📱 Episode 12: My Phone Got Possessed by a Spirit Who Thinks It’s My Mom





 It started with a text I didn’t remember sending to myself.

“You are a radiant light in a chaotic world. Now go floss.”
It was 3:17 a.m. My room was dark, my dreams unsettled, and my phone was glowing like a judgmental halo. I squinted at the message, unsure whether I was hallucinating or finally losing it in a poetic way.

The messages continued.

“Eat a vegetable today. Please.”
“You can’t manifest abundance with those dishes in the sink.”
“Sit up straight. I raised you better than this.”

It wasn’t just the text messages. My lock screen had changed too. It now displayed an unsettlingly nostalgic carousel of baby pictures, complete with captions like:
“Remember who you were before adulting broke your spirit?”

This was not normal iOS behavior.

Enter Carl. My monocled cactus. My houseplant therapist. My emotional support photo-synthesizer.

When I presented my glowing, guilt-ridden device to him, he didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned back in his terra cotta throne and sipped something from a hollowed-out jade crystal.

“Maternal software integration,” he said with a slow blink. “Your phone has been possessed by an ancestral spirit. Possibly your mother. Possibly the collective guilt of feminine-coded caretaking energy. Either way, she means well. Probably.”

I blinked. “You’re saying my iPhone has become... my mom?”

Carl adjusted his monocle. “Not just any mom. Your mom, filtered through years of unresolved expectations and repressed bedtime routines. Think of it as emotional firmware. She’s come to finish what she started.”

The next few days felt like living in a bizarre combination of Her, Black Mirror, and a childhood chore chart that had developed sentience.

Anytime I slouched, my phone buzzed—an electric zap of posture correction. When I skipped breakfast, it locked the music app and displayed a notification:
“No vibes until you eat something green.”

Even my apps weren’t safe. I tried to open a dating app and instead received a push notification:
“Sweetheart. We need to talk about your standards.”

When I did match with someone (a meditation coach with a man-bun and a tattoo of a spiral galaxy), my phone intercepted the first message with:
“What are your intentions with my child?”
Then it unmatched him. Without consulting me.

I tried deleting the app. My phone responded with a popup:
“You’re not running away from love. You’re avoiding vulnerability.”

It escalated.

One morning, I discovered that my reminders app had been converted into a “Life Audit Tracker.” I clicked it and was greeted by a rotating list of to-dos:

  • “Write that apology text you’ve been avoiding.”

  • “Call Grandma. She won’t live forever, you know.”

  • “Stop pretending iced coffee is a personality.”

I tried to delete the app. My phone asked if I was “emotionally ready to detach from accountability.” I wasn’t.

Carl, as always, remained serenely amused. He hosted a quick intervention (he called it a “Digital Reparenting Ceremony”) in which we sat in a triangle of Himalayan salt lamps while he waved a USB stick over the phone and chanted:
“Firmware, be gentle. Pixels, be kind.”

I cried. The phone updated itself.

For twelve hours, all was peaceful. Then the phone began autocorrecting my texts.

“I’m feeling lost lately,” became:
“I’m just tired and dehydrated but still full of potential.”

“I hate everything,” was revised to:
“I need a snack and a nap and maybe a therapist.”

And when I tried to write in my journal app about my ex, the phone closed the app entirely and opened Pinterest to a board called “Better Taste in the Future, Darling.”

Eventually, I attempted a factory reset. Carl looked horrified.

“You can’t delete spiritual growth,” he whispered. “That’s like trying to un-boil an egg.”

Ignoring him, I clicked the reset button. The phone went dark for 60 full seconds. I felt something like liberation.

Then it rebooted. The startup screen said:
“Nice try. But you still haven’t cleaned your stove.”

The climax came when I tried to permanently delete an old message thread titled “Unsent Texts to My Father’s Absence.” I dragged it to the trash, only for a notification to appear:
“This memory cannot be deleted. Recycle Bin has formed a union.”

I opened the bin. Inside, digital protest signs blinked with pixelated sass:

  • “Emotions Are Not Garbage”

  • “We Demand Ritual Closure”

  • “Delete ≠ Heal”

Carl joined me for mediation. We hosted a “Negotiated Memory Release Ceremony” with lavender incense, a playlist of inner child lullabies, and a hand-written affirmation contract. The Recycle Bin agreed to relinquish 3 GB of emotional clutter in exchange for weekly journaling and two therapy memes a day.

That night, I finally made peace with my possessed phone. I curled into bed, emotionally wrung out but spiritually recharged. MomPhone buzzed softly as I closed my eyes.

“I’m proud of you. Now moisturize your soul.”

I whispered, “Thanks, ghost mom.”

Then, one final buzz:
“Also, you left your curling iron on.”

It hadn’t even been plugged in.

🎭 Coming Next Week...

Episode 13: I Got Rejected by a Dream I Didn’t Know I Had

Carl says it’s time for lucid dream therapy, but things get complicated fast when a dream about me winning the Nobel Prize throws me out of the ceremony for “emotional unreadiness.” A dream version of Carl (made of velvet and resentment) is replaced by a dream cactus who files a restraining order.

Things get symbolic. A courtroom forms. I might be sued by my subconscious.

And yes, there are frogs in suits. You’ve been warned.

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