My Teenage Exorcism
When I was 19 or so, my parents were going through a divorce. It was messy and both of my parents started acting very strange and very different from what I had always known.
I went to visit my mom one weekend I was back from university, and what I had found scared me. She was irrationally angry, acting very erratic, and smelled terrible. She became verbally abusive toward me and it was just pretty clear she was not OK. Looking back, it was definitely some kind of psychotic episode. My parents were both heavily influenced by the satanic panic and I was raised with those types of paranoias. At the time, I had never encountered anything like this and it felt very dark and scary. I drew the conclusion that she was likely possessed and I was out of my depth. My mom also did not want me around and so I left. I called her bishop hoping that he would use his priesthood to help cast out any unclean spirits that were in that house or in her. He agreed to help.
I was shaken up and turned to my grandparents (dad’s side) for help. I told my grandpa who was an emeritus 70 about what had happened at my mom’s. He told me he would give me a blessing. During the blessing he cast demons out of me. I remember the experience vividly. I was shocked when he said those words and my body instantly felt cold. I felt like my insides were shattered - it’s the only way I can describe it. Instead of comfort, I ended up with a complex. It was the last thing I expected to hear, and even now, I cannot fathom why my grandpa thought I was possessed. Be that as it may, I believed that he knew something that I didn’t.
I spent so many years after that constantly worried that I was possessed and didn’t know it. It crossed my mind every Sunday for decades after my experience that I might secretly be possessed and unworthy to take the sacrament. Every time I went to the temple I worried I was somehow unclean and unworthy to be there. I worried that I was damning my soul without realizing it.
I’m OK now, but man, that experience and the fallout from it was really hard.