The people there greeted me with smiles. Everything was muted and calm.

I hadn’t slept in two days and was in a weird state of mind: hyper-alert, wired, feeling like I was walking through a dream.

They showed me the verses that “proved” World War III was upon us and about to destroy the world, and the verses saying that the Passover was the way to get immunity.

I wanted to be invincible.

Do you want to get baptized? They asked. Sure, I said. The rule of improv: Always say yes. Life felt like a game and I wanted to play.

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My first day in the church felt like a surreal experience, and baptism was a catalyst for a whole mental overhaul. I can’t blame it entirely on the organization—my own mental state was also to blame. But the factors converged to make me change the course of my life in the span of a few hours.