My demons, your demons

When Demons Recognize Each Other

We all have one. Or several.

Those voices that know exactly which word will hurt 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 prettier 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’s not necessarily evil. It’s not even particularly interested in destroying us – though it may sometimes seem that way. Most of all, it’s… old. Tired. And convinced that it’s still needed.

Sometimes it manifests 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 capable one, or the one who saves everyone else.

Do you recognize that?

Perhaps 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, I with mine – and our demons suddenly find themselves in the same room?

What exactly is a demon?

It was born as a response. To something that was too difficult, too early, too much – or perhaps too little. It learned to protect us in the only way it knew how. And it worked. Once. Upon a time.

But demons don't learn to forget on their own. They don't update automatically. And they stay at the same post, year after year, guarding against dangers that no longer exist.

That's why they sometimes feel so... irrational. Because they don't react to what's happening now. They react to what happened then.

And that's also why they are so hard to argue with.

You can't persuade a demon with logic. It doesn't listen to arguments. It usually listens exclusively to calm.

And although our demons can explain much 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 wound, the same kind of defense, the same kind of way of keeping the world at bay or pulling it too close.

Sometimes it's called chemistry. Sometimes love. Sometimes friendship. Sometimes just a feeling of – this person understands something I've never had to explain.

And that's true. It's real. And yes, it can actually be quite beautiful.

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

"What is it we're actually recognizing?"

The person? Or their demon?

Because demons can like each other. They can find each other across a room, across a dinner table, across a screen. They know 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 slow-motion catastrophe.

When we feel at home immediately

There are people who make us relax almost immediately.

We call it chemistry. Gut feeling. Sometimes intuition.

And sometimes we're right.

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

Because what feels familiar isn't always what's good for us. Sometimes it's just familiar.

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

And something in us thinks:

"Ah. I know that."

As if we've met that dance before.

Perhaps we have. Perhaps that's why some people feel like home the first time we meet. And perhaps that's why some homes haven't always been very safe.

Yet sometimes something else happens. 

Two people meet. The demons are there, as always. But they don't take center stage. 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

Then there are the other encounters.

The ones that make something in us withdraw without really knowing why. Where the chemistry is absent, 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's just that simple. Incompatible demons. Like two melodies that are beautiful on their own – but together just become 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've worked hard to put behind us. Or something we haven't yet dared to look at in ourselves.

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

"Is it really you I can't stand – or is there something in you that reminds me in some way of something in me?"

What does your demon really want?

Nobody talks about this much. And the simplest is often the hardest.

It also begins here with a question: 

"What do you really want?"

Because beneath all that noise – beneath the defenses, the reactions, the inappropriate 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 a place.

The demon screamed because it didn't know how to ask. And when you truly 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's a thought to ponder.

The egg that one day became you – it was already in your mother's body when she was a fetus in your grandmother's pregnant womb. Three generations in one single moment. Your grandmother's body, your mother's future egg, your future life.

And in that body – in your grandmother's body – a life full of emotions, experiences, stress, joy, sorrow was ongoing. All that she carried. And research suggests that fetuses absorb far more than we long believed – stress hormones, emotional states, what is happening in the world outside the womb.

Where do they really come from – our demons?

It's never easy to answer. Perhaps something was already carried from the start, 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 them up ourselves. For lack of better explanations for why life hurts in just that particular place.

Inherited, learned, or invented – perhaps it matters less than we think. They are still ours now – deeply embedded. Some of them – in one way or another – before we even knew we had a choice.

When the demons like each other more than we do

There are certainly relationships that stay together for the wrong reasons – because our demons have found each other and decided to stay. They get along. They understand each other in a way we may never truly have.

And one day you wake up and wonder: 

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

It's an uncomfortable question. But an important one.

The demons we're a little proud of

Let's be honest.

Not all demons are 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, the intensity that others sometimes call – too much.

Perhaps the demons we are proud of are the hardest to explore. Because they are also a 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'd like to admit.

We think we've fallen in love with the person – with their gaze, their voice, their way of being in the room. But sometimes it's their vulnerability we've become attached to. Their chaos. Their demon.

And then life begins.

Perhaps you grow together – your demons learn to live side by side, even complementing each other. What was once two separate darknesses becomes something shared, something you carry together without even needing to put words to it.

Perhaps one of you starts to change. Heal. Grow. And the other remains, wondering where the person they recognized went.

Perhaps something worsens in one of you – or in both. And the demons that once fit together begin to tear instead of bind.

Perhaps you start working together – against your demons, with each other, in the same direction. And it turns out to be the strongest bond of all.

Or one day you wake up and realize – it wasn't the person I was in love with. It was the recognizable darkness. And now that the darkness has lifted, we remain – 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 the demons meet.

A final thought – or perhaps a first?

So there they are. Yours, mine, theirs.

Old. Tired. Convinced they are still needed.

And you know what? Maybe they are needed. At least a little. At least sometimes. After all, they've been with us all the way here – through all of that – and we're still alive. That's actually quite impressive of them.

Perhaps the goal isn't to get rid of them. Perhaps the goal is to get to know them so well and give them enough love so that they stop secretly controlling. Instead, one beautiful day they'll knock on the door, waiting to be let in – and sometimes get to hear: "Not now, but thanks for checking in."

Because a demon that has been seen and heard doesn't need to scream. A demon that is understood can actually rest. And a demon that has received enough love can, in time, become something unexpected – quite kind.