Punkie Johnson and Chloe Troast on the Realities of Being Fired from ‘SNL’ (Exclusive)

The stars of Saturday Night Live gathered at a farewell party to toast the cast members leaving the show this year.

Season 50 cast members Heidi Gardner, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim and Please Don’t Destroy‘s John Higgins were in attendance, as well as several other alums. Chloe Troast, Molly Kearney and Punkie Johnson, all of whom left after season 49, were also there to celebrate, and Johnson, 40, was the host for the evening as the stars partied at the Riff Raff Club in New York City on Friday, Oct. 3.

The event came just one day before season 51 of the late-night sketch comedy show premieres, with Bad Bunny as the host and Doja Cat as musical guest.

Speaking exclusively with PEOPLE at the party, Johnson and Troast opened up about the realities of being fired from the long-running show. Troast, 28, says that while the show “fundamentally changed” her life, she’s found it “really hard” adjusting after her SNL stint.

“You don’t get a cushion when you fall,” she says, noting that she’s thankful she’s had the support of her family and close friends.

“Even before the show, they were the ones that were a guiding light, and so then that’s what I looked to after. And I feel like without that, I don’t know where I would be one year out, to be honest,” Troast tells PEOPLE.

As for Johnson, who spent four seasons at Studio 8H, she tells PEOPLE that SNL “mad put the pressure on you” and that “you can’t leave SNL and then go do the same things you was doing before.”

“It just put the pressure on you because everybody always like, ‘Yo, what’s next? What’s next?’ So you feel like you have to go do the next big thing,” she explains.

Johnson continues: “I had to figure out how to understand the difference between, all right, cool, you did something really great. And now it’s okay for you to just go through the motions and just no rush and figure out what’s next for you. It’s okay for you to figure that out.”

The comedian described SNL as “a different monster, a different beast,” noting, “It’s very hard to understand a place like that. They just throw you in the water — you better know how to swim. They don’t give you no life jacket.”

But, she says, the experience “builds something inside of you that makes you so strong.”

“I feel like I could go out in Hollywood and handle anything because I handled every piece of adversity that went on in that building,” Johnson tells PEOPLE. “I don’t think nothing could really break me no more because they honestly really built me up and made me strong mentally.”

Longfellow, 31, addressed his SNL exit in an Instagram post as he wrote, “Will not be returning for a 4th season at SNL. Wish I was but, so it goes.”

He called the experience “the best three years of my life so far” and said it was “the greatest job in the world and changed my life.”

Walker, 34, also released a statement amid the news of his exit, as he claimed the late-night show was “toxic as hell” sometimes.

“Me and the show did three years together, and sometimes it was really cool. Sometimes it was toxic as hell,” he wrote in a post. “But we did what we made the most of what it was, even amidst all of the dysfunction. We made a f—– up lil family.”

Wakim, 27, admitted that learning he wouldn’t be returning for season 51 was a “gut punch” but he called his one-season run “the most terrifying, thrilling and rewarding experience of my life” on Instagram.

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Five newcomers have joined the SNL cast for season 51 amid the exits: Veronika Slowikowska, Kam Patterson, Ben Marshall from Please Don’t Destroy, Tommy Brennan and Jeremy Culhane. They will all make their debuts on the Oct. 4 premiere.