a perfectionist. And this is one of the reasons why it’s been pretty challenging for me to recognize the little perfectionist demon that sits on my shoulder.
The critic wants to hurt your feelings and it wants you to believe that you’re pathetic. But then, apparently your perfectionist inner voice does not want to be mean to you. It just wants to remind you that you and your life must be a hundred percent perfect. You should do whatever it takes to look like a cover girl, you should be the most professional person on the planet and obviously you should achieve all of this on your own.
Being perfectionist is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can definitely make your anxiety worse. I’m sure you have already heard this a few times but: nobody is perfect and we should accept ourselves the way we are!
I do not want to lie to you: I have not been able to get rid of my “perfectionist demon” but one thing that helps me a lot is telling myself that there are a lot of people who love me: even though, I’m far from being perfect! 🙂
Fight your demons!
Negative Self Talk is a pretty complex topic and you can find a huge numbers of amazing articles about it on the internet – I’ll soon publish a post with the list of articles I’ve found particularly useful.
So even though, I haven’t been able to include every single piece of information about negative inner voice, I really hope this post will help some of you 🙂
And as you know there’s one thing that I love more than sharing my stories: reading yours. So please, share your story in the comment section!
Mark
Overcoming OCD 
Excellent and creative! Nice job.
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Thank you 🙂 I am glad you liked it.
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You’re welcome. Sure did
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Mark I love how you understand the human mind.good job!
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Hi Cynthia,
Thank you very much, that’s very encouraging! 🙂
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Cool👌
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I’ve named my inner critic ‘Donald’ and as we know, he is just never right!
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Haha I love this name! 🙂 I should also name mine – do not want to steal yours so I will need to find him another name :)))
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You can use it, there is enough Donald for everybody! 🙂
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I really appreciate appreciate this post. I have a critic who dictates my life. I feel weak. I am sad. I wanted to know if others felt an intrusive demon in this way. My critic hates me so much. And I hate myself. It’s really hard to separate. It’s like a sick co-dependency. But thank you for sharing.
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Thank you for your comment and I am glad to read that you appreciated this post and I really hope it helped you to some extent.
You are not alone with this! There are a lot of people out there who are constantly tortured by their inner critic – I used to think I was alone but opening up about it made me realize that it happens to a lot of people.
And I can totally relate to everything you’ve said – I also get the feeling that my inner critic hates me and it’s difficult to stop listening to this demon. But the first step is acknowledging its existence so I am sure things will soon get better.
Mark
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OCD is demon “opression” with the goal of keeping you from God, and to “possess” you if possible.
The first mistake is to think it’s all you! That ocd is biological, or genetic only. One leads to the other. Sin from ancestors leads to genetics. Demonic “Opression”, can lead to physical/bioloical changes in the body. Just like a smoker smoking cigarettes can get abnormal growths ie. cancer, or the toxins in his body can create a liver or kidney issue. The poison he puts in his body effects his energy levels, and moods, whitch in turn effects how he thinks.
If you have familiy line “familiar spirits” (demons that are asigned to families) you may have genetic susceptability, and you’ll most assuredly have “Negative Talk.” (Planted beliefs from your parents, their parents and so on, which directly comes from demonic forces that have convniced them by some deception. Yes, just like Adam and Eve. Example: “My mother had bad eyesight, and I have it too.” When you declare it, it means you “believe” it, and “accept it.” Sometimes these things come at us simply by corrupted dna from ancestral sin. But make no mistake, the devil will re-enforce his deceptions by what the bible calls “fiery darts.” Which are in fact telepathic whispers. So litterally, down the line, the devil has gotten you and your ancestors to manifest your Faith in a false belief.
Broken people, create broken people when they have kids. This is a fallen world.
Sexual trauma, and every abuse you may have suffered as a child directly effects your beliefs about the world and yourself. Broken people create, broken people.
I speak from personal experience. The difference between myself and most people is: I’ve seen the demons at times. They knock on my walls half the day and night. I sometimes hear something large walking outside my closed bedroom door before bed. (all to instill fear-“steal” peace) This is not just something in my mind. I’ve recorded the sounds, and other people have heard them. It’s comonly refered to as the poltergiest activity (noisy ghost). But there’s no ghosts involved, it’s purely demonic. I’ve even video’d and taken pictures of “orbs” in my house.
See demons will start to actually show themselves when they realize “you know” they’re there, and the game is over. But they won’t show themselves, if they’ve got you thinking it’s just you and that you’re crazy. That deception, is more useful to them. Becuase if you don’t realize you’re being manipulated further and further down the rabbit hole, they can’t get you to get drugs from a doctor, to further weaken your senses, or get you to start drinking or, something along those lines, to eventually get you to commit suicide, or do something you would never normally do.
Jesus said “the enemy comes not but to kill, steal and destroy.” And he was absolutely right! The devil’s greatest trick was to get you to believe he doesn’t exist. And his second greatest trick was to get you to believe that God, doesn’t exist, and that He loves you dearly. Yes, even with all your faults. You’re more precious to Him than all the gold and gems on the planet.
So, how do we deal with these manipulators, which by the way, loves the idea that you think it’s your thoughts and not their projected thoughts? My first suggestion is you need to confirm what I’ve just said. After all, the person writing this might just be some nutty Jesus freak right? lol.. *You need to learn to separate your thoughts, from random stuff coming in. Telepathic communication, is how it’s done in the spiritual realm. Humans speaking with their mouth is a physical thing. You were built to do both. So, when you’re doing something, and it will be something that progresses your life, that’s when attacks generally come. If some random crazy thing pops into your mind, and your thoughts were on your investment portfollio, or you were thinking about that tropical vaction,
IT’S NOT COMING FROM YOU! You have to understand, the devil and demons, can mimic very well. So it may even sound like you in your head. IT’S NOT!
You can’t let it grip you in fear. FEAR IS THE POINT!! When you’re frantic with fear, you’re much easier to control. Then the bastards can talk you into all kinds of stuff. You have to understand also, you may also be more sensitive to the spiritual than most people. And with your lack of knowledge of that world, you’re like a baby to these monsters, and a prime target for this type of attack. Realize the enemies are just outside of your physical visual perception. They are condemed criminals. All they can do now is get back at God by stealing your peace of mind, and in their mind, hopfully kill you, or at the very least destroy your future.
I generally say out loud: “The Lord rebuke you.” Or just call them out loud: “Liars!” or say: “Lies!”
Said with confidence staves them off. Whn I start hearting that “negative talk”, I just tell myself it’s not useful to me, and say to myself: “that’s not useful to me and blow it off.” Trying to fight the thoughts just makes it worse because you are engaging them with them. You’ve got to dis-engage.
You’ve got to be confident. You’ve got to work on it. You’re Not in the wrong here. You were just duped into thinking it was all your fault. You have to use that confidence to “dis-spell” that fear! You’ve gotta learn God loves you. And you definately gotta learn to love and forgive yourself better. In a state of love, it’s much easier to win your battles with ocd. Then just start deprogramming yourself from your obsessive behavior. Like: “I just checked the freaking door! I don’t need to do that.” Blow it off. You’ve been trained like a Pavlovian dog your whole life. It’s gonna take some time to break UN-BELIEF in yourself, in love, In the Father, in the Son, in having a great life which You Absolutely Deserve! Stop listening to the “Negative Talk” coming from the prince of baloney and his flying monkies. You’re ok. And You’re going to get better.
God Bless You.
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