When I Offered My Demons a Seat: A Story of Grief, Grace, and Making Peace
- May 10
- 5 min read
This morning, a quote found me. Or maybe I found it, but it felt more like it found me:
There was a silence that followed reading it. A kind of soul-level stillness. The kind that feels like your ancestors are holding their breath behind you, waiting to see if you’ll understand. And I did. I understood it in the marrow of me. Because I know what it means to live haunted. I know what it means to lose someone to the haunting.
I lost my brother to his demons. The kind where people don't die all at once. They disappear in pieces. My brother didn't take his life with a single, final act... no, those details still remain to be seen. However, up until that point he lived his way out through a slow-burning kind of surrender. What some would call unintentional or passive suicide. Beneath the surface of his choices was the heavy weight of his untreated mental illness... the kind that distorts reality, numbs the will to live, and erodes self-worth from the inside out. His decisions weren't always conscious, but they were shaped by pain he didn't know how to name and couldn't find help to heal. He reached a point, like so many people do at one point or another, where staying alive hurt more than slipping away, and the suffering he carried became too heavy to put down. This kind of quiet exit is harder to name, harder to mourn... but no less real, no less tragic, and no less sacred to witness.
This post is for him. And for anyone who has loved someone fighting invisible wars. For anyone who is that someone. For anyone who’s ever asked, "Why couldn't they win?" or "Why can't I make it stop?"
The War We Don't Talk About
We are conditioned to fight the darkness. To cast out the shadow. To slay the dragons within. Our entire culture tells us that demons are enemies: addiction, mental illness, trauma, rage, grief, shame... they are seen as failures, as malfunctions to fix or vanquish. But here’s the truth no one taught us:
Your demons are not trying to kill you. They are trying to be seen.
My brother was one of the kindest souls I’ve ever known. He laughed easily. He felt deeply. And he carried things he couldn’t name. Maybe none of us could. The kind of things that twist themselves around the soul until joy feels dangerous. The kind of things that whisper, day after day, "You don’t deserve to be free."
And he fought. God, he fought. But he was never taught to offer his pain a seat at the table. He only knew how to wrestle it down. How to outpace it. How to mask it. How to smile while bleeding.
Until he couldn’t anymore.
What If We Invited the Demons In?
That quote—"My demons stopped haunting me when I offered them a seat"—isn’t a metaphor for giving up. It’s a radical act of spiritual hospitality. It’s the brave, countercultural decision to sit down with what hurts and say, "Okay. I'm listening. What are you trying to tell me?"
Imagine if we stopped treating our brokenness as evidence of failure. Imagine if we gave our grief a name. If we let our rage speak. If we let our shame come out from the shadows, not to be fed, but to be freed.
Offering your demons a seat doesn’t mean you welcome chaos. It means you recognize that ignoring your pain won't save you. Denial doesn't heal. Exile doesn't bring peace. Only presence does.
Healing Isn’t Always a Battle
When I sit with clients in my Soul Work practice, I don’t try to banish their pain. I don't prescribe silver linings or urge them to rise above. I invite them to befriend the parts of themselves they've been taught to fear. The angry teenager. The terrified child. The addict. The saboteur. The numb one. The frantic one. The one who gave up.
And I teach them to listen.
Because underneath every demon is a wound. And underneath every wound is a story. And underneath every story is a truth that needs witnessing.
This is not easy work. But it is holy. It is the kind of work that unbinds you, piece by piece, until the haunting gives way to wholeness.
My Brother Deserved That Seat
I think a lot about what would have happened if my brother had been allowed to pull up a chair and invite his demons to speak. If someone had told him: You don’t have to fight alone. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to pretend you’re not in pain.
Would he still be here?
I don’t know. But I do know that his death has made me more tender with the haunted. It’s made me more aware of the people who feel they are broken or lost. It’s made me realize that some of the most beautiful souls are the ones who sit with their monsters every day and choose, again and again, not to become them.
So I sit now. With my own grief. With the ache of missing him. With the guilt of not being able to fix it. And I let that pain have a voice. Because ignoring it doesn’t bring him back. But maybe honoring it keeps him with me.
You Are Not Your Demons
This part is for you, dear one. You, reading this with tears in your eyes or a tightness in your chest.
You are not broken because you are haunted. You are not weak because you carry pain. You are not lost because you hear the old voices some nights.
You are surviving. You are sacred. You are whole, even in the unraveling.
And you deserve a life where your demons no longer need to scream to be heard.
You don’t have to do this alone.
Make Room
Today, I set another place at my inner table. For the part of me that still aches. For the part that sometimes feels like I failed him. For the part of me that doubts. For the part that knows how to love this deeply.
And I invite you to do the same. Find a quiet moment. Light a candle. Breathe. Then ask yourself:
Which part of me have I been pushing away?
What pain have I refused to acknowledge?
What would happen if I just listened?
You might be surprised by what your demons have to say when they are no longer forced to scream through symptoms, breakdowns, or silence.
You might find they weren’t demons after all. Just messengers. Just parts of you, long exiled, finally coming home.
In Loving Memory
To my brother: You are not forgotten. You are not your pain. You are not your end.
You are stardust and firelight and the sound of laughter echoing across years.
And every time I make room at my table, you are there.
Always.
With tenderness and truth, Mad Madame Gin
If you or someone you love is struggling, please know there are lifelines. You don’t have to wait until it gets worse. You don’t have to do this alone.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (US): 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741
If you're carrying the weight of grief, wrestling with shadows, or trying to make peace with the parts of you that still ache — know this: you're not broken, and you're not alone. My work was born in the spaces where pain and beauty coexist, where healing whispers through the cracks, and where even your demons can become honored guests. If this story stirred something in you, I invite you to reach out. There’s room at the table for all of you.
— Mad Madame Gin
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