My demons, your demons

When Demons Recognize Each Other

We all have one. Or several.

Those voices that know exactly which word hurts the most. That remember every time something went wrong. That wake up in the middle of the night with a list of everything you should have said, done, been.

There are nicer words for it. But demon is the most honest.

And a demon has a life of its own. It has a history. It wants something.

It is not necessarily evil. It is not even particularly interested in destroying us, even if it can sometimes look that way. It is mostly... old. Tired. And convinced that it is still needed.

Sometimes it shows up as fear. Sometimes as a need for control. Sometimes as a stubbornness that refuses to let go. Sometimes as the need to always be the strong one, the good one, or the one who saves everyone else.

Do you recognize it?

Maybe you also wonder:

"Why do I behave the way I do? Why do others behave the way they do?"

And what happens when we meet—you with yours, me with mine—and our demons suddenly find themselves in the same room?

 

What is a demon, really?

It was born as an answer. To something that was too difficult, too early, too much—or maybe too little. It learned to protect us in the only way it knew. And it worked. Once. In time.

But demons do not learn to forget on their own. They do not automatically update themselves. And they remain at the same post, year after year, standing guard against dangers that no longer exist.

That is why they sometimes feel so... irrational. For they do not react to what is happening now. They react to what happened then.

And that is also why they are so difficult to argue with.

You cannot convince a demon with logic. It does not listen to arguments. It usually listens exclusively to calm.

And even though our demons can explain a lot of what we do, they actually make surprisingly few decisions entirely on their own.

 

When Demons Recognize Each Other

And then we meet someone.

Someone whose voices remind us of our own. They come from the same kind of place. The same kind of wounds, the same kind of defenses, the same kind of way of keeping the world at a distance or pulling it too close.

It is sometimes called chemistry. Sometimes love. Sometimes friendship. Sometimes just a feeling of—this person understands something I never needed to explain.

And it is true. It is real. And yes, it can actually be really beautiful.

At the same time, it may also be worth asking:

"What is it, really, that we recognize?"

The person? Or their demon?

For demons can like each other. They can find each other across a room, across a dinner table, across a screen. They recognize their own.

And sometimes they fit together in a way that feels like coming home.

But sometimes they fit together in a way that feels like a disaster in slow motion.

 

When We Feel at Home Immediately

There are people who make us relax almost immediately.

We call it chemistry. A gut feeling. Sometimes intuition.

And sometimes we are right.

But sometimes I wonder if we humans are a little too quick to call recognition safety.

For what feels familiar is not always what is good for us. Sometimes it is just familiar.

We recognize the way someone withdraws. The way someone needs to be validated. The way someone takes responsibility for everything. The way someone never asks for help.

And something in us thinks:

"Ah. I know that one."

As if we have met that exact dance before.

Maybe we have. Maybe that is why some people feel like home the very first time we meet. And maybe that is why some homes have not always felt particularly safe.

Yet sometimes something else happens. 

Two people meet. The demons are there, as always. But they do not get the leading role. No one tries to save the other. No one tries to be saved. No one feels strangely at home in the other's chaos. And for some reason, it feels calm. 

Demons That Clash With Each Other

Then there are the other meetings.

The ones that make something in us want to withdraw without really knowing why. Where the chemistry is missing, where the air feels wrong, where we look for excuses to go home early. Simply because our demons speak different languages—or because our demons live in different worlds.

And sometimes it is exactly that simple. Incompatible demons. Like two melodies that are beautiful on their own—but together become only noise.

What we react most strongly to in others—what makes us roll our eyes, step back, lose patience—is rarely random. It usually points to something. Something we have worked hard to leave behind. Or something we have not yet dared to look at in ourselves.

Not always. But often enough for the question to be worth asking:

"Is it really you I cannot stand—or is it something in you that somehow reminds me of something in me?"

 

What Does Your Demon Really Want?

No one talks about this very much. And the simplest thing is often the hardest.

It also begins here with a question: 

"What do you really want?"

For beneath all that noise—beneath the defenses, the reactions, the wrong words at the wrong moment—there is usually something that was once an unmet need. A fear that never got an answer, or a grief that never got to take up space.

The demon screamed because it did not know how to ask. And when you really listen for the first time, something strange happens.

It calms down a little. Because the one who screamed to be heard no longer needs to scream as loudly.

 

Do We Inherit Our Demons?

Here is a thought to consider.

The egg that one day became you was already in your mother's body when she lay as a fetus in your grandmother's pregnant womb. Three generations in one and the same moment. Your grandmother's body, your mother's becoming egg, your becoming life.

And in that body—in your grandmother's body—a life full of emotions, experiences, stress, joy, grief was unfolding. All of that she carried. And research suggests that fetuses absorb far more than we have long believed, such as stress hormones, emotional states, what is going on in the world outside the womb.

 

Where Do They Really Come From—Our Demons?

It is never easy to answer. Perhaps something was carried with us from the very beginning, built into cells and memories we never consciously experienced. Perhaps we learned them early, in the home we grew up in, in the unsaid between parents, in what we witnessed before we even had words for it.

And some we have made up ourselves. For lack of better explanations for why life hurts in just that one place.

Inherited, learned, or invented: it may matter less than we think. They are still ours now, deeply built in. Some of them—one way or another—before we even knew we had a choice.

 

When Demons Like Each Other More Than We Do

There are surely relationships that hold together for the wrong reasons—because our demons have found each other and decided to stay. They enjoy each other's company. They understand each other in a way we may never have truly done.

And one day you wake up and wonder: 

"Who am I, really, without this dynamic? Without this person who triggers exactly that?"

It is an uncomfortable question. But an important one.

 

The Demons We Are a Little Proud Of

Let us be honest.

Not all demons are the ones we want to get rid of. Some of them have shaped us into exactly the person we are:

the stubbornness that refuses to give up, the sharpness that sees through most things, or the intensity that others sometimes call—too much.

Are the demons we are proud of, after all, the hardest to explore? For they are also part of our identity. And who are we without them?

 

When We Fall in Love With Someone's Demon

It happens more often than we want to admit.

We think we have fallen in love with the person—with their gaze, their voice, their way of being in the room. But sometimes it is their vulnerability we have fallen for. Their chaos. And: yes, their demon.

Then life begins...

You may grow together, and your demons may learn to live side by side, even complement each other. What was once two separate darknesses becomes something shared, something you carry together without even needing to put into words.

Then one of you begins to change. Heal. Grow. And the other stands still and wonders where the person they recognized themselves in has gone.

Or something in one of you worsens, sometimes even in both of you, and the demons that once fit together begin to tear instead of binding.

Maybe you begin to work together against your demons, with each other, in the same direction. It turns out to be the strongest glue of all.

Or you wake up one day and realize it was not the person you were in love with. It was the recognizable darkness. And now that the darkness has lifted, we are left—two people who see each other in a new light. The only question is whether we like what we see.

There is no simple answer. There are only the choices we make, consciously or not, when demons meet.

 

One Last Thought—Or Perhaps a First?

So there they are. Yours, mine, theirs.

Old. Tired. Convinced that they are still needed.

And you know what? Maybe they are needed. At least a little. At least sometimes. After all, they have followed us all the way here through all of that, and yes, we are still alive. That is actually quite impressive of them.

And what if the goal is not even to get rid of them? What if the goal is to get to know them as well as possible and give them enough love so that they stop ruling in secret? Instead, one day they knock on the door, wait to be let in, and sometimes hear: "Not now, but thank you for checking in."

For a demon that has been seen and heard does not need to scream. A demon that is understood can actually rest. And a demon that has received enough love can, over time, become something unexpected—quite kind.