Bethany Joy Lenz Recalls Having 'Wild, Vivid Dreams' Before Hitting a 'Breaking Point' and Leaving Cult

"There's lots of highs and lots of lows, and at some point, you just are like, 'Can I get off this ride, please? What's wrong with me?'" recalled the actress, whose memoir is set to be released early next year

Bethany Joy Lenz is not afraid to share her story.

The former One Tree Hill star, 42, is gearing up to open up about her experience in a cult in her new memoir set to be released early next year.

While the actress has not disclosed many details about what she went through, she recently shared with E! News that part of what led her to leave the undisclosed cult was a collection of "wild, vivid dreams" that she had after being at a crossroads with her faith.

"I was very frustrated in my faith and I had lost a lot of it along the way," she said. "And one of my prayers was just sort of like, 'You have to just meet me where I am because I don't even know if I know who you are anymore,' And that's how God just kept showing up for me in spite of the fact that I was thrusting a middle finger up into the air and being like, 'Screw you!'"

Related: 'One Tree Hill' Star Bethany Joy Lenz Says She Has 'a Lot to Tell' After 10-Year Experience in a 'Cult'

Lenz explained that she ultimately "hit a breaking point" after her feelings of fear and isolation only grew larger.

"There's lots of highs and lots of lows, and at some point, you just are like, 'Can I get off this ride, please? What's wrong with me? Why am I so up and down all the time?'" said Lenz. "And sometimes it just takes a few people at the right moment saying, 'It might not be anything wrong with you.' And that can be a relief."

Related: Bethany Joy Lenz Says Writing Her Memoir, Including Reliving Her Time in a Cult, Has Been 'Painful' (Exclusive)

The singer-songwriter has previously credited her experience on One Tree Hill as one that also assisted her in deciding to leave her cult.

"I was there nine months out of the year in North Carolina," she said of filming the show in an interview with Variety. "I had a lot of flying back and forth, a lot of people visiting and things like that, but my life was really built in North Carolina. And I think that spatial separation made a big difference when it was time for me to wake up."

Writing about her experiences is something that has proven to be rewarding for Lenz. She shared in a conversation with PEOPLE that it has been part of her "recovery."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

"Recovery looks different for everyone, depending on your experience of trauma," she said. “I had to start from a baseline of my personal understanding of God and the experiences I had had. And then there was a lot of going back to who I was before and remembering that, and then acknowledging that there was so much I just didn’t know.”

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.