“It’s been 5 minutes since we’ve been talking about and making fun of the demon! How anxious are you feeling, now, from 0 to 10?” I asked, pen hovered above the page, ready to mark down her anxiety level at the 5-minute mark.

“3,” she said, fidgeting in her seat.

“I see! Wow, it was a 7 at the start, what helped it drop so quickly to a 3?” I asked, a little surprised. Exposure therapy usually took longer than that.

“We don’t have any red containers in here. The demon hides only in red containers.”

There it was. The detail I missed. The little girl had been terrified of even speaking about the demon, so we had not managed to discuss it enough to know these important elements, not until this session.

“I see,” I said, furrowing my brows. Then an idea popped up, and I smiled.

“The other room is available right now, and there’s a large red container used to hold toys. Do you think the demon could hide in something like that?”

The little girl’s face fell. I felt bad for her, but knew that this was necessary.

She nodded solemnly, biting her lower lip.

“Are you willing to try this at the other room? But don’t worry,” I said, seeing her face turn pale, “we will just talk about it for 5 minutes! That’s all we need to start with. Just 5 minutes, and you can pray or leave the room or think good thoughts to chase the thought of the demon away after.”

Usually, I would ensure that for any exposure activity I conducted with clients, clients would have their reported anxiety levels lowered to 0 on the scale, before ending the exposure. But for this little girl, she was not ready to do that yet. Just talking about the demon in her imagination while assessing her obsessive and compulsive symptoms had made her tear up.

She firmly believed that there was an invisible demon following her, which could make itself seen at times. Every time she thought about the demon, she would have to pray three times, and think of a series of good thoughts to “chase the bad thought away”. Her anxiety about this demon had steadily increased over the months, and finally, her parents sent her for therapy.

I had been explaining what Obsessive Compulsive Disorder was to her for the past sessions, and prepping her for the Exposure and Response-Prevention sessions that we would be doing. We had her list of anxiety-triggering situations and the actions she would feel compelled to do to ease her anxiety, ranked in order from those that provoked the least anxiety to the highest.

Today was our first ever exposure session. I was surprised that she was even willing to try to talk about the demon for 5 minutes straight for her first ever exposure activity.

She hesitated, and I said, “How about just for 2 minutes? And we don’t have to make fun of it, we can just talk about it, help me understand what it’s like more. How’s that?” I smiled as encouragingly as possible.

She slowly nodded, and grabbed her bag. I praised her profusely for her bravery and courage, then we made our way to the other room in the clinic.

She stared nervously at the red container when we entered, and after we settled down.

“So, shall we start?” I asked gently.

“Okay.”

“You brave girl! All right, how anxious are you feeling right now?”

“8,” she said, her eyes glued to the red container.

I noted it down, and asked “How does this demon look like?”

Before she could respond, the lights in the room began to flicker.

I saw the fear mount in her eyes, and jumped to reassure her.

“This light has been flickering for the past week! It’s an old bulb. We really should’ve gotten it changed earlier, I’ll let the manager know to please get it done soon.”

This was complete nonsense, I had no idea that the lights were faulty until that moment. But there was no way in hell that I’d let my client have her beliefs in this demon cemented. It would make future exposure sessions for her that much more difficult, and her symptoms would probably worsen.

“Do you know that old bulbs no longer allow the electricity to circulate smoothly? So the lights flicker, like this.” I saw her face relax a little as I said this.

“Are you ready to continue?” I asked. She nodded.

We proceeded to discuss how the demon looked like. It had no face. It was a man. He was apparently a deep burgundy red, or, as the girl described, “dark red, like the colour of mummy’s wine”.

He had appeared in her mind around 4 months ago, but she had never seen him in person, in real life. But she knew he was waiting to be able to spring out at her, a scythe in hand, to slice her to pieces. She couldn’t think about him for too long, or he would appear.

He didn’t eat, didn’t sleep, and could leave the house by teleporting. He had skinny legs and couldn’t run fast, so she was often able to get away in time when she felt he was about to appear.

As we spoke about this demon, I asked for her anxiety levels at regular intervals. Her anxiety shot up due to the flickering lights, but slowly went down over time.

“Hey, you realise something?” I asked, smiling widely, staring at her with a glint in my eye.

“What?” She asked, eyes wide.

“You’ve been talking about him for 10 minutes already!” I announced proudly.

Her jaw dropped. “Oh wow!”

“Right? This is so impressive. You agreed to 5 minutes, but how time has gone by! And, he is nowhere to be seen!”

She broke into a huge smile, and seemed mighty proud of herself. As she should be. I praised her courage, and she announced that she wanted to continue with the exposure session.

35 minutes later, her anxiety was at a 1. There was no way for it to get to 0, she had explained, as she believed that a reason why the demon didn’t appear was because I was there with her. I tried to explain to her that that was how Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) worked – it tried to give reasons and excuses to discount any experiences that the person might have, so that it could survive longer in the person. OCD would make up stories about why exposure therapy went well, to make the person doubt themselves. But I also knew that she would probably have to go through an exposure session alone for her to truly believe that.

But I was hopeful. She announced that the flickering lights were just annoying to her now, not scary, and before she left, she said, “Maybe the demon really doesn’t exist.”

As I packed my stuff and prepared to leave the room, the lights continued to flicker. I shot a quick text to the clinic manager about replacing the bulb, then went to make sure everything in the clinic was in order before I left. No one else was around as I was the only psychologist willing to work past normal working hours on a Friday.

I felt a chill run down my spine as I shut off the lights. I laughed nervously to myself. Those damn lights and all that talk about demons really did freak me out a little. I shook my head. I needed to work on erasing the last traces of my superstitious beliefs to be a better psych.

With that thought, I decided to settle down on a chair in the room with the red container, in the dark. I wanted to leave, I wanted to get home, but I needed to do some exposure therapy on myself. I used to have OCD, to be honest, and I had crazy magical beliefs and fears, and once in a while, these days, I still had to catch myself and practice exposure whenever I was tempted to perform my compulsions, to get back to a healthier baseline.

I felt beads of cold sweat prick my forehead. I was a little surprised by the tension in my body. I pretty much have any traces of obsessions and compulsions under control, so I didn’t expect that level of anxiety to occur from sitting in the clinic in the dark.

But something felt incredibly off. My stomach was twisting itself into a knot, my body recoiling at the terrifying sense that something was really wrong. That something awful was about to happen.

Determined to walk the talk, I grabbed the armrests and planted my feet firmly on the ground to stop my body from fleeing the clinic.

Focus on the anxiety, I thought to myself. Where is it in my body? How does it feel? What shape, size, colour, texture is it?

Mindfulness exercises like that would usually tide me over any overwhelming emotions. But this time, it was not working. I felt the hairs on my arm stand on end, and little goosebumps appeared down the lengths of my arms and legs.

My neck was tickling with an odd sensation.

Still, I sat there, knowing that OCD would do anything do be back again. That it was just my brain trying to fall back to the once-familiar patterns of me hiding from my obsessive thoughts with my compulsive behaviours. So I froze, and refused to move a muscle. My breath was getting ragged, but I knew this would all pass.

After a while, the fear started to pass. I could feel my heart rate going back to normal, the cold sweat on my palms easing up, and my muscles beginning to relax.

I couldn’t help but feel a rush of triumph. Another win against OCD, or the vestiges of it.

A loud thud came from the red container, startling me so intensely that I could almost swear my stomach got lodged in my throat. Adrenaline raged through my body and I choked back a scream.

I imagined that. I thought frantically to myself. My overactive imagination and nerves must have…

Another loud thud, then a series of thumping. It sounded like something was trying to get out.

This time, I screamed, a shrill piercing sound that cut through the quiet of the building.

I sprang into action, and made a mad dash for the clinic door. I swung it shut behind me and ran, then paused.

My whole body was rigid with terror, but I knew I had to lock up the clinic. Confidential information and stuff.

I looked around, and saw that the security guard stationed at the entrance of the building had looked up in surprise, probably due to my scream. His eyes met mine, and he began to stand up and walk towards me.

There was someone here with me. Everything was going to be okay. It was probably a mouse. No, a …a…

My brain couldn’t formulate a creature that could possibly be tucked away in that box of toys. But before I could think too much about it, I forced my feet back a few steps, grabbed the clinic key and jabbed it into the lock. Thankfully, despite my shaking hands, the key slid right in. I locked the door and fled, running past the confused and concerned security guard. I wanted to tell him to run too, but I knew how crazy I would sound. I couldn’t afford to be seen as the crazy psychologist running from an imaginary demon.

When I finally got home, I sank into my sofa and cried. I felt a mixture of shame, horror and confusion. I must have imagined it, I knew, but it seemed so real. Was I going crazy? Did I have schizophrenia? Onset of psychosis and hallucinations can start in the early 30s. Did I really have schizophrenia?

As the thoughts flew through my mind, I looked around the living room for signs of any red containers. None at all. Then I walked around the house, and thankfully, no red containers anywhere I could see.

Red isn’t my favourite colour, and for that, I was incredibly grateful.

I brewed myself a hot cup of tea, and thought about who I could talk to about the incident, who would be compassionate and non-judgmental. Someone who would not think less of me as a psychologist.

Probably Lynn. I settled down in bed, for once not caring that I hadn’t showered, and pulled the comforter over me. Sipping the hot tea under the comforter, I began to feel better. I kept writing and rewriting the text to Lynn, worrying about how crazy I would sound.

Something shifted below the bed. Like a box moving along the floor.

I froze, fingers paused in mid text. My chest tightened painfully.

Should I call the police? I wondered. But what if I’m hallucinating? That would out me as psychotic to everyone.

I tapped my phone screen to the dial page just in case.

I couldn’t bring myself to look under the bed. I just sat there, frozen.

The fucking first aid kit, I realised. The red box containing first aid supplies. Under my bed.

I was crying silently at this point, trembling with tears rolling down my cheeks.

After hearing another thud from under the bed, I finally sprang into action.

I shot out from my bed room and right out the door, thankful that my phone case was one of those that had hooks, pockets and compartments for holding my house keys my credit card and my identification card. I shot straight out of the house, and kept running.

By the time I stopped, I was four blocks away from my house. I finally took the time to calm down, and took a taxi to the nearest hotel.

At the reception, I requested for a charging cable for my phone, and that the room be cleared of any red containers. I ignored the look of judgment and confusion on the receptionist’s face. I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone, especially not in this shitty situation.

Now, after a hot shower to clear my head, I’m painstakingly typing this out on my phone. You know, just in case I’m not going crazy and a demon is really after me, I want someone to know what happened to me.

I’ll probably go see another psychologist, there’s no avoiding that now. I’ll take time off. Work has been stressful and that probably fuelled my mental breakdown.

If you guys have any experiences like this, and survived, please do let me know how you got out of it. I would really appreciate it. Or if you’ve hallucinations, well, I guess we could form a support group or something.

Fuck. Someone just banged on the wall. It’s just the next guest next door being an asshole, right?