What it is like.

“I felt that my body was a stranger. I was prey to the strongest despair, and I saw, I know not with whose eyes, a terrible darkness that was not part of the room in which I was… It was as though I were being killed by an unseen knife, and I felt that whoever was pressing this knife hated me and wanted something more than my death.”

“The devil tormented me, physically, for five years. I had the sensation that needles were stuck in every part of my body, especially in my vital organs. I felt bitten, stabbed…”

“[A]ll of a sudden I choked and started to shake as though I were being electrocuted. Sometimes, the phenomena were so alarmingly violent that my husband called the doctor on duty in the middle of the night.”

“They would come down over me and overshadow me and press me in like a great, dark, moist cloud settling down over me, shutting me in. I would have a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.”

“The demons clung to my body from which they did not want to leave, and, through my voice, they let out moans and pitiful growls… I could only cling to my cross and my rosary that I clutched tightly.”

“At night, I felt the physical presence of the demon, who repeated: ‘I will get you back.’”

“In the middle of the night, I suddenly found out that something or someone was upon me, on my bed. Every time I tried to get up, he pushed me down… I felt that the thing tried to absorb my strength. I even felt the face of the thing just in front of me. And, still, I was completely awake.”

“I felt this pressing down all over me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move… I was wide awake… This was evil!”

“I knew that someone else was there. Suddenly there comes a huge body… It was over me — on my body — and I had to fight my way out of that. I couldn’t move — I couldn’t talk at all… That particular spirit was big, black, hairy. Big teeth. Big eyes. I was very, very scared.”

“I was on my back and I felt someone was holding me down. I called my son to come and help me. I felt like I was calling, but only these sounds came out.”

“Male voices say they are perverted and will do with me whatever they want… They raped me…”

“I would cry, and my sisters would know that I would spend nights when I was young sleeping at the door of my parents’ room crying and sobbing.”

“My legs moved on their own; my arms and my body were totally independent from my will… I would tell my body what to do, and it would not obey me; I do not wish this experience on anyone.”

“I have had a voice in my head since I was about three years old. It was in my head, so I assumed it was me, even though I knew it wasn’t.”

“For the first time I recognized that something that was a part of me, part of my personality, was not really me… it seemed like a companion I had known all my life.”

“I felt like it was urging me to do something I didn’t want to do… And, you know, wanting to do evil to somebody else. Not wanting, but just fighting it.”

“[W]e believe that this thought comes from within us and we eat it like sacred bread, when, in reality, it is foreign to us and always hides a trap…”

“I almost entirely forgot the things of God… something inside me kept saying ‘No’ to him, to goodness, to life, to me.”

“Spending time in adoration in front of the Blessed Sacrament used to be a joy; now I desired nothing more than to run away from him.”

“Every time I knelt down to pray, I felt that my prayer was wrong. Something prevented me from finishing it, so I had to get up and start over.”

“You should be ashamed about posting about God. You should be ashamed about researching about God. You should be ashamed about loving God.” … “And I heard those over and over again, like an echo.”

“[I]t was exposed to me that this voice — the same voice that I’ve been hearing this whole entire time — started cussing me out inside my own brain… You thinking that you run things around here? You don’t run anything?”

“I lost friends, relatives, and my family’s understanding. I was outside the world; they were unable to understand me, nor could I demand that they try, because I knew what I felt inside, and I knew I could never describe it.”

“She even tried to shoot the baby and me with a rifle and to throw herself out the window… Once, I had to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation because I found her senseless in the bathtub, with her head under water… it was a nightmare.”

“[T]he demon retaliated against my husband and children, striking them with inexplicable sickness, and within a thirteen-month period, they were rushed to the emergency room fourteen times.”

“I saw that the same spirit had troubled my father most of the time that I knew him. It was a kind of family ghost that followed us down from generation to generation.”

“There are so many things that I just stopped doing because of this entity that had my mind in a chokehold.”

“I thought I was going crazy and never mentioned it to anyone. I still don’t bring it up much because I get THAT LOOK from people who don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I told my doctor and also my priest that it wasn’t me; I didn’t want to feel that way. But I sounded crazy so I stopped saying it.”

“[Y]ou don’t say, ‘This person has dab tsog, an evil spirit,’ you have to say, ‘My cousin is sick.’ Christians who are not Hmong do not understand.”

“I am afraid I have been posessed by demons, or that they at least have tried to take possession. I hope someone can help guide me.”

“The light of day was returning, the song of the birds ceased to sound like the cawing of crows, and the noises around me were not obsessive anymore; they were simply noises. Until then I had lived with earplugs, because the smallest sound caused me to jump.”

“I felt the evil spirit, but that little room was full of God… I let go completely and the demon left. God held me very gently… It feels strange, but good, just to be me.”

“It was like a heavenly vacuum cleaner came down over my shoulders and just sucked this thing out. I had struggled with it for years until I recognized it was not myself.”

“When I was able to stand up again, I was free from pain; I felt liberated, light. I was myself again, the person I used to be.”

“[F]or the first time in many years, my wife slept through the night with a restful, quiet sleep, without pills or tranquilizers.”