When I realized at 19 that I’d been raised with nothing but lies, my entire reality crumbled in front of me, and part of me died that day.
This is such an underappreciated aspect of the experience of leaving something like that, looking from the outside you just think "finally they got out of that dark deep pit" but for you that moment must have been in one way the bottom of the pit as you exited a reality that defined you into one where you had to rebuild most or all of your definitions.
I imagine it felt good, but also I can totally see how it would feel like a death.