Beauty for Ashes

The Ashes

For years, this was my life. I share it not to dwell in the darkness, but so that anyone living it now knows they have been seen — and that there is a way out.

• Demonic attacks during the night — never fully comprehending what had happened when I woke, but seeing the physical effects, feeling like I had been through a war.
• Being awake and feeling demons pressing against my body, holding me in a tight grip.
• Something sitting on my chest, unable to move — paralysis of some kind.
• Feeling like I was being choked in the night, unable to breathe.
• Seeing a big snake head in my window.
• Dark dreams so vivid I felt I was in them, waking up traumatised.
• Seeing demonic, vile images in the day and night.
• Demons speaking to me, telling me to do things, even during normal daily activities.
• Evil standing next to my bed in the night.
• Seeing the corpses of dead loved ones in my bedroom.
• Hearing voices telling me I was dirty, defiled, worthless, wretched — that I would never be clean.
• Feeling like I was being watched all the time.
• Seeing an enormous black demonic being prowling around my apartment, watching me.
• Being silenced when I wanted to pray.
• Saying things in a weird language — it sounded horrible and demonic.
• Demons speaking through me.
• Seeing a witch and hearing screaming.
• Questioning my sanity — was any of this real, or my imagination?
• Seeing spiders in my car that others could not see.
• Witchcraft in my family line.
• Hearing noises, like rustling sounds. Lights going off unexpectedly.
• Years of sleeplessness.
• Feeling absent from those around me — disconnected, spaced.
• Gaps in memory — not remembering conversations, where I had been, or what had happened to me.
• My own home felt like a prison. There was no escape.
• I was fearful of everything, even of myself. It was overwhelming.
• Years of depression and anxiety — I tried counselling, Christian counselling, CBT, psychiatrists, psychologists.
• A dark cloud followed me everywhere. There was no light in my world, only darkness.
• Something entered me when I was 10 and my face physically changed — the devil robbed me of how the Lord created me.
• I hated the mirror, I hated the image looking back at me.
• I could not eat normally and was sick all the time.
• Raped as a child, with no justice — events I believe were the catalyst to a life run by the devil.
• Robbed of my purity through abuse — the one thing I treasured the most.
• It stole my education. I had to run away from home.
• Fearful of men.
• Grief-stricken for a lifetime.
• Guilt that held me captive. Shame — with no one to tell the pain in the deepest recesses of my heart.
• Injustice — did anyone actually even care?
• I did not know what love was — so-called ‘love’ equalled pain in my world.
• A lifetime of loneliness. Unworthiness.
• Suicidal — that felt like the best option for me.
• Deep sorrow, sadness and emptiness.
• I had no idea who I was — people and situations defined me.
• I could not express my feelings; staying quiet felt safer.
• No peace. No desire for anything in life.
• I could not be around people — the isolation was unreal.
• Evil people controlled me; they had a stake in my life.