"The True Battle" Part 1

The True Battle

Things went well for a long while, and for that at least I’m thankful. I was never one for dating really; I found that there were very few people in this world that I felt a connection to. It was nothing personal; I was just picky about the company I kept. I had to feel as though I was meant to be around them, to allow myself to be.

However one night, during the summer, around the time of my tenth grade year, fate would introduce me to my next phase of spiritual conflict.

She was a friend of a friend, and someone up until that point was only somebody I knew of from pictures. Her first impressions were goofy, and witty. She laughed and smiled a lot, and for some reason was obsessed with playing with fire. I always told her she was a pyromaniac, and she often conceded.

We hit it off at once, and we both felt the need to confide in one another. She told me about her past, and her family, her likes and dislikes, and in return I did the same. It was your typical beginnings of a relationship.

She came from a Mormon family, as were I had been raised a southern Baptist. If you know about the two, then you know that most people don’t really consider them to closely related. Now it’s important for anyone reading this to understand that I am a very open minded individual. People’s beliefs are part what makes them who they are, and I think it is a very personal relationship you find with God.

I did not judge her harshly for her beliefs; on the contrary I found them interesting. It was an infinite leap from the world I had grown up in, and it was intriguing. Keep in mind that religion and church didn’t play a huge role in the beginnings of our relationship, but it is what I feel to be the most relevant.

As things got more serious and as the months went by, discussion was made about marriage and engagements. After a long chain of events, some bad and some good, it was made clear that she would require me to become a Mormon if I was to ever be with her.

Now, as I mentioned previously, I am a very open minded person. The idea of trying this out was fine for me, ultimately they prayed to the same God that I did, and after praying about it, I made my mind up. With that I began going to church with her, from time to time.

It was different from what I was used to to say the least. Everyone was very welcoming though, and I must admit that some of the things about it I liked more than my previous church. Life was still nice.

Then, one day out of the blue I began having very odd zoned out issues. We also were having problems in the relationship. Nothing beyond repair, but it sadly was at a point in my life where trust was hard to come by, thus I was a bit controlling. It only became worse once she informed me of choices she had made that she knew I may have problems with.

I began questioning her going out with her friends, and our world slowly became a very small one. The transformation was having deeper and more profound consequences that I was realizing though. The zoned out moments were increasing, in both length and in occurrence. I could feel something wasn’t right, but I just couldn’t figure it out.

In time she asked me about it. She noticed that I often seemed to be elsewhere, both in church and most other social gatherings. I didn’t know what to tell her, for I didn’t know the answers myself. I could only say what I felt, and that feeling was an odd emptiness growing inside.

I still prayed, and I still went to church, and I still read my bible, so I’m not really sure where it came from, or why. Yet it was there, so it slowly became a normal thing.

Then, one day I came over to her house. I believe she was in the kitchen, and I walked on into her room for something. On her desk near her bed I saw a book, a book I never would have thought to see in her possession. It was a Wicca book.

My natural response was very upsetting, and I quickly questioned her about it. I was raised on the idea that pagan beliefs, no matter their name are bad. We argued about it for a time, but in time she convinced me that she was just reading about it as curiosity, nothing else. Well, curiosity killed the cat, but who was I to say that the same would happen here. From everything I witnessed she spoke the truth, it was all just an educational thing for her.

I guess I grew ok with it, because ultimately I see power of any sort only as good or bad as the person welding it. From what I could tell, she was still a good person.

Time goes by and my struggle with the zoning intensifies, as does the conflict with her. In time it gets to the point that I cry on a daily basis due to the apparent lack of judgment in her day to day decisions. If there is one thing I can say on her behalf, it’s that she was upfront and honest with me, which is what I always say I preferred.

She told me about activities throughout her days, often involving dumb things with guys that seemed to serve no other purpose than to stab me with an emotional dagger. The pain intensified beyond measure, and when I thought I couldn’t bare it any longer, an oddly familiar voice whispered from the void within.

"The Table Turns" Part 3

The Table Turns

After I had finished listening to this new found message, I took a while and thought about what I would write, and of course prayed about what I was going to write.

In my prayer I made it clear that I belonged to God, and that by his power I was saved. I don’t care to go into great detail, because it was something between him and me. However, just in case there is someone reading this right now that is suffering from the same thing I’ve written about here, the important thing is that you believe what you are writing. Consider it a binding contract between you and God, don’t just write it just to be writing it.

It wasn’t long after finishing my prayer, the one I’d written in the bible, that I felt an odd sensation overcome me. My body felt chills and I felt as though the hole inside of me was being closed.

There was no doubt in my mind that this preacher I had heard was a messenger from God, and held and delivered the answer I had wanted for so long. The sensation was completely opposite from how it felt so many years earlier when it first occurred.

Finally after years of torment, and endless barrages of voices in my head, it had come to an end, and I was free again. I can not describe my happiness, for I do not believe it can be shared in words. Need less to say, I was born again, and I was in high spirits. All those times I had doubted my faith, and the power of conversation with God, seemed so foolish at that point.

My social life improved, and my grades wasn’t so hard to keep good, but the lack of the voices was a change, and one that it would take me time to get used to. It was strange to be sitting there and not have the bickering in my head, and not have to strain to hear my own thoughts, but it was a good strange.

I got to enjoy the imaginative journey of a good book, something that I’d always failed at up until that point. The clear mind gave room for the stories, and for my mind to bring about their worlds in full blown color, it was indeed wonderful.

Years went by where I was free of the voices, and I got to live my life as I saw fit. Now what I saw fit after all that I had been through was not exactly the fit that everyone else seen.

I was a very anti-social teenager, and my dark clothes didn’t really help my cause. I’m not blaming the voices for this though, I suppose I’d always been a solo kind of person, but I do believe the dark clothes were perhaps a type of reflection of my past. A way for me to show the world my past pains without making them verbal.

As is normally the case however, nothing good ever lasts for ever, and that would be the case with me as well.

I had managed to date a few people throughout my high school days, and had I known what it would eventually lead to, I’m not sure I’d ever bothered. Most of the dating was simple enough, I was a very picky person so none of them ever really amounted to much, but as Adam was taken in by Eve, so was I by a girl.

A girl that would in time reopen the doors of torment within, and chain them open to never close. She was the catalyst to the next phase of my life, a phase that would in comparison, make me desire the voices back in exchange for it having never occurred.


THE TRUE BATTLE

(I’ll be releasing the next and last parts of my journal soon. Please check back often, and share the word of my battle with others. Thanks to my inner turmoil, writing although a joy of mine, can sometimes take a while. I will however do my best to finish in a timely manner.)

"The Table Turns" Part 2

The Table Turns

After I had finished listening to this new found message, I took a while and thought about what I would right, and of course prayed about what I was going to write.

In my prayer I made it clear that I belonged to God, and that by his power I was saved. I don’t care to go into great detail, because it was something between him and me. However, just in case there is someone reading this right now that is suffering from the same thing I’ve written about here, the important thing is that you believe what you are writing. Consider it a binding contract between you and God, don’t just write it just to be writing it.

It wasn’t long after finishing my prayer, the one I’d written in the bible, that I felt an odd sensation overcome me. My body felt chills and I felt as though the hole inside of me was being closed.

There was no doubt in my mind that this preacher I had heard was a messenger from God, and held and delivered the answer I had wanted for so long. The sensation was completely opposite from how it felt so many years earlier when it first occurred.

Finally after years of torment, and endless barrages of voices in my head, it had come to an end, and I was free again. I can not describe my happiness, for I do not believe it can be shared in words. Need less to say, I was born again, and I was in high spirits. All those times I had doubted my faith, and the power of conversation with God, seemed so foolish at that point.

"The Table Turns" Part 1

THE TABLE TURNS

Now about the time I got to fifth grade, I was desperate for things to change. My ability to screen the voices had become extremely difficult, and I felt if something didn’t change soon that a lifetime of madness is all that awaited me. To be honest I didn’t really know what to do next, I had explored the prayer option, but to no avail, and if the power of God could not cure me of my madness, then what could?

Well it just so happens, that one day, most unexpectedly, I was walking in my grandparent’s bed room when I heard a voice. This wasn’t a voice that was in my head, but one that was coming from a small radio nearby. The voice was that of a preacher, spreading the gospel, and telling of his own personal battles with demons.

At first I surmised that this was another grown up version of problems, one that dealt with the more normal side of issues in life.

As I continued listening however, it just seemed like more and more he was describing my exact situation. After a few moments, I could not help but believe that this message was meant for me, and that after all my prayers, one had finally reached its destination.

He spoke of voices in his head when he was younger, and how for the longest time, they made his life very similar to how mine had been. At long last I was not alone; there was someone else in the world that had been through something like me. As I continued to listen more, all I could do was wait for an answer of how to rid myself of the voices, and right when I was about to give up, it came.

Although his story didn’t share exact mirror like experiences as mine, it none the less gave me hope with his solution.

He said that prayer was never enough to rid himself of it. He said that the only way he was ever able to force the voices out, to finally dispatch the evils within was his bible. It wasn’t reading in the bible that did it for him, on the contrary it was writing within it’s pages that saved him.

After a long prayer, he wrote in the thin pages of the front of the bible a prayer to Christ. Not one that rid himself of the voices, but of one that made is crystal clear that he and all about him was the property of God. Mind, body and soul, he had to release himself to God, and put it in writing. Now why writing it was important I’m not really sure, but apparently prayer in words isn’t always sufficient.

"The Battle Begins" Part 2

I can remember her asking me what was wrong, but by that point my mind wasn’t really connected to what was going on around me. It was like I had become dislodged from my body, peering from another point of view.

Even though the perspective had changed, the pain and overwhelming since of fear had not. It forced me to a place of despair and torment, and at the peak of my agony I was shown the world at its fullness. High above the clouds and landmasses, I peered down, as images of people screaming and children crying filled my mind. How lost they felt, their pain was mind numbing.

The images seemed to last forever, but more than what I saw is what I felt. It’s hard to describe, but it was like being lost from the presence of God, denied his grace, and being forced to view the things I have said. After what seemed like forever, I found myself back in my body, still crying and still in intense pain.

The experience had left me that gaping hole of loss we often get when we lose something precious to us, except this was infinitely more intense. I kept those feelings and cried for days afterwards, my mind still going through all the things I had been forced to see and feel, but with the passage of time I was granted mercy, and eventually it allowed me to go back to as normal a life as I could.

I slowly started to accept that perhaps, just perhaps everything was going to be the way it used to be, but that would prove to be a false dream.

After I calmed down, about a week went by from that point until I started to notice faint mumbles in my mind, voices and noises that would come and go. I had hoped that they too would fade back into the nothingness from which they came, but by the time I had started back to school, it became all to clear they were here to stay.

My day to day activities that were normally simple and fast became very slow and complex tasks, for the simple fact that I had to try and concentrate through these voices. Weeks had gone by since they first came, and by this point the mumbles had turned into clearly understandable words, and I wondered what was happening to me.

During this phase of my life, the voices seemed to be more than two sided; it was more like listening to an argument between good and evil.

I often imagined the good angel and bad on each of my shoulders arguing back and forth through my ears, I had to try and find some sort of amusement in the situation.

Math was my hardest hit subject, and some parts of English. Really anything where you had to be focused on what you were doing became very irritating.

Imagine talking to someone across a cafeteria full of middle schoolers, in your normal talking voice, and you have what it was about like for me to talk to myself in my mind. How I ever made it through my classes I’ll never know.

There was times however, that the voices subsided and left me, it was rare, but it did occur on occasion. I can remember thinking that maybe it was finally over, that my prayers were finally going to be answered in these instances, but the voices always eventually returned.

In time I just came to accept that sometimes they weren’t there. It could be compared to a really hot week in the middle of summer, and for some reason in the middle you get a day in the seventies. You know the heat is coming back, so it makes that one cool day all the more sweet. Ah how I wished for cooler days.

I did eventually mention my problems to close family, but they were as lost as I was about the whole situation. For a time I considered professional help, but my financial situation wasn’t the best, better than it is now, but it was not so much better that I could afford a shrink.

The idea that I was crazy was also something I couldn’t accept, and I knew if I went to a mental aid worker of any kind that is what they would label me as, and if not crazy, then some other chemical imbalance, which would most likely lead to heavy medications. None of these scenarios were acceptable to me, not only because of money, but because I could feel that it was more.

As I said, during the first phase of my inner battle, the voices were aimed more at each other than any thing else. Even though I sometimes understood what they said, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t sometimes speak in strange alien sounds that I didn’t comprehend.

When I did follow the words, it was like both sides taunted each other in a way. The darker voices often spoke of how the world was theirs and the end was near for people. Then the voices of light normally defended man and their actions, and declared that God was the only real power to bring about any sort of end.

Now these examples are not quotes, and I’m sure that their were many other things said, but this first phase happened almost two decades ago, so it’s doubtful I could provide actual quotes. I can however safely summarize that the majority of my hours were spent listening to words that followed similar roads. If I had known that I would one day want to share my story with the world, then I would have kept notes, but no such recognition was in my little mind at this age, on the contrary, all I ever wanted was for all of it to just go away.

"The Battle Begins" Part 1

THE BATTLE BEGINS

It was to be a warm summer day, or so said the weather man, and I was out of school for vacation. Nothing about the sky dictated what events may unfold, the clouds were not dark and gloomy, nor crows on the lawn, on the contrary, there was nothing but blue skies and green crow free grass.

I loved to run around outside, it was my pleasure, my delight that God had given me legs, and who was I to deny them as much use and possible.

I played for a long while that day, but even the most hyperactive of children eventually come down from their energy high, as did I. I had not seen my grandmother since earlier that morning, so I made my way to the front of the house where she often would sit and talk with visitors. This day her company would be her mother, hence my great grandmother.

In singular form they possessed grand abilities of telling old tales, but together their words were legend to me. One would start a story and the other would add something to it that the other didn’t know, the dance of the story tellers in a way. For the open mind of a child, nothing can beat the satisfaction of a well told story, so naturally I was intrigued to hang around and listen.

I stood there, listening as they shared their personal experiences and the experiences of others.

The first story was about corn shucking, not to interesting at first I admit. It was the gathering of country folk dancing and partying at the occasional corn shucking. I didn’t quite get what could be fun about cleaning some corn, but hey what did I know.

The tale went something along the lines of a group of people returning home one night through a darkened path in the forest. The path followed wasn’t traveled very often, but it was a shortcut home.

After a while walking on the path, they found themselves moving between two logs lying on the grass. Two figures sat upon each log, but from the distance it just looked like two people chatting with one another. As they got closer, it became all too obvious that the two figures were lacking something as their voices lowered to there approach.

What they lacked were heads, according to the terrified group as they came running out of the forest. They joined up with some of there friends and told them about it, and naturally they didn’t believe a word of it. So after calming down, they were taken back down to where they supposedly saw the two headless people. They were expecting to find nothing when they got there. One can imagine there surprise when they heard chatter in the distance, coming from the two figures that were there earlier. They too didn’t believe they were headless until they came closer, and as before, the talking slowly stopped as they got closer and picked back up as they ran out. They didn’t really say what became of this trail, but I had no interest walking it that was for sure.

Keep in mind that I wasn’t an easily frightened child, so stories such as these had little effect on me. No nightmares preventing sleep that I can recall, nor unexplained fear of the dark. On the contrary I normally enjoyed them.

Some of their other tales wasn’t as drawn out, one having to do with a dog becoming a woman. They say that down near a road close to where I used to go to school you could find a dog.

It had to be a rainy evening, but a misty rain; almost where it looked liked fog. If you timed it right, when you walked on this road you could see a shaggy dog in the distance, slowly walking towards you. As the dog would approach it would slowly transform into a gorgeous woman.

They said some people that saw this happened sometimes tried to speak to the woman, but it did no good. She just walked on past all who saw her in a trance like state, until she could be seen no more, disappearing into the fog like rain. I have to admit that even until this day I’ve been tempted to go and see if I could witness this. By now though I’m sure the road that they spoke of is no more, just another piece of lore lost in the abyss of time.

The next to the last one was something that actually happened to my grandmother. She said that one day while her and her brothers and sisters were out playing, in the late evening; they noticed a strange light in the swamp near where they lived.

All of them stood and looked at it for a few seconds, but before too much could take place their mom came out to tell them to come in for the night. She took notice of the children looking at something, she saw the light, but unlike the others, she knew what it was.

It was a Jack-o-lantern, and apparently it wasn’t the kind we see on Halloween, sitting on peoples porches. This kind was something like a typical lantern held by night travelers, but instead was held by a wandering ghost.

She made them stop looking at the light and told them to never look at it again. The light according to her had the ability to charm anyone who looked at it long enough, forcing them to wander the swamp with the spirit for eternity. Naturally they never looked at it again, and considering that I live near a swampy area myself, I doubt I’d be tempted to look at any moving lights either after this tale.

They spoke of many other things, but these that I have mentioned are the ones that have survived the trial of time in my mind, so they are the ones I’ve shared best I could.

There was one last thing that they spoke of however, and even today my grandmother can not tell me how they stumbled upon the conversation, because it wasn’t something I’d ever heard them discuss.

It was the discussion of ones most precious gift given from God, that gift being of the soul. They spoke of how people can and sometimes do make deals with devils and demons in exchange for their souls. How someone could do something like that is beyond me, it makes no since to me even unto this day.

They continued on with the conversation for a few moments, but most of it is blurred in my mind. Something was happening to me as they continued to talk, my chest pounded, it was hard to breath, and a feeling of extreme emotional pain came over me. I walked off the porch to the pavement, hoping that if I moved away from the conversation this pain would go away, but it didn’t. I fell to my knees, and holding my chest bent over, crying uncontrollably.

"The Beginning"

PROLOGUE

Welcome to the year 1981, the year I was brought into this world. The journey was plain but not entirely uneventful, for what ever reason my arrival was nearly two months early, making me fight to live, a foreshadowing of things to come I suppose. Within time my body eventually stabilized and I was officially here for the long haul, however long that was to be.

I was born to a loving family but not a very stable one. Like all families things are never perfect, and unexpected hardships can sometimes bring about hard decisions. My birth mother, practically a child herself at the age of sixteen, was in no way shape or form ready to be raising a child.

She was the youngest of a family of five, and with no job and no husband, the idea of providing much of a solid environment for me was pretty much out of the question. To my knowledge I lived with her for a while, perhaps a few months, maybe a year, but soon my living situation changed.

My new home and permanent home soon became with my grandparents, of her side of the family. She tended to be very free spirited, and after I was settled in, her spontaneity for not staying in one place to long continued and she moved away for a while.

I found myself in a very loving environment, and that to the best of my knowledge never changed to present day. They provided what I needed, and supplied many of my wants and desires. In a nut shell one could say safely that I was a spoiled little brat in my youngster years. The best parents a child could ask for.

My life was as normal and happy as could be until about 1989, and at that point the word normal left my vocabulary. To be honest, I can’t really remember a whole lot before this time period, but the things I do remember are flashes into a majestic paradise in comparison to times after.

Times were my mind was my own and my only thoughts were of when I could play outside with friends and animals. Where the world was full of all good things and were light always over powered the shadow, even in the darkest of times. There is nothing more precious than an innocent child and his or her view of the world. What a tragedy it is when that innocence leaves us.