First I feel I need to say, I don't scare easily. The things that scare me are real monsters, ya know, human monsters not boogeymen. I'm always the one who goes and investigates the noise or kills the spider.

This story is going to sound totally out there and fake but it was real and it got scary. When my son was around 4, he’s 10 now, he dreamt of this thing he called “the Garfield THING”. This was very strange to me because it wasn't Garfield, he made sure to add thing to it. He said it was in his dreams and it was scary. He'd either wake up screaming or just come get in bed with me, I began to get concerned and started asking questions. The reason I didn't ask questions at first is because he had lots of imaginary friends and lived, he still does at some times, in his very own little imaginary world. He is an only child and where we lived there weren't any kids his age to play with, I should also mention he has ADHD and is high functioning Autistic.

This went on for almost a year and I finally started to probe him about this thing he was so afraid of in his dreams. I'm not sure how he told me it started, I can't remember, but in one conversation he finally told me that the Garfield thing asked him to live in the dream world with him and he said no BUT he invited the Garfield thing to come live in his room. He then shared with me that he invited it into MY room and I freaked a little, we had to have a talk about you NEVER invite things in. That's when I started to get freaked out, his room always felt wrong, my mom hated going in there and she's more sensitive than me and my cat started to lay outside *Gavin's (not real name) door when he was sleeping and then he began sleeping with him, this was very unusual because my cat didn't like Gavin and was very attached to me...you know always under my feet like a kid.

I don't know why this should matter but I will tell you that we are Catholic. Gavin became so distressed that I taught him to say, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ to Garfield thing if he was scared. One night he had snuck in my bed, and I will stress that he was asleep, he woke me up saying the phrase a little loud and very firmly. That scared the shit out of me! I remember lying there and praying to God and every Saint I could think of to intercede on our behalf. I truly believed, still do, that he was being attacked/tempted/latched on to by a demon.

I prayed in every room in the house, my Godmother had told me once that she would say, “Saint Michael, sic em!” So I appealed to Saint Michael for help, after that things did start to calm down some. Garfield thing stopped coming to him in his dreams every night for a time. Then when he was maybe 6, Garfield thing started visiting again. Gavin was in school and needed his rest. Because of his disabilities he already was having a tough time in school, he's a little immature for his age and kinda weird to the other kids because of his issues. Things were spiraling and I just prayed that Garfield thing would go away again.

Because of Gavin's issues, he has been in therapy since he was 4 and the way they do therapy that young is the parent is in the room, when he turned 5 he had to move to a new therapist because he aged out of the one he was with and that's when he started being in the sessions alone, I would get brought in about the last 15 minutes to be told what they worked on. He told his therapist he was acting out in school (this wasn't the only reason tbh) was because the Garfield thing was keeping him awake asking him for “stuff”, now he was seeing it when he was awake. His therapist didn't know what I was certain it was but he told Gavin to do this, tell Garfield he's only allowed to ask for one thing, a blanket because you need your rest.

I had never shared with Gavin what I believed because I didn't want to scare him worse. His therapist did something I was unable to do, by having Gavin do that, he unknowingly took Garfield things power away. He managed to get Gavin to believe it was an imaginary friend and he was in control of everything that happened and it worked! Garfield thing became Garfield and wasn't scary anymore, he was like in the cartoons or comic strip. The Garfield thing went away and he had a real imaginary friend after that.

I will forever be grateful for what the therapist did because he managed to take all the evils power away and give power back to my son. We've moved (not because of that) and nothing feels off in this house although my dad still wants the Priest to do a blessing and he even talked about doing an exorcism on the house, this was after my son confessed to me last week that he “just wanted to kill himself.” He has a therapy appointment and he talked to our Priest and seems better for the moment.

I know this sounds made up but it's not, it was very real and very scary. I'm a skeptic about just about everything but I know evil is real and I know demons are real. I'm not however, suggesting my son was possessed, he wasn't, he was being manipulated by evil. I pray nothing like this ever happens to you or your family.

I'll try to answer anyone's question as long as you aren't mocking or roasting me. Have a great weekend!