One Tree Hill's Bethany Joy Lenz was in a cult for 10 years. This is the moment she knew she had to get out.

Content warning: This post deals with descriptions of domestic violence. 

"I don't want to do this anymore. Maybe we need to separate for a while."

He was facing me when I said it, standing across the hotel room. He went quiet. Tense. I hadn't said the word "divorce," but it was close enough. His chest was moving in shallow breaths. He blinked a few times.

"And what about Rosie?" he said. "Who does she go with?"

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Rosie. Resting on the bed between us, she rustled, still in her car seat alongside the suitcases we needed to pack for our flight back home to Idaho in a few hours. There she lay, eleven months of life and already full of turmoil. Her evenings were peppered with the sounds of her parents' bitter arguments, slamming doors, Mom crying in closets. On top of this, it took her six months to latch on to my nipple properly because she was born with a tongue-tie, so her introduction to nourishment was a mother weeping from pain, usually screaming into a pillow so she wouldn't be disturbed as I pushed through, bleeding into the milk. Yes, there were plenty of walks in the sunshine, naps on our chests, holding her father's thumbs as he cooed over her and blew raspberries on her tummy. That was her favorite. He could always make her laugh by doing that. She would gaze up at us, but we were the ones who were amazed at every little thing she did. There were good times. But more often we lived in a world of chaos.

I spoke quietly: "Well . . . I mean . . . I'm nursing her, so . . ."

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He shook his head and let out a quick breath, then picked up a sweatshirt, balled it up, and threw it toward me with a growl.

It was only a sweatshirt. Before that, it was only a toy. Only a book. Only a cell phone. Only potted plants. Only a vintage rolling metal laundry basket colliding with a wall, ricocheting to the floor, and scaring our tough five-pound Yorkshire terrier so badly he shit himself right where he stood. He had only injured his hand punching holes in several of our walls and doors. A sweatshirt was really nothing.

My husband's father had encouraged his three sons from a young age to take out their aggression against women on the drywall and furniture, and he set the example himself. "Right in front of the woman, if needed," Les would coach, "so she can see how passionate you are about her and see how controlled you are to not harm her in spite of the fact that she makes you so angry." And boy, did I make my husband angry. Everything I did, said, thought—my very existence, it seemed.

He was especially angry with me lately, faced with moving back to Los Angeles, where we'd first met and where we'd spent these past few days looking at places to live and meeting new acting managers. Since marrying, I'd split time between our Family's home base in Idaho and the Wilmington, North Carolina, set of the hit TV series One Tree Hill, where, for nine years, I'd starred as Haley James Scott. The millions I made supported not only us but the extended Family's various endeavors, including a motel, a restaurant, and, most importantly, a ministry. Now that the show was over, I would have to go back to auditioning, which didn't happen in Idaho. The idea of leaving the Family was abhorrent to him.

That afternoon in our West Hollywood hotel he had been yelling at me for about an hour, which was standard. I was exhausted.

I had been exhausted for years. The therapist I had begun seeing around this time encouraged me to create some boundaries to help navigate these emotional storms. "Start with something simple," she'd advised. "Violence, for example. Physical violence around you is not acceptable. Ever." After that session, I told him this: "If you throw something across the room again, I'm going to immediately remove myself and Rosie from that situation and we can try talking again the next day."

He didn't like it. I believe his exact words were: "I don't agree to that."

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In the split second after he threw the sweatshirt, I had to make a choice to enforce my boundary or not. I considered letting it slide and waiting until he really threw something heavy. I didn't want to make things worse. I could just let it go for now and we could talk about it later. I wanted to find a way to live separately for a few months, anyway. Go to counseling together and try to start over—just get away from his Family and their overbearingness for a little while. This thought tripped me up, thinking of them not just as overbearing but as his Family rather than our Family. That was a strange and surprising feeling. More surprising than the thought itself was how tight it felt. But I didn't have time to consider what that meant. I could bring all this up plus the separation idea another time if I stayed. Don't do it now, Joy. It was only a sweatshirt.

Just then, I looked down at my daughter's face for the first time since the fight began, and I felt everything inside me shift. Her eyes were different. They were always deep and bright like little stars had landed in them. People frequently commented laughingly that they felt she was staring into their soul. In that moment, though, her big, wonderful chocolate eyes suddenly looked hopeless, almost dead. I realized she had just sat in the room for an hour as the air filled with her father's venom as it poured over us. Isn't that what kills plants in fifth-grade science experiments: isolating them in a room and yelling at them?

I picked up Rosie and held her to my chest. She was limp and looked so deeply sad. Maybe I was projecting. Maybe it was all in my imagination. Maybe God was present, like I'd known Him to be many times before, and He was somehow allowing me to see myself from a bird's-eye view. Whatever it was, my body went cold. And then it went very, very hot.

I had carried her for nine months, I had read the books on parenthood, I had delivered her myself after a twenty-hour labor, reaching down and pulling my daughter out of myself in the final moment. I nursed multiple times a day through the pain of her inability to latch. I got up in the night with her and then went to work at five a.m. with her. I prayed for her, fed her, changed her, took her to her doctor's appointments, spoke positive things over her daily—I did all the things mothers do. I think in that moment, though—seeing her light go out, knowing why, and knowing I was the only one who could do anything about it—that was the moment I actually became a mother. And that stupid sweatshirt became the heaviest thing he ever threw.

I began to gather my things. "I told you if you threw another thing I was going to leave with her for the night." I stated it pragmatically, holding a thread of hope that he might apologize.

I didn't even notice him move. He just was suddenly there. Over me, leaning in as I sat on the bed, his arms blocking me on either side, his breath hot in my face.

"If you leave," he spat, "I will get a lawyer and I will take her from you. I will fight for custody and I'll win. I will take. Her. Away from you."

My heart was a kick drum. He was so confident the girl he knew wouldn't leave. The girl he knew would stay because, in spite of the endless struggle and depression, she hadn't left. The girl he knew was committed to making the marriage work. She was trying to be a Godly, submissive wife. She knew she was selfish and just needed more healing—needed to surrender more. She knew, deep down, how much he'd sacrificed for her, how patient he was with her brokenness. The girl he knew needed him.

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I knew that girl, too. I'd been living in her skin for ten years believing she was the real me. But where was the girl I used to be before? Before the downward spiral into normalizing abuse and handing over my autonomy not just to him but to our Family— no, to his Family. No, to a . . . to a . . . I wasn't quite ready to admit it. I was even more reluctant to use that word than "divorce." The word my estranged parents and former friends and coworkers had been using for years. The word that further isolated me from them but that I increasingly suspected was true.

He stood up, still glowering at me, then walked into the bathroom, slammed the door, and turned on the shower. I was lucky that he bet on me being paralyzed with fear, but I knew my window of time was short. I quickly scooped up Rosie in her car seat, grabbed my suitcase, and hurried to the rental car. Instead of driving to the airport, I let him take the flight home without us while Rosie and I crashed with a few old friends for the next week. Via text, he pleaded, then doubled down on scolding me for my insubordination, my selfishness, my heartlessness. Again, standard. And then he went cold. His messages became almost robotic, which only pushed me further away.

After a week with those old friends and phone calls with my therapist and parents, I was reminded of that other girl I used to be before. I was reminded I still was her, and finally I reached a place where I could say it.

I was in a cult. And I had to get out.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Mamamia is a charity partner of RizeUp Australia, a national organisation that helps women, children and families move on after the devastation of domestic and family violence. Their mission is to deliver life-changing and practical support to these families when they need it most. If you would like to support their mission you can donate here. 

Feature Image: @msbethanyjoylenz Instagram.