It was like those movies where they start off in the middle of a scene, and you slowly have to put the context clues together to figure out what is happening. The story started to unfold slowly.

All I know is, I’m hysterically crying, I’m scared, and I can feel it in my gut that I need help. I’m standing in front of a bathroom mirror, looking at myself completely breaking down. I’m erratically crying, and to my left is my older sister at the doorway. I’m yelling at her to help me. It was such a desperate plea, I was begging her to believe me. What was I screaming?

That I needed a fucking exorcism performed on me.

She looked at me calmly. She’s trying to convince me that I’m fine. I look in the mirror, and I have a “That’s So Raven,” moment – I see a flashback of a priest performing an exorcism on me. Michelle kept reassuring me that I was fine, it was taken care of, and whatever darkness lurked in me was gone… Or so they thought.

I was in a panic. I could physically feel my adrenaline going, my heart was pounding out of my chest, and I was sweating. I was fucking terrified. But I was getting mad. In between hysterically crying, I told Michelle that I know for a fact I needed an exorcism. I kept trying to prove to her that I felt off even though on the outside I appeared to be fine.

She was so nonchalant. Giving me a look like, “This bitch is trippin’.” Which makes it funnier, because if anyone knows my older sister personally, they know firsthand that she would be freaking the fuck out, probably run out of the room before I even asked for help. But here she was, not believing me. She was as calm as ever, repeating that there was nothing up with me.

I was so frustrated. There wasn’t anything I could say for her to believe me. How could she tell me what I was feeling? In theory, yes, it should be gone, but it wasn’t. How was she so sure? But I knew it. I knew the truth. I was the one living and feeling it. At that point I knew I had to take matters into my own hands. Nobody was going to believe me. Everyone was just going to try to convince me that I should be okay.

My fight or flight kicked in, and I remember hunching over the bathroom sink, staring myself in the eye in the mirror. I went from weeping uncontrollably to being silently focused. I knew nobody was going to save me. I had to save myself. The only thing I could think to do was pray.

As I prayed, I could literally feel the bad energy leaving my body. I’m reciting the “Our Father,” not breaking eye contact with myself in the mirror. Whatever it was that was possessing my body and mind started to reveal itself, but only in my thoughts. It was a dark energy, and it’s as if a vacuum was pulling it out through my mouth. I kept praying and knew that my faith was stronger than whatever darkness was there.

At the end of it, I felt like me again. Nothing dark dwelled inside me anymore. I felt so light, and a calm took over my body. I looked at my sister, as if performing a damn exorcism on myself was a normal thing to fucking do.

“See, I told you.” I said, looking at myself in the mirror again. Even in a dream, I still had to be a know it all…

I thought about that dream the whole day and some time after. It was so intense and so detailed that I couldn’t shake it off. About 2 weeks after the dream, I told my sister about it and how I interpreted it:

I had that dream about 2 months after a break up. It was still so new and so fresh. Everyone that I told my life update to had advice to give on everything and anything – tips on when and how to move forward, dating, how I should process things, etc. I got so much love and support from all my loved ones, but I took everything with a grain of salt. I’m a very particular person, the queen of detachment at times, so I knew that my healing journey was something that would be entirely my own.

At the end of the day, everything needs to be on my time. I’m the only one that knows how I really feel. You can have a million people in your ear giving you great advice. But what I’ve learned so far is this: There are no rules on how to process things, everyone deals with life differently. All that matters is that you are comfortable with the decisions you make for yourself. You know yourself better than anyone else does. Go at your own pace, allow yourself to feel what you need to feel, and face those uncomfortable -and at times, dark – feelings head on. Avoiding your true feelings will just prolong your healing process. Have faith in knowing that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Thinking about that dream months after the fact, I feel like it was a sign to myself to remember to listen to my gut feelings. You know what’s right for you.