Divine Intervention?

My story requires a little summary of my life experiences and of who I am. Growing up I never really had a childhood. I was traumatized by countless events and forced to endure many others that more than half the people on this site ever go through. The experience I'm going to recount will really be nothing but something interesting to me. (I will explain later, hopefully. Please excuse my grammar.)

I have several paranormal experiences, but I will only recount the most important, which is my sleep paralysis. Of course, this sounds like a normal thing that often happens to unlucky people. But believe me, the events that happened did make me think it was more than just my body.

My family is an evil sort. Their aura is very evil. In fact many priests and sensitive individuals have said there was a curse in the family, which I believe to be true. My uncles were all jailed most of their lives for either murder, drug abuse and possession, or child abuse. The list goes on. But I think I could have broken the curse put on my family, at least for myself.

My night terrors began when I was about three to four years old. At which I was diagnosed with PTSD (again, troubled past). And they stayed with me until I was eleven. Years passed and I had the occasional nightmare that I would just forget in the morning. But the older I got, the worse they got. They eventually progressed to the point I would wake up sweating. (Screaming was pointless to me as I had screamed for years before in many countless dreams.)

The main experience I'm talking about started to occur around the eighth grade. My sleep paralysis had appeared much more often than usual and in every dream, the same thing. Eight to ten hooded shadows would appear before my bed, and I would be held down by an invisible force. Every night it happened there would be a struggle at which I would force myself awake. To force yourself awake from sleep paralysis is quite a feat, but I have learned to do it in an instant due to years of practice.

This encounter in my sleep would last for four years. And it would happen every day. Each time I would wake myself and believe it or not, almost always at the same time. The devil's hour. Regardless of the time I slept I would always wake up at this time (3 am). If there was an hour change it would be at 2 am.

So I go about my life, struggling to just go to school, endure an abusive family and have these nightly encounters. Well now here comes the juicy parts.

My life hit rock bottom in the 10th grade. My great grandfather died. My second father other than my grandfather. It was devastating considering I felt I had no one left to give me any form of support. I just wanted to give up. The three to four months after his death are, what I believe, to be the worst memories of my life. It's not really important for this story, but let's just note I cried every day for three years straight before I went to sleep.

During this time, the nightly encounters would stop coming. Probably because whatever spirits there were, were enjoying my misery. After I finally escaped my hell I would sleep to find nightmares of it or the usual encounters of the hooded figures (they were really tall, I would say about 8 ft). Each night I would wake up feeling tired of life and everything at the exact same time. Exactly 3 am or 2.

Well here is the experience that took me so long to get to.

One night, the year after I survived my "hell", the encounters happened again. This night the usual encounters came along and held me down. At which point I was struggling to wake myself up. But this night was different. They were there and I felt that if I looked at them, their identities were to be revealed. Well this night was the night they decided to force their way into my mind.

There's no way to describe the struggle. Being paralyzed yet managing to use your mind to fight back the monsters or demons that were slowly forcing their way in. I fought with all of my might, and I felt my mind caving in. I was beginning to see images, of blood, fire, bodies piled on top of each other and other things that I cannot remember nor want to.

As my mind was caving in, I noticed something at the edge of my eye, a pure white light was slowly getting brighter and brighter through the window in my room. When I felt that my mind was at it's weakest point, this light shone so bright that everything in the area was engulfed in it. I could not see a single thing besides the light. And the grasp those demons or monsters had on my mind and body was suddenly released. I was able to get up and wash my face with cold water. Believe it or not, that was the last time I ever had those encounters. My nightmares disappeared after that, and even many years after, I haven't had one encounter.

Whatever this light was, it was the greatest gift I could imagine. My mind was finally allowed to rest for once and not have to struggle with another fight. But with this light all serious encounters with paranormal events seemed to suddenly stop. I can still read people's personalities by looking at them and their auras, but I no longer sense entities around me (the bad kind). In fact I get the feeling that whatever this light was, it stayed with me and is protecting me from any soul or demon around me. Occasionally I would feel a presence of random spirits, but then they would quickly disappear, never to be felt again.

The thing I want to ask is this. What was that light, and why do I feel like I have a bubble around me, protecting me from everything. Should this be a bad sign? My mother says it was a holy spirit, but what confuses me most is why won't let any other spirits reveal themselves to me anymore.

I challenged my demons and won (literally). My nightly encounters were won with the help through that strange intervention.

I would sometimes feel a presence besides me, and it would fill me with a strange warmth of happiness. But that's all I would ever feel. Call me crazy, but all I want is an answer as to why I feel like I'm being protected.

I would like to thank you for reading this and say that I will be participating in the discussions as to what this light was and what I should do about it. Also I would like to say that I am not religious. I do believe in a god but I refuse to pray. As I live by the motto that god is to be respected but not depended upon. For the greatest gift is to stand on your own without support.