A former member of Westboro Baptist Church has revealed how radically her life has changed since leaving the extremist 'hate cult'.

Four years ago, Libby Phelps Alvarez was picketing Obama's inauguration, taking part in anti-gay and anti-Semitic protests, had never had a haircut, and unable to travel, was confined to the borders of the U.S.

Now age 29, after fleeing the church, she is finding peace with her new life. But walking away from everything she’d ever known, including praying for homosexual, Jewish and Chinese people to die, wasn’t easy, she told the Kansas City Star: 'That first year, there would be days it would hit me really hard.'