After leaving the cult, in addition to cooking, I also had great difficulty taking care of my child. Again, taking care of kids was one of the prescribed activities for women in the church and I felt allergic to it.

This is terrible for me to admit, but I even regretted having a child because I had done so in part just to confirm how the church would treat me. Having a child to take care of meant I wasn’t young anymore, and I couldn’t live like a young person anymore.

I was in denial and desperately wanted to live the years of my life that I had lost in the cult. Mentally I felt like I was still fresh out of college at 22.

My mom took care of my daughter during the day and my parents homeschooled her for kindergarten due to the pandemic. I was barely involved at all.

Shut up in my room and pretending to work, I would talk to my online friends and play video games. While doing so, I felt incredible amounts of guilt, knowing what I was doing was wrong. I knew I should step up and be an adult, but I felt crippled and incapable of doing so. Playing video games was my way to numb my mind and dissociate from my messed-up life.

My daughter blamed herself for our family being broken up, her parents not liking each other, and me not paying much attention to her.

My room and hers were in the basement of my parents’ house. Sometimes, at night, she would lie down on the floor outside her room, crying. When I asked her why she was lying on the floor, she would respond, “I don’t deserve to sleep in a bed.”

We had many rough nights where she would cry inconsolably and I would despair, thinking that it was my fault for dragging her on the path toward hell with me. I often wished I could just die and escape the misery.

It took at least a year before I was able to start taking care of her. Now, we do crafts and play games together and wear matching clothes (something that makes her happy). My girlfriend and I do our best to make sure that she feels loved and secure, and she’s grown into a sweet, funny, and intelligent eight-year-old.