Content Warning: This post contains mention of suicidal ideation. If that triggers you, please skip this one.

I struggled a lot mentally after leaving the cult.

I had already renounced everything to accept a new belief system in the cult, and when I left and threw that away too, I felt like there was nothing left to believe, nothing left to be.

There were things that I had wanted to do upon leaving, like visit a jazz club, but the Covid lockdown was in full force and I couldn’t really go out and do anything.

I signed up for an online master’s program in paralegal studies and did my schoolwork diligently, but I felt like a poser only pretending to be a student.

I hated that I had spent all my young adult years in the cult. At 31, I felt like there was nothing left to look forward to in life. I couldn’t picture myself working in the legal field. The decade I spent in a cult was like a permanent stain on my past that I felt helpless to get rid of.

“Kill me” was a mantra that ran incessantly through my head. I fantasized about killing myself, and the only thing that held me back was the fact that my daughter’s life would be ruined if I did so. That, and my parents would be left to deal with my corpse and a mountain of student loan debt.

I felt like killing myself would’ve been the easy way out that would ruin everything for the people around me. But I really just wanted to die.

I knew that I needed help, so eventually, I signed up for therapy.