It's hard for me to discern why they threatened you. I think perhaps it wasn't the demons doing but the spirits of your friends interfering with you giving you the right to interfere with them. Remember the story from Acts?
Acts 16:16 And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:
17 The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.
18 And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out the same hour.
I don't think that was the "spirit of divination" speaking. I think it was the woman -- the real woman -- interfering with Paul so he'd interfere with her and her spirit of divination. It took him a while before he took action.
Let me give you another way of looking this. Jesus said he would make Peter into a fisher of men. Ah, Peter was crucified. He was "bait." God used him and many others who were martyred as bait. It brought down the Roman pagan system. The more the pagans took the bait, the more right it gave God to intervene.
Psalm 44:22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
If we have done nothing wrong but someone attacks us, we are in a position to help God save them. The power of the demonic can be broken if they break the Law of Free Will. We become the bait that helps God catch them. It may not feel like a blessing when it happens, but it is. You will not be permanently injured but you've helped God by being willing to be the tool used to save them.
Matthew 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
If I return evil for evil, it won't work. It can look as if God is losing some battles, but I think is part of God's plan; and I think it will work if we do not despair and fall into returning evil for evil, thinking we must.