I Grew Up in a Pentecostal Church

As far as I can remember, I have always been a skeptic, to the point where I was known in the community as a problem child. I was never rude or tried to be the edgy atheist, because at that point in time I wanted to believe. In some ways, I still do.
When I was 8 or 9, we had a "prophet" come visit our church. It was a Friday vigil. A vigil is an all-nighter service, where people pretend to have epileptic episodes and scream in Klingon (tongues). Anyway, I used to play bass in the worship group. As I was jamming away, the prophet called me out and told me I was going to be a great evangelist one day, blah, blah, blah. After the worship set was done, he pulled me aside and told me that God told him that I had a vision. I had no idea what the hell he was talking about, but I played along with it, because I was nervous. He asked me to describe what God showed me. So, I made up this story about seeing a group of people, like a parade, and two men walked between them: one in a white cloak and one in a dark red cloak (for your information, I loved Star Wars, and episode 1 had just come out). The crowd booed the white cloaked man, while cheering and throwing roses at the dark cloaked man.
The prophet took a moment to think, which made me even more nervous. Then he said: “Wow! Ain't God amazing? He gave me the exact same image!”. I had the feeling this guy was bullshit already, so I didn't think anything of it. He gathered the church leaders around and told me to tell them the vision God had showed me. The head pastor shouted: “That's the same vision God showed me!”. His wife proceeded to start chanting in Klingon and the worship leader had the “gift of discernment”, which is one of the Pentecostal talent trees. He then began to interpret my fake vision of Obi-Wan and Darth Maul.
That was the moment my 9 year old brain found out that all of these people are making shit up on the spot. It took me to the age of 24 to finally admit to myself and my family that I was an atheist, the entire time fighting with myself, trying to find any little ounce of proof I could find.
To the people that recently came out of a cult like I did: it gets better with time, I promise. You will lose people, but will get better ones in their place.