Oct 1, 2026 · 57 min
A childhood exorcism leaves one friendship trapped in guilt
#69 Tamara
Tamara’s search for answers reveals how frightened teenagers can inherit responsibility for crises adults failed to understand.
- 1Tamara’s friendship with Bea fractured after adults interpreted Bea’s distress as demonic possession and performed an exorcism.
- 2Her father’s suicide compounded Tamara’s guilt, leaving her to carry two intertwined traumas into adulthood.
- 3A former classmate helps Tamara recognize that her eighteen-year-old self lacked the power and understanding to control what happened.
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John tells Tamara that she was a child doing the best she could, helping her release decades of guilt.
The brief
At a Christian boarding school, Tamara and Bea become unusually close roommates before Bea’s traumatic disclosures and frightening behavior lead adults to call the crisis demonic possession.
The exorcism permanently changes their friendship, while Tamara’s father’s religious paranoia and suicide leave her questioning Christianity, suffering, and her own responsibility.
Nearly three decades later, Tamara searches for Bea and Christy, finding only fragments of the past and no way to make Bea discuss their senior year.
When her son approaches graduation, Tamara returns to the story with Jonathan Goldstein and former classmate John, who helps reconstruct what she was carrying at eighteen.
John’s reassurance gives Tamara permission to see herself as a frightened child who did the best she could, rather than the adult responsible for everyone’s pain.