Near the beginning of my ministry,Guest Posting our pastor invited me as an elder to assist him pastorally with a woman we will call Marilyn. She had recently come to Christ in a dramatic way after having been badly traumatized for most of her life, including thirteen years of chronic mental illness, which included frequent, forced admissions for extended periods to psychiatric hospitals.

Although Marilyn’s story is unusually dramatic, it provides important insights for pastors and laypeople alike. Marilyn’s testimony can help better understand the struggles some people experience on their way to deliverance. People with different backgrounds can experience demonic infestation in a variety of ways. This is just a single story, but it is authentic. It is one of many stories that confirm the spiritual dimension of the biblical worldview. While many people are helped by medical care and by mental health programs, there is still the possibility of other factors troubling a person, which may be healed only by the deliverance Jesus Christ offers.

Here’s the story of Marilyn:

Childhood

My earliest childhood memories are filled with fear, for there was nowhere I felt safe. I still shudder when I think back to when I was six and became the victim of a traumatic occult ritual. It left me with physical scars, but also with many more emotional wounds. (This may sound bizarre to most readers. For some general info on this kind of extreme abuse, see Appendix).

My whole world changed, leaving me feeling different from all other people I knew. From then on, I lived in the shadow of an oppressive spiritual entity. Afterwards, I was threatened with death if I ever told anyone about it, and my fears increased even further.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My father was an alcoholic, which imprisoned everyone in our family in his world. Whenever dad came home, the whole family was scared, for whenever he was drunk, he would go wild, with a look in his eyes that haunted me all the time. Even at school I would suddenly become sick with fear at any memory of that look in his eyes, so sick that sometimes I was sent home—to be with my father!

Sometimes, I would hide in the closet, but even there I was not safe because he knew where I was, and he would force me, through the door, to open the closet. Because I never knew what to expect, I was constantly tense and anxious.

The kids at school noticed my uneasiness and my tendency to isolate myself. But they knew my father was an alcoholic, which was reason enough to avoid me. So, I built my own world, in which the only person I had contact with was a friendly, understanding imaginary woman. I often just heard her voice, but I had seen her several times in real life as well. Because I had met her in unusual circumstances, I never wondered who she was or why I was connected to her. It just seemed she understood me. I could tell her anything, for she seemed to know me better than anyone else. She even knew of things I’d never told anyone. Her presence assured me that I needed no one else besides her, not even friends of my own age.

Youth

When I was eleven, I was the victim of an even more horrific ritual, which was so painful and horrible, it’s still hard to describe. This abuse left me with many wounds, with physical and psychological scars that I had to carry for the years to come. So, when the female voice told me to put an end to my life, I agreed with her. Anything would be better than continuing to live.

I will not explain all that happened in our family, but tragedy compounded my injuries and my sense of bondage, when, on his eighteenth birthday, my older brother and his friend died in a car accident. Our grief was unbearable. It was then that my epileptic seizures began.

My father could not handle the death of his son, and, to make matters even worse, he discovered he had developed throat cancer. Knowing he did not have long to live, he kept threatening to kill us before he died. I lived somewhere between fear and desperate hope. I begged Saint Mary to put an end to this nightmare, and I kept praying for either my father’s or my own death.

Then, one evening my father came home drunk again, but this time he actually tried to murder my mother and me. The neighbors called the police, who arrived just in time to rescue us. I was taken to the hospital, and my father was sent to jail before being transferred to a psychiatric hospital. My mother was in shock, but returned home. I will never be able to express what it means to endure the worst possible kind of attack—of a child almost killed by her own father. My father’s eyes have haunted me for years. I could not erase from my mind that look in his eyes when he struck! Eventually, my father died by an act of self-destruction.

Hospitalization

When I was eighteen years old, I married the man I loved. I thought that was the solution. But so much in me was infested and damaged, and I was unable to talk about all I had gone through.

A year later, our daughter was born. We were delighted with her. But shortly afterwards, I began to feel terrible and became ill to the point of dehydration, so that I had to be hospitalized. For a month, I was on a drip, but because none of the tests showed any physical causes, I was eventually sent to a psychiatrist. I can still remember our first conversation. He asked me if my husband drank or was seeing other women. I reacted sharply to these questions, for I knew how much my husband loved me. But when the psychiatrist inquired further back into my youth, the ball started rolling.

I told the psychiatrist about my father’s drinking problem, and for the first time, I spoke of the fear I had endured because of him. I did not mention the traumas or the inner voices, but it seemed like the psychiatrist was satisfied with the information about my father. He agreed my hatred toward my father was quite normal behavior, and he prescribed more medication. He assured me everything would turn out fine. I would be better in no time!

But the strong medication turned me into a zombie-like person. I preferred to stay in bed, but this was of no help. I talked to no one about what really went on inside me, not even to my own husband. He wanted to listen, but I had not learned to express myself, and he was not used to talking about inner feelings. So, I kept listening to the inner voices, which seemed to be more numerous than before. I could tell them everything, and I thought that at least they understood me.

Because of all the medications, I became paralyzed. With no control over my muscles, I could barely move or even speak, and I could not stop drooling. But worst of all was the lack of understanding from certain doctors and the nursing staff. I could no longer hold my fork to eat, which made the nurse angry with me, and she threatened me with a transfer to the psychiatric ward. I a course in miracles a noise on my lips like the moan of an animal, but I could do nothing to stop this sound, which came from deep within me. It was horrifying!

They gave me more injections until I stopped moaning, but the paralysis increased. Ultimately, my family transferred me to another hospital, where I was diagnosed with “paralysis due to overdose of medication.” They told me it could have been fatal, and I had to stay in the intensive care unit for several days. Then, as if I were a small child, I had to learn to eat again, to write, and to deal with the basics of living.

After some time, I was discharged. But a short time later, I had to be re-hospitalized, this time in the psychiatric ward of an academic hospital. I thought it strange to see patients walking around in regular clothes instead of pajamas. But then I realized I was the only one in a nightgown, and I had nothing else with me. Worse yet was that all the doors were locked, as if I were in a prison.

My therapy included conversations with the psychiatrist, but they were mere repetitions of my earlier conversations with other doctors. The inner voices continued. At first, I thought these voices might offer me support and understanding, but I began to find that if I did not obey them, they would dominate me, becoming more and more intrusive. The voices warned me not to talk about them, and assured me again it would be better to end my life. Oftentimes, I heard I had been doing destructive things in a state of unconsciousness. Such a state could continue for several days or weeks, and resulted in huge memory gaps. My sense of helplessness was complete.