I was born in 1989 and raised in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Money was tight at first. When I was eight, my father lost his job as a financial planner and started his own company doing the same work. By the time I was ten, we had moved to the best Atlanta suburb, in a house two times the size of our previous one. I started going to private school.

My family belonged to a non-denominational evangelical church. I grew up in Rapture culture, awaiting Jesus’ return. At thirteen, I got a purity ring and wrote a letter to my future husband about saving myself for him. We were intensely anti-abortion.

My parents ran a very strict, authoritarian home. They had black-and-white views about everything; there was no room for nuance. My mom wouldn’t let me play with Barbies, because she didn’t want me to be exposed to boobs.

My parents hardly ever talked about politics, but they watched Fox News every day. I was a Rush Limbaugh kid; we listened to him every day in the car. At one point my mom told me climate change was just a scam for people to make money. I was in 6th grade when 9/11 happened; I remember that as a moment when I realized politics mattered. 

Both my parents and my two older sisters were introverts. I was the opposite, very outgoing, and also very mischievous. I learned that when I got into trouble I would face shame, guilt, and judgment, so I decided I would lie rather than deal with those reactions. 

I was a basketball prodigy (I was 5’ 6” in 4th grade!), always playing in leagues or camps. By the time I was in middle school, colleges were reaching out to me. Unfortunately, a series of injuries and numerous surgeries prematurely ended my career.

I struggled in high school, graduating with a C average. I also got into trouble a lot; I served several suspensions. When I was about 17, my parents got me tested for learning disabilities. I was told I was fine, which led me to believe I couldn’t be more than a kindergarten teacher.

I enrolled at Georgia Southern University to study early education, and then switched to Georgia State University. I met a pre-med student and we started dating; he thought I had ADHD and urged me to get tested again. I did, and discovered that he was right. I started taking Adderall, and that changed everything for the better.

I’m a survivor of several sexual assaults. An attack in high school led to a suicide attempt. I was assaulted again in college; both times, I was under the influence of my meds. My therapist put me on Ambien and Xanax starting when I was 16.

After college, I was into the night life. I started dating a guy who told me with my history of chronic pain I could get doctors to prescribe me painkillers. That opened the door to my pain pill addiction.

Around that time, I shattered my femur. Even after surgery I was bedridden for a year, taking prescription pain pills. I finally got sober after another suicide attempt in early 2016.

I wasn’t politically engaged when Trump ran in 2016. At first I thought, “Why is this person from ‘The Apprentice’ running for president?” But Fox said he was a great business man, and that that’s what we needed in the White House, rather than another politician. That made sense to me.

I didn’t dive into MAGA until late 2019, after I got introduced to QAnon. 

I actually found it through a Facebook group I belonged to for fans of a popular celebrity gossip podcast. People started posting about Jeffrey Epstein and Hillary Clinton and Pizzagate. Others said, “This is QAnon conspiracy stuff, get out of here.” But my response was, “Wait, what is that?”

I completely fell for it, all the red pill stuff, Pizzagate, you name it. I thought ships off the east and west coasts had sexually trafficked kids in cages. My fiancé got into it as well.

My sources of information were limited to QAnon world and Fox News.

When you’re not encouraged to use critical thinking growing up, conspiratorial thinking feels like critical thinking. I thought, “Oh, I’m finally able to look into things and ask questions.” It was all about saving the children, especially as a survivor of sexual assault myself. The stories about Epstein made me staunchly supportive of Trump.

I knew Trump wasn’t perfect, but I felt he was like the other ungodly men in the Bible who did God’s bidding. After all, he supported biblical prophecy and opposed abortion.

I got married in October 2020. My husband supported Trump, but on election night as we stood in line waiting to vote, he turned to me and said, “What if Trump isn’t who we think he is?” I became angry with him. If that were true, that would mean everything, my identity, everything we spent months looking into, was wrong. I could not handle that.

After Joe Biden won the election, I believed Trump when he said it was stolen, that dark forces had tampered with the Dominion voting machines.

My best friend at the time was at the Capitol on January 6. I thought, “These people are just peacefully trying to get our country back.” I believed the unrest was an inside FBI job, that the feds instigated the violence.

I had my first kid in July 2021, and raising my family became my priority. Parenting also led me to start reassessing my religious beliefs. In 2023, after we had our second child, we confronted the question  of spanking. As a kid, I was barebutt spanked weekly for years. My dad said God called us to spank. We did, and we hated it. 

Then I found a study that showed spanking triggers the same part of the brain as sexual assault. That was a huge pill for me to swallow. We decided to stop spanking. I felt relieved in that moment, and then I had this moment of cognitive dissonance that, wait, I can read the Bible differently from how my parents did.

I wasn’t even watching the news anymore by then. My family was my source of information, and both my parents were MAGA. I supported Trump in the 2024 election. I liked his big push for deportation, saying we had to get rid of undocumented immigrants who were violent criminals.

My religious deconstruction accelerated in early 2025, when I saw a documentary that debunked the concept of Hell. That’s when the house of cards fell for me. I lost the fear that I needed to evangelize all my friends so I could spend eternity in Heaven with them. I decided the best path for me is to live my life like Jesus. 

I also began deconstructing my politics, although it was a slow drip. I eliminated my need to be right in all areas. When I became aware of new things, it was easy for me to admit I was wrong.

A traumatic interaction with a loved one in the summer of 2025 sent me into a deep depression. I experienced ego death, which was more painful than drug withdrawal or childbirth. It put a mirror in front of me and made me realize I was wrong about everything. That sped up my deconstruction of my politics. I realized QAnon was BS. I left MAGA around that time.

Now I understand what “woke” actually means. I woke up, and I realized I was wrong. I don’t want to vote to take away people’s rights anymore. I’m done thinking I know what’s best for everyone else. I never see myself voting Republican ever again.

I grew up believing I was a chosen person, that I was somehow special. You can’t help but breed pride and ego when you tell them they’re chosen and touched by God to get eternal salvation.

I’m looking at all sides of the issues now. I watch BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, MeidasTouch, more left-leaning independent accounts. I even watch the House proceedings on C-SPAN.  I haven’t unfollowed all the right-wing accounts — I want to know what they’re saying.

I am catching up on so much. I’m overcoming indoctrinated ignorance. For example, I didn’t hear about Project 2025 until a few months ago. It took a lot of work to learn how to put myself in other people’s shoes.

I’m now close with a South African who has a transgender child, and I have learned that it’s not a choice. I’ve learned about people who are intersex, that two percent of the population are born with those traits.

Trump scares me. It sounds so cliche, but some of his policies are too reminiscent of how Nazi Germany was. Project 2025 and Project Esther are really frightening.

I’m disturbed by the reports that some military commanders are telling the troops that the invasion of Iran is “fulfilling Biblical prophecy.” Sadly, this is exactly where I saw this administration taking things. They were planning some sort of self-imposed “Armageddon,” so it’s crazy to see it actually happening. It’s just further proof that I was being manipulated because of my faith, and that I did the right thing when I left MAGA.

                                                                                                                                                                      —August 2026