Monday morning, Sofia woke up around midnight like she does from time to time or like anyone might wake up from time to time in the middle of the night, right. Ray went to check on her, as it is his duty and burden to address all night shift responsibilities. At about 12:30am, I was rudely awakened by hysterical crying moving up and down the hall and passed my bedroom door. When crying is not contained within Sofia’s room, it is Ray’s way of beckoning me to get up. Finally, Ray comes in the room with a fed-up-look on his face and pleads with me for assistance. I begrudingly get out of bed and try to quickly bring myself back into awareness. (This process would normally take about 30-45 minutes).
Ray takes Sofia back into her room and I follow the hysterics to observe the situation. Frankly, I’m thinking, by this time in Sofia’s life, surely Ray can handle a crying child and put her back to sleep. I mean really –check for signs of teething pain, fever, change diaper, offer milk, blanky, and “guy”, put on Baby Einstein music to sooth oneself. What else is there to be done? So I sit in the big PB rocking chair (thank God for that thing) and begin witnessing what appears to be a demonic possession. Yes, I said demonic and possession, as in possessed … by a demon.
Sofia continues to cry hysterically. She points outside the room to motion that’s where she wants to be taken. Ray immediately complies, both of us thinking –if that’s where she needs to go then take her there and everything will be good again and the crying will stop. Once Ray arrives with Sofia to the destination requested, she lets out a blood-curling screaming cry and begins kicking her legs violently and shaking her head and arms as if to say “What the hell is wrong with you! Why on earth would you bring me here? How could you possibly do this to me!” Ok, apparently we lost something in translation of that request, so Ray brings her back in her room. She then points at her bottle of milk and yells “miulk!” (Note, the hysterical crying never stops). Ray grabs it immediately and goes to hand it to her as if he were going to stop arterial bleeding with it. Same reaction again. I’ve never seen Sofia so insulted and disgusted with being offered a bottle of milk in her life. More violent kicking and flailing and more hysterical crying. We repeat this process countless iterations including her asking for Mama then being insulted and disgusted with Mama, asking for Dada while she’s still being held by Dada and being insulted and disgusted with Dada, and on and ON.
Ray continues to look at me with that desperate look of “Do Something!” but I find myself completely stunned and traumatized by the demonic possession taking place in front of me. I don’t think the fact that the lights were all off, with the exception of a faint light from the dimmer in Sofia’s room, and that I still felt jet lagged from my abrupt forced awakening and that Sofia was in fact possessed by a demon was at all helping me to know what to do in this situation.
At some point, close to 1:15am, we wandered into the office room, it must have been another one of Sofia’s violent requests to be taken somewhere followed by complete disgust over being taken there. As I realized that our attempts to maintain a dark quiet environment fostering the perfect conditions for falling back to sleep were now clearly shot to hell, I flipped on the light switch abruptly illuminated Sofia’s possessed body with harsh light hoping to exorcise the demons with the element of shock and light. This event went completely unnoticed by the demon. Feeling pretty defeated at this point, Ray decided to put the bottle of milk in to the small refrigerator we keep in the office on the floor. Once Sofia saw that there was a door that could be opened in this wondrous little white box, the demon was instantly exorcised as the hysterical crying stopped in it’s tracks and made way for “Open the door?”
So of course, I look at Ray –open the freaking door! Open it, open it now. Sofia is thrilled and mesmerized. We tell her she can open the door and she then commences to open the refrigerator door, take out the bottle, put the bottle back in and close the door with much delight and the restoration of the non-possessed look back to her face. Sofia continues this ritual for about 15 more minutes. Hey, we figure she can do that all night long if she wants. Anything is better than the demonic possession. Finally, I muster up the courage to attempt taking her back in her room where the possession originally took place and attempting to put her back in bed. We say “night night” to all the stuffed animals, twirl around four times to ward off any more evil spirits (it also helps make her a bit dizzy and prevents her from immediately trying to get up when I put her in her crib), I say “I love you, night night” and leave the room. What do you know; all is good and peaceful again.
We don’t know why demons don’t like refrigerators, but apparently they don’t. A tip you might want to jot down if someone you know is ever possessed in the middle of the night. Ray is still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and refuses to enter her room after she is asleep. We’re working on that with baby steps.
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For more information on “Confusional Arousal”, more commonly but incorrectly known as “Night Terrors”, see this article by Dr. Greene.
I gotta say, I've never been frightened by a refrigerator, but the oven scares the !#$% out of me. :P
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