FIDO95 said:

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Even though I have developed a lot of good habits over the past 40 days and developed a deeper relationship with Christ, I feel like I am being tried and tested more. Perhaps I am just now more aware of the creeping darkness now that I stand closer to the light?

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Father John Riccardo pointed out in one of his homilies years ago that Sirach 2:1 is very real. " My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for trials."

My daughter has a serious visual disability. She also has glaucoma and at one point we were going thru an especially stressful time where her eye pressure was very dangerously high. I was praying all the time, one morning while driving to workout and praying constantly, I heard a voice clear as day say, ' you don't trust me'. I wasn't praying about trust, I wasn't asking for anything for me, just healing for my daughter. It was at one time in my conscience and also completely audible. Was the most mind blowing thing that's ever happened in my life.

AgBQ-00 said:

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I've had similar experiences where I believe I've caught glimpses in faces. Like they became slightly distorted. And my threat assessment impulses kicked in. Not sure that makes sense. But it has happened a few times.

ETA: I traveled to SLC for the 2002 olympics. It is one of the few places I've ever been that I felt a true sense of spiritual oppression. Like I was actually walking in enemy territory.

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Like the sense that you are unequally yoked with unbelievers? If this is the case, I have sense this before and immediately hightailed it out of the place and situation. Close calls like that remind me of my feeble humanity.

Yes, this stuff is real. I feel like what DermDoc described; every time I try to get closer to God, Satan and his minions attack me with the same feelings (worthlessness, why try, etc, etc.)

I think a book worth reading is:
"Demons: What The Bible Really Says About the Powers of Darkness" by Michael S. Heiser.

Available as a Kindle book, or audio book on Amazon.