Ever since I can remember, there have always been spirits surrounding my family. My mom and my Nana both practice brujeria- the Spanish word for witchcraft. Contrary to popular belief, it’s not a bunch of people worshiping the devil, or at least that’s not how my family chooses to practice it.

My mother has had ghosts taunting her throughout her life and before she started practicing brujeria, she played with a Ouija board. To this day she won’t talk about what happened.  I don’t keep in contact with my biological mother, so I don’t know if spirits are still tormenting her or if she’s still practicing. I assume that since my family was practicing the art, it attracted a lot of spirits and some stayed.

My whole life I have had ghosts following me no matter where I went or what foster home I lived in – they have always followed me. I don’t know if it’s the same ghost over the years or if it’s been various entities.

My earliest memory is of my mother telling me a story about when we lived on the family ranch. My older brother and I would play and talk to someone that wasn’t there. At first my mother assumed we just made up an imaginary friend, but we later found out that we were playing with our great grandma who died before we were born. Somehow we knew that she was our abuelita even though we’ve never met her or heard about her.

Growing up, I always had the feeling of being watched. Before my brother and I got adopted and moved to our current home, there wasn’t any paranormal activity at this house. So whenever we would tell my parents or the kids living here about an event that happened, they wouldn’t believe us because it never happened before we came. Even when my parents witnessed something like the front door opening by itself or the doorknob wiggling, they would blame it on the wind.

While awake, I hear doors slam while being home alone or I would hear voices; I’ve even had people with me when hearing these voices and they heard them as well. Nights that my little sister would sleep over she would tell me about how I would talk in my sleep, but not in English or Spanish, which is odd because those are the only two languages that I am able to speak. My sister is a very light sleeper, so every time I get up in the night to use the bathroom, she’ll wake up as well. She was woken up by me getting up to use the bathroom but this time I was still asleep right next to her. She felt someone next to her get of the bed and then it was at the bottom of the bed staring at her. She tried waking me up but she told me all I said was “leave me alone” and then the thing vanished. It seems like every time she sleeps in my room, she has something to tell me in the morning.

Now lets talk about the last couple of months of my junior year. I got really sad when I had no reason to be, I found out later that I had depression. So I went to my friend Max’s house so he could cleanse me of the negativity with an egg – its called “limpia con huevo“- if you want to know how it’s done, click on the link. When he was cleansing me, he said he smelled sulfur and this is a sign of a demon. When he told me this I told him about how I had been feeling depressed and with all the activity that has been going on at my house, that I assumed it was just the normal friendly ghost. After the cleansing I had felt amazing, I became happy for the first time in months, and I still am. The day after Max cleansed me, he came up to me in class and said something along the lines of  “thanks, now your demon won’t leave me alone.” The night Max cleansed me, he said he kept hearing the spirit messing with things in his closet and he couldn’t sleep because of it.

While your parents gave you their smile or eyes, mine gave me ghosts. While it may seem unbelievable, it definitely happened and I will remember these events for the rest of my life.