Leaving the Occult | A Share Your Story Blog

Be Advised: The following contains true events regarding attempted suicide and sexual assault.  

After years spent participating in the occult, BreeAnn left witchcraft behind and was baptized in August of 2024, giving her life completely to Jesus. Carrying the wounds of a broken and abusive childhood, BreeAnn had been left on her own to desperately pursue the same love and acceptance that all of us deeply long for. This is her story: a witness to the unrelenting call of Christ, even in the face of hell itself.  

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“My parents got divorced when I was really little, so there was a lot of instability with that,” BreeAnn said. “They both remarried, and each of them had two sons, so I was the odd one out. From ages six to fourteen, I was molested by a cousin and also by a babysitter. I started feeling very wrong and very dirty, so I kept it a secret. 

“During this, we would go to different churches. Even there, I felt like an outsider — like I didn’t belong, or when I would express things, it wasn’t in the right way. At home, I was too much. So I lost myself because I kept trying to change and be what everyone else wanted. Then, in middle school, I made friends who were into the occult.” 

BreeAnn had been told that the occult was evil, but once she came face to face with it, she was intrigued. The people welcomed her with kindness, even getting angry on her behalf at the abuses she’d suffered in the past. So as years went by, she started to learn different forms of paganism. 

“I was like, ‘How is this evil? They’re all so nice,’” she said. “I had been back and forth with God — as much as I wanted Him, I was scared of Him. It was like, how could He allow [me to be rejected] at the different churches I’d gone to? The Church is supposed to help people. I understand we all have faults, but when someone reaches out to you, don’t get scared because of their scars or the darkness they’ve seen. It was really easy for the Enemy to be like, ‘See how they treat you? Look at how these pagans treat you. They’re a lot nicer.’ So I thought, ‘God, this is how your people act? I don’t want that.’ Obviously, I didn’t see what the Enemy was doing at the time.” 

Even as she continued to walk away from the Lord and step further into the occult, BreeAnn couldn’t seem to shake the call from Jesus that she felt in her heart. She started wavering back and forth between witchcraft and Christianity, not fully committing to either one.  

“At one point, it got so bad that I thought I’d committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit,” she said. “It was one of the first times I tried to kill myself. I took fourteen pills and told God, ‘If you want me alive, You’re going to have to save my life — because if I’ve done this horrible thing, I might as well just die.’ But I woke up nine hours later. At the hospital, there was evidence that the pills should have killed me, but they hadn’t fully absorbed [into my bloodstream].” 

BreeAnn continued to wrestle with suicide, but small occurrences kept pointing her back to Christ: TikToks, songs on the radio, small seeds planted by people that she knew. Eventually, she was so exhausted by her internal battle that she decided to try turning to God for real.  

“In the occult, I’d have to keep doing more — and it still wasn’t fixing that deep, aching hole in me,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do anymore because I was just so tired. I didn’t care whether I lived or died, so I was like, ‘Well, the occult isn’t helping, and I’ve been trying to do what everybody else is saying. Okay, God, let’s really try You.’” 

Soon after she started looking for a church, a trusted family friend recommended that BreeAnn try Woodside Chesterfield. She began to attend, cautiously at first, but then found that the Lord was tugging at her heart to stay. 

“I was amazed,” she said. “I started going regularly because I was like, ‘Okay, we’re going to stop running.’ When I actually accepted Jesus as my savior, I had this urge to get baptized. I needed to do it because I was putting to death the old life — the occult, the paganism — and saying to the Enemy, ‘I’m done with you.’ I needed to really show myself that I was a new creation and I belong to God. 

“There are things that are still raw, but I’m learning to run to Jesus, so I would say that I’m healing. In the world, I see a lot of pain and suffering, and I can definitely see the fight between light and dark. I was so lonely and desperate for connection that I tried to fill the ache with everything, when really Jesus is what filled it. I was afraid because — what if He abandons me too? But He won’t. I tried to push Him away to prove that He would leave me just like everybody else did…and He didn’t.” 

*If you or someone you know is wrestling with suicide, mental health, or abuse, please know you’re not alone. We urge you to contact us by clicking here — we have individuals on hand who are trained to help you. You can also call or text 988 to contact the national suicide hotline.