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This cartoon is the introduction to my inner demon. She is a sneaky little shit, who is constantly telling me I’m not good enough and trying (often successfully) to convince me this message is for my own good. She enthusiastically and readily hands me the big stick for self-beatings and indulges excitedly in my personal spirals into anxiety and panic. Needless to say, I don’t like her much. But I seem to keep her around regardless of my better judgement. She does get frustrated and annoyed when I don’t pay her any attention, and I have a few cartoons illustrating this point – it’s mostly when I’m playing with my dog. You can’t think about your demon when you have a cute dog to dote on.

Reading more about this phenomenon (self-judgment and inner demons) has taught me quite a lot about how and why we as humans cultivate them, and it seemingly is our brains doing this on purpose as a survival and protection mechanism. A book that really helped me is called “Positive Intelligence” and the author (Shirzad Chamine) refers to the demons as inner saboteurs, the leader of them is known as “The Judge.” I was able to garner quite a bit of insight from his book, particularly when I made myself aware that my demon was present and running the show – even just learning to notice when she was up to her usual high-jinks was hugely beneficial. Learning about these internal figures as being a construct of our mind’s programming to protect us was a relief, as I knew I was not the only one who felt this way and it is my brain is just doing its job. This made it easier to deal with – still not easy and I certainly still go down some epic holes of angst and despair, but at least I know why it is happening. My demon is still strong, but at least I understand her and her motives a bit more.