“Go to a jazz club” was on my to-do list after leaving the cult.

When I first left, it wasn’t feasible to go because everything was locked down for Covid. Even if an establishment had been open, I would have felt reckless and irresponsible for potentially exposing myself and endangering my 90-year old grandma with whom I lived.

Two years later, once vaccinations were available and people were starting to go out more, my girlfriend and I decided to go to a jazz club in Pittsburgh on one of our dates.

I had been to Pittsburgh before on a short-term preaching mission. That meant I, along with a few other brothers and sisters, stayed in Pittsburgh for a week and came to the church every day to preach all day.

I thought I was completely over my cult experience by the time I started dating my girlfriend. But there on the streets of Pittsburgh, I suddenly had flashbacks of my short-term preaching trip.

I started to feel dizzy as fear gripped me. I was afraid that I wasn’t healed at all, that my mind was still a prisoner to the cult.

My girlfriend sensed that I wasn’t okay and hugged me tightly outside the entrance to the jazz club. I buried my head in her shoulder and started to cry. I didn’t even know why I was crying.

Nothing particularly traumatic had happened on the short-term preaching trip. But in my mind, I felt like I was back there, disjointed from society, bound to be rejected as a weird cult member. I felt like I was just pretending to be normal but the irreparable damage had already been done to the core of my person.

My girlfriend quietly sang Sara Bareilles’ Orpheus, our song, as she held me until I stopped crying. Although I felt guilty being triggered and “ruining” our date, she made me feel safe and like everything was going to be okay.