Because there were cameras everywhere and she wore a microphone all the time, Troutt would shut herself in bathrooms for privacy and would pray there. She had also gotten a group of people to pray for her that God would use her and help her stick to her convictions.
Her mother had also written Troutt 41 letters prior to filming. Troutt said that the Holy Spirit told her mother to stop at 41, and Troutt read one per day during filming. It turned out that the letters took her up to the day of the hometown dates when she got to actually see her mother in person again.
“Every day I would read a letter from her,” Troutt said, “and it was truly the Holy Spirit to me of just keeping me going, keeping me grounded, reminding me of truth, encouragement when I needed it.”
Nevertheless, Troutt said that her time on “The Bachelor” led to “two different traumas.” One came from the actual experience of filming the season. “There was just a lot of really dark things that were happening,” she said, citing the high-pressure environment, comparison among the contestants, and the need for attention and validation. She said that the producers even called themselves “witches.” The environment could “feel toxic,” even if that was not the intention.
A second trauma for Troutt was watching the show when it aired, experiencing the public’s response to it, and losing her anonymity. “It’s just weird when all of a sudden you have a lot of people making comments about your looks, about your body, about your faith, about your convictions, about your family,” she said. “And, you know, I had never been in a situation like that before.”
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For a period of time, Troutt questioned whether she had made the right decision to go on the show and even whether or not she had truly heard from God about it. “I really am so grateful that I went on ‘The Bachelor,’” she said. “I think that it took me a year-and-a-half to say that sentence because I was just dealing with a lot of trauma, hurt, pain, adjusting to just my new—I guess you could say life.”
“And it took a lot of asking the Lord like, why?” said Troutt. “Why was this my route? Why was this my journey? Why, why, why did I say yes to this? Did I make a mistake? Did I hear you wrong?”
In the aftermath of the experience, she lost 20 pounds and had difficulty sleeping. What helped in her recovery was that she got counseling, focused on her health, and surrounded herself with godly community.
“That community was so huge,” said Troutt. “And as soon as I walked off, truly like as soon as I walked off the finale show or whatever, I started getting reached out to by book agents and churches to come and speak.”
The churches were interested “because I had taken a stand on the show [with] my purity in saving myself for marriage,” she said. “I talked very openly about my faith and Jesus being my everything, and not just an aspect of my life, but my whole life.”
