possessed by

Idioms  

1. Driven by, obsessed with, as in He was possessed by the idea of becoming a millionaire. This idiom employs possess in the sense of “dominate one's thoughts or ideas,” a usage dating from the late 1500s.

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Example Sentences

In Season 2, he is possessed by the Mind Flayer and feels pain when the vines in the Upside Down are damaged or Demogorgons are hurt.

From Los Angeles Times

The fighting son of one of the most famous boxers in British history, told by his school he was possessed by demons aged 12, at the centre of a two-year doping scandal and suffering defeat at the hands of the son of his father's arch nemesis – Benn has dragged himself away from the brink over and and over again.

From BBC

They say the apple never falls far from the tree, although in the case of Eder Sarabia the skills he inherited were different to those possessed by his father Manu.

From BBC

The ancients believed that those who loved too much were possessed by gods; Suetonius wrote that Caligula, who believed he was a god, once ordered his troops to fill their helmets with seashells, the “spoils of the ocean.”

From The Wall Street Journal

Flaubert and Balzac, according to Mr. Delbourgo, were a new kind of buyer, the “Romantic collecting self,” possessed by status anxiety but lacking great wealth.

From The Wall Street Journal