There was one side affect to being "possessed" that I liked. When my Mom was addressing me (and not the demon) she was more kind than she'd been in a long time. Also, she paid more attention to me than she had in a long time. Watching over me took priority over her best friend's daughter for the first time since they came into our lives. Of course, she was watching me and spending time with me to "make sure the demon in me didn't hurt anyone", but it was still nice to have my Mother back. Because of this, I started lying. They would ask me if the demon was speaking to me or if I was feeling rage, confusion, etc. and I lied and said yes because I wanted to keep receiving attention from my Mom and preference over the her friend's daughter. As I kept saying yes to everything they asked me about what was going on with me, they decided they were going to have to cast it out as soon as possible. I don't remember what the reason was for ever waiting.

So one weekend we go to Mom's best friend's house for the specific purpose of getting the demon cast out of me. My parents, Mom's best friend and her husband, and their teenage daughter all participated. Their son wasn't considered "spiritually stable" enough to help since the demon in me had come from him. They took me into a back room of their house, the farthest away from neighbors. They said that we might get loud and they didn't want anyone calling the cops thinking that someone was getting hurt.

When we got in the room, they put me in the middle of the floor and gathered around in a circle. I can't remember a lot of what was said, but there was a lot more describing of what the demon looked like, what it was "saying" to them about me, etc. At one point, they made me lay down and they each took an arm and a leg and held it tight to the floor. They said that if the demon got mad, it might give me extra strength. Sometimes I pushed my arms and legs against them to see if I did have super-human strength, but I was never stronger than my 9 year old self. Ha.

This went on for hours, my Dad got disgusted pretty quick and left the room. He was still pretty emotionally disturbed over his brother dying recently (which I wrote about here http://www.spiritualabuse.org/suppor...blog.php?b=122 ) and didn't like what he was seeing them do to me. They also had just asked me if I'd had thoughts of suicide, and like I had been doing lately, I answered yes even though it wasn't true. There was a lot of screaming at the demon to come out, and sometimes all the people holding me down and yelling in my face these awful descriptions got so scary that I screamed. They then said that "it was close", so I started screaming more to try and bring this awful episode to an end. I don't remember what was the deciding factor, but eventually someone yelled "It's out!!!" and then my Mom grabbed me and hugged me....

hillbillygirl

In the last post on my timeline, I talked at the end about how during one of the tent revival services I was asked to take the children into the house and babysit them.

The weird staring and glaring from my Mom and her best friend got worse and worse. I started to feel paranoid, like they were watching me all the time. Then, one night, I sat down to the dinner table and Mom and Dad told me that they needed to talk to me.

They told me that I was possessed by a demon. They said that during that tent revival service, the preachers (Mom, her best friend, and her friend's husband) had cast it out of her best friend's son, and that the demon left the tent looking for another body to enter, and came in the house and found me. They said that it was a rebellious demon that found me inviting because of the way I'd been expressing anger against wearing dresses, going to church all the time, and being taken out of public school. They said that I needed to be aware of this because it would affect my reactions to anything Godly until they could get it cast out.

Then, my Mom proceeded to tell me about all the visions her and her best friend had about me. They had a vision of me being raped due to my rebellion of wanting to wear pants (keep in mind that I was 9 at this time) and they gave me graphic detail of this vision. They told me they could see demons running around in my bedroom that were attracted there because of the demon in me. They said that my wanting to spend so much time at non-apostolic family member's houses had contributed to my rebellious spirit inviting in the demon. They also told me the demon's name, what it looked like, and that it was a fallen soul - a rebellious teenage girl that went to hell and became a demon. There were more "revelations", but you get the general idea.

As you can imagine, by this point I was terrified. I was afraid to talk to my family, I was afraid to be around my little sister. I stopped going anywhere and stayed home all the time (as much as I had the choice to), and alone most of the time, wondering how many of my thoughts were really my own and how many were coming from the demon.

Occasionally Mom would "address the demon" instead of me. I'd be walking along and she'd suddenly jump in front of me and say "(Demon's name) you want to hit me don't you! Go ahead and slap me, I dare you!". I didn't know what to do when this would happen. I'd try to turn and walk away, but she'd grab me by the shoulders and hold me in front of her. I'd say "Mom I don't know what you want me to do!". Eventually when the 'demon' didn't respond she'd give up.

Plans were being made to "cast it out".

hillbillygirl

If you're reading this, you may have questions like these.

1. Why is she recounting all these bad memories?

2. What's the point of rehashing all this and making it public?

3. Why doesn't she attempt to make these descriptions more balanced?

4. Why is she dishonoring her parents?

The answer to the first and second questions are pretty much the same. The point is - these things happened to me, and I was very hurt and damaged. It was many years and lots of therapy before I was functional after leaving home. Similar things may be happening to other children as we speak. I hope that Mothers and Fathers might read these and rethink their actions with their children, and make it a point to instruct them with love, not criticism and fear. Maybe if some Mother of Father realizes that they've been unintentionally treating their child(ren) the same way, they'll stop.

As for the third question, these are my childhood memories. The memories of a hurting child may not be a balanced view, but they may still be helpful in bringing someone else to a balanced view, if they realize that they're doing this to their own children.

Regarding the 4th question, the truth is the truth. I have not named my parents or myself, so no one can read this and connect this with my family unless they were there. If I was naming them with the intention of embarrassing and shaming them, then my motive could be considered dishonorable. As it is, I am speaking the truth with as little possibility of causing a backlash to them that I can manage, and I do not see any dishonor in this.

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

hillbillygirl

After much discussion with her new best friend, Mom decides that the conditions in our church can no longer be tolerated. We still go there 'officially', but start visiting other churches who have services on nights that our church doesn't. One that we visited was an ultra-conservative Apostolic church that's not affiliated with the UPC. The rules at this church are much stricter than the UPC rules even though their basic theology is the same. They viewed the UPC as too liberal.

At this point, we're going to church at our 'home church' on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. We're going to the Apostolic church on Saturday nights, and a nearby UPC on Thursday nights. (the nearby UPC church is the one that Mom's best friend went to before they started coming to our church) Mom and this family decide that its time for them to start taking action against the demons infiltrating their churches. They "cast out a demon" from the preacher's daughter's boyfriend at the nearby UPC church when he comes up to pray during an alter call. The teenage guy shakes all over like a leaf and this is touted as evidence of the 'demon coming out'. About 60% of the church members stand back in disbelief and disapproval of what is happening. Mom and her friend do another "casting out" in our home church to a visitor.

They receive some sort of ministerial censure for this, but I do not know the details. It resulted in the other family breaking away and starting their own Apostolic church. It begins as a tent revival in their back yard. Also during this time, Mom decides to stop homeschooling me, and to send me to the christian school at the ultra-con Apostolic church that I mentioned previously.

The Apostolic church disapproves of Mom's best friend and her family (believes they are demon possessed and still Satanists), and also of women preachers in general. Mom goes there and keeps quiet in order to be able to send us to the school, and goes to the other family's church and preaches as a guest speaker the rest of the time. The result of this is that we go to church 6 times per week.

At this school, I remember getting in trouble several times. Once, because I went to school in a shirt with sleeves above my elbows. Another time, because I wore a hair barett (jewelry). Another time, I didn't want to testify during chapel when called on. When we got in trouble for things like this, we had to be prayed for at the altar until we were ready to confess our sin. If that took all day and no schoolwork got done, so be it. Another thing that we were punished for was "not working at our full potential". I once got an 80% on a math test that the principal believed I was capable of making 100% on. He informed me that he was giving it to me again and if I didn't get 100%, was was getting 10 swats. I got 85%. Fortunately, he was called out on an emergency while it...

hillbillygirl

Eventually, Dad came back home and back to church. The painful questions from members stopped after awhile, and things were pretty good. Then a new family came to church.

It was a husband and wife and two teenage kids. The husband and wife were preachers, and the teenagers (a boy and a girl) both claimed that they'd been 'called to preach'. About half the church welcomed them with open arms, the other half stayed aloof from them. Friendly, but not friends. I remember my Great-Grandma (who helped build the church building) saying that her spirit just didn't recognize their spirit.

My mom and the mom of this family became 'best friends'. We started spending a LOT of time with them. Our whole family would go spend the weekend at their house almost every weekend, and during the week they were at our house all the time. Once again, things started changing.

The woman in this family told Mom how they'd all been Satanists before coming to God, and that she believed occult was infiltrating the church. They started buying tons of occult/witchcraft instruction books and comparing the practices outlined in these books to things happening in the church. Their conclusion was - demons were running rampant in the church and possessing the believers of the Truth in an attempt to thwart God's Oneness revival.

My family was always the first ones to arrive at the church building, lots of times the doors weren't even unlocked yet when we got there. This other family started joining us in arriving extra early. Mom and this woman and her daughter would go into a Sunday School room and 'pray'. Often you could hear them 'praying' all over the church, other times there was silence. A few times Dad asked me to go in and get Mom for one reason or another. The times I went in they were sitting at a table talking, and stopped immediately and Mom angrily asked why I interrupted them. After a couple of those instances, they started locking the door.

Some things from this time that I heard them state: They could literally 'see' demons running around inside the church building. They could see demons when they looked in the eyes of some of the male preachers in the church. The pastor was 'obviously' demon possessed. The people who didn't come to church as early as them to pray were 'spiritually bound' by evil, if not actually possessed.

Gossip started about their 'prayer sessions' and the questioning of me started just like it did when my parents had separated. "Why does your Mom go in there to pray with those women? Why can't she pray out in the open? Why do they spend so much time in there? If they are actually talking to God, there's no reason they should have to lock the door." People seemed afraid to say these things to my Mom and the other women, so they said them to me, a child about 8 years old. Several of the men in the church started saying things like...

hillbillygirl