Admin Note: Some names changed or shortened to initials.

I still kind of feel bad about how much I frustrated the people I worked with. I just didn’t know any better, and I really was trying. Part of the problem with thinking that you are responsible for saving the planet is how heavy failure weighs on you. When I thought I had let the org down I was crushed beyond belief. That’s a lot for a teenager to carry, especially when the goals they were set were impossible to achieve. Nothing was ever good enough, and I felt every failure as proof that I was a bad person. Looking back, I understand why I got yelled at so much. My boss was also a teenager, who had joined up even younger than I did. She was getting screamed at by her seniors, and she didn’t know what to do either except pass it down to me. She shouldn’t have, but I understand and I’m not mad at her for it.

Probably one of the worst moments ever was being interviewed by an RTC guy, because I was named in a string-pull having to do with "enemy lines". Oh man, if I ever wondered if I could be broken and confess to anything, that was the answer. If I had had any secrets about the SO I would have spilled my guts. He kept telling me I was being declared because I couldn’t remember who said what. I cried the whole time. Eventually I made something up, just to name a name. I feel bad about it now. That’s just an example of the kind of pressure you can be under.

Oh yeah, and I got married. I was 16 and we went to Vegas. I thought I was in love. I didn’t have a clue. I got my parents' permission by blackmailing them. I knew if I got married, I would be emancipated, and they could never tell me what to do again. My mom was threatening to remove me from the SO and make me come home. I was terrified of that. I married a guy who I thought was cool. He was the first boy who ever asked me out. He was 19. He bought me roses. He listened to me babble on about stupid geeky things. But for some reason after we got married he did a 180.

He stopped talking to me. He wouldn’t let me sit with him in the mess hall or stand next to him at muster. He wouldn’t let me be with him on our days off, in fact he switched days off so we didn’t have the same ones. He pushed me around a lot in the name of playing, but it hurt. We would go weeks without speaking, just having random sex in the middle of the night, which confuses me to this day. He almost acted like it was forced or something, it was certainly not loving or fun. Maybe that was my fault, because of my history. I don’t know. I was really unhappy but I kept trying to be a good wife, do his laundry and stuff. I didn’t understand what was wrong and I still don’t really. I think maybe he thought I was cheating on him or something? I wasn’t though. A few years after the divorce I tried to talk to him, hoping for some sort of alleviation or understanding on both our parts, but he pretended he couldn’t see me or hear me. The whole thing perplexes me still, and I really wish I had an answer.

Eventually I retreaded the EPF, which was once again fine. I wished I could just stay on the EPF forever. I was very good at construction and loved it. Mr. G trusted me and let me work unsupervised, and once put me in charge of some problem people. Also, he made sure that we all ate well and got plenty of sleep, no matter what. If someone interfered with that, he yelled at them. It was quite a change for me. But unfortunately I graduated and went to Senior HCO WUS as an expeditor. Then they traded me to CCI for about a month, where I did room service, got about 1-2 hours of sleep every night, and never met a single one of the crew at the Manor because I was totally isolated. When I went on course I was so tired that I just slept with a dictionary open in front of me. I couldn’t help it, I tried to stay awake but I was barely able to see straight when I was moving around. As soon as I sat still I just crashed. That trade fell through anyway, and I went back to ASHO.

I had a bunch of posts for a while. Folder Admin, stuff like that. Years passed. The best time I ever had was when I was doing construction on the AO renovations or getting to carry a radio on Event Call-In. I smoked a lot, stayed up for days on end for mandatory all-hands, rarely ate even when there was decent food in the mess hall. For some reason I just couldn’t make myself eat. I was sick constantly but mostly ignored it. Even when I was so tired that I hallucinated. (We would all laugh about how the floor tiles moved up and down, and the walls would seem to breathe in and out. It was a big joke.)

Then I went on the TTC. I trained up through Pro Sup and Pro Word Clearer with RTC passes on everything, and in checksheet time. I was kind of proud of that. I also tried to help the younger kids on the TTC but they had a hard time, because they had grown up at the Sea Org ranch and were almost illiterate. (I was horrified by the conditions there when I visited to try and help tutor. I thought MY education was bad!) I was really good at learning theory and spitting it back out perfectly. Eventually I hit a wall. My problem was that I hadn’t done M1, which was a prerequisite for those courses, so I couldn’t actually finish and go on the internship. But I wasn’t okayed by the CS to get M1. No one knew what to do. I also kicked up some fuss about the fact that I was supposedly a last-lifetime OT and yet everyone ignored that. I thought that a lot of my problems were caused by that, because I didn’t know what else to blame them on. It couldn’t possibly be that I was unhappy with the SO! I was very confused.

At this point everything fell apart. I was getting no sleep. I was sick constantly. I remember being in isolation for over a month once. I had fevers every day. Because we weren’t allowed to take anything, no medication, no ibuprofen or anything, they just continued. I had fevers about 104 degrees. At one point I lay on a couch for about 9 hours totally paralysed, unable to speak or move, because my temp was so high. I literally thought I was dying. I was terrified. Everyone kept walking by and ignoring me, I think they thought I was asleep, but I literally couldn’t move a muscle. I didn’t expect to make it through that day.

When I finally felt better, I got up and checked and my temp was 105. But nothing was done about me being sick at that time. Sometimes I went to Shaw Health Center. I took a 3 hour bus ride to some slum hospital in the middle of nowhere, alone except for another sick girl who was about 16. At the hospital they said they couldn’t treat me without my parents. But my parents had moved to Flag [admin note: FLAG landbase in Florida, Scientology headquarters]. I think they might have been on the Freewinds at the point, actually. I don’t remember. But I told them I was married, so they sent me back to the adult area. (I had no ID or paperwork to show that, anyway.) But they kept sending me back and forth between Pediatrics and the ER. I was there all night and into the next day, with no money for food or anything. I was really scared but pretended I wasn’t. Finally a doctor gave me a test and said nothing was wrong with me. Everyone kept saying nothing was wrong with me. But I couldn’t stop puking, and fainting, all day long. I was way stressed out. I was seeing things. I was so tired I could barely get up. I kept begging for help, but everyone said to knock it off, because it was all in my head. I halfway believed them and that stressed me out more.

[On a side note, recently I found out that there WERE things wrong with me. I had asthma. I had ulcers and GI problems. I had a metabolic/endocrine problem that results in severe lack of energy. I had brain damage due to blows to the head and untreated high fevers. This resulted in hearing loss and auditory processing disorder where your nerves don’t communicate sound into words, short-term memory problems, and other fun things. I found out that I had Mono at some point, which would explain the exhaustion!! I also have really bad PTSD – full on flashbacks, nightmares, hyperventilating panic attacks, things like that.]

Finally I blew [admin note: "to blow" means "to leave without permission"]. I walked across Hollywood to a different city, about 12 miles, overnight. It was really scary, I thought every car was someone looking for me. I kept ducking and hiding and trying to stay off of busy streets. I knew all too well that anyone recognizing me would throw me in their car and take me back. Finally I ended up in a park by a house I had used to live in. I wanted to kill myself. I had a knife and everything. It was all planned in my head and I totally intended to follow through. I knew that I couldn’t go on halfway living life, that I needed to go one way or the other. But the sun came up, and then I was just really tired and changed my mind. I went back to PAC and turned myself in to security. I know it was dumb, but I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t have a single friend or relative to go to. I thought maybe I could try and find my half sister who was in Oregon somewhere, but I didn’t have any money for a bus ticket or a phone number for her. I just gave up. I went to bed and locked the door.

I came out the next day and was told to go back on post [admin note: "go back on post" means "go back to work"]. (The CO of ASHO liked me I think, we were sort of friendly to each other, and they were pushing to go St Hill size. Plus, they had so much invested in me as a TTCer.) I refused. I told them that I was not doing well, and that I needed help, whether it was ethics or auditing or whatever. I was told to retread the EPF again, but I told them that the EPF was not for downstats. Then they put me on a Sec check.

At first, I had an auditor that I hated. I don’t remember who he was. He would just hammer and hammer and hammer me until I cried. Then someone came in and stopped him and gave me a new auditor. I liked it because finally someone was listening to me. That was the first time that I started to relax and actually feel better after auditing. I was put on 24 hour watch, which sucked so bad!! I slept on a mattress in a closet behind Leb Hall auditorium. Another teenage girl whose name I forget followed me everywhere, even to the bathroom. It made me feel really degraded. They kept telling me I was, anyway. I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone, even my husband. Not that I wanted to talk to him, anyway. The girl who was watching me was actually nice to me, for which I was very grateful.

Finally I confessed in session that I had been cutting my wrists. I had told them this before, but I guess someone watching on the camera finally figured out I was serious about the suicide thing and freaked. Some people came and interrupted the session. They told me I was leaving base and to pack my stuff. I just shrugged. I was really defeated and apathetic. I didn’t really take anything because I was planning on going to Venice beach, living out of my backpack, and figuring out a way to commit suicide that wouldn’t leave a mess for someone to clean up or traumatize some stranger who found my body. (I couldn’t think of a way to not do that.) Also I was afraid that if I killed myself, it would be “bad PR” and hurt the church, which would be the most awful thing I could do.

I thought if I left and waited a bit, then I could do it without any bad repercussions on Scientology. My main concern was for them, which now makes me kind of mad. They put me in an interview room and gave me a bunch of bonds and contracts to sign. I had to agree never to sue, never to tell any secrets I knew, stuff like that, I don’t really know because I didn’t read them. There wasn’t any point – they told me that I would be kept in the room until I signed, and I knew they meant it. Then Security called my parents, who were back in LA. They handed me over to them. I never said goodbye to anyone. It took about 2-3 hours total from start to finish.

I lived with them for a couple of years. Things started to get better. At least, I could get up off the floor in the morning. I got a job and started building a resume. I learned to drive and got a license. I didn’t see my mom much because she was living at Flag doing services full time (she still wanted a divorce). I started doing a lot of volunteer work at our local mission, trying to get myself out of lower conditions. I thought maybe I should go back, I was so lost as far as what to do with myself. I was trying to earn a way back into the good graces of everyone I had ever known.

Then my dad got sick. Dr. Denk from Shaw came. He said that my dad had cancer, that he had 3 weeks to live, that chemo and stuff was pointless. So my dad said “ok” and laid down and died. He said he was going to get a new body with a pregnant Scientologist we knew of. They were musicians, and that’s what he wished he was. My mom was home and my brother visited for a few days. Then he died. It was 4 weeks after we had found out he was sick.

My mom joined the Sea Org again after that. She just walked away. I got rid of all their household stuff, and after a long time I moved out into my own apartment. I moved around a lot. Eventually I realized that I needed to leave California. It was just too upsetting to me. Everywhere I looked I saw ghosts of my childhood, and everywhere I went people knew me. I lost a roommate because her boss told her he would fire her if she didn’t move out. He had heard I was ex-SO. I couldn’t get jobs at Scientology companies because I was ex-SO and a freeloader, but I had no resume outside of the church. And anyway my mom was showing up on my doorstep and yelling at me like I was still a bad little kid. I was like 21 at this point. I had some friends out of state, and I moved away.

I had a devil of a time adjusting to “the real world”. I didn’t even know how to speak proper English without Scientology terms. I had been told such stories about crime and how bad the world outside was, that I was terrified of it. I was just MORE terrified of Scientology. My husband says I’m from Mars, and that’s the best way to try and explain it. It really is like being from a different planet. I didn’t get pop culture references, I didn’t know how to do normal, everyday stuff. I was afraid to hold still or relax, because I was so used to running everywhere and being screamed at if I stopped. I ate at like, a million miles an hour. I was always afraid of my food being taken away. I actually lost a lot of weight because my body finally realized that it wasn’t going to starve anymore. So it stopped holding on to every calorie I got. I still had problems with cutting and being afraid and depressed. I had bad panic attacks. I was really scared that my mom was going to kidnap me back to the org, or that I was wrong and had doomed myself to an eternity of hell, stuff like that. Whenever I start doubting my decision, I would just remember how happy I was compared to then, and how I knew that they were lying to me, just it took some time for my heart/gut to catch up to my head.

I started taking Paxil about a year ago. It had immediate results. I felt wonderful. The nightmares became infrequent. I don’t have panic attacks like I used to. I’m not so depressed that I can’t get out of bed, in fact I’m downright happy. It hasn’t made me a different person, I’m just more free to be myself. It took me a long time to be willing to try a psych drug. It was actually a very hard step for me. But my best friend was taking an anti-depressant and she was neither crazy nor a zombie. I’m SO glad I did. Now I KNOW that I was lied to all my life about something that helped me more than auditing ever did!

Since then I met a really great guy and married him. I have nothing to do with Scientology or Scientologists in any way. I have a son that I love. I stay home taking care of him. My husband and I never fight, never yell at each other. I have been going to college, and have been promised an art scholarship at the university when I am ready. Life is better than I ever DREAMED it could be when I was growing up. I do stuff for FUN. I go camping, and sing, and some days I just sit around and watch tv and do NOTHING. I eat fast food and chocolate whenever I want. I am learning to cook food that is healthy AND tasty (my husband is teaching me). I’m never hungry although I still have moments when I have to hoard food or candy to make myself relax. I talk to whoever I want to. I read whatever books I want. I sleep when I am tired. I can get in my car and go anywhere I want, whenever I feel like it. No one yells or screams at me, no one calls me names or puts me down. All in all, life ROCKS.

I don’t speak to my mother. I actually disconnected from her. I know that is backwards for most people. But every time we talked she would try to “handle” me. She accused me of having crimes and heinous overts. She would have preferred me to get an abortion and go back to the SO. (Several years ago she paid off my $68,000 freeloader debt so that I could do that.) Now she would prefer I leave my husband and come back, or at the very least start buying my bridge and getting auditing. But I never will. She was not interested in being my mom back when I was a child, anyway. To be honest I still haven’t forgiven her for how she treated me back then. Hopefully I will someday. So finally I told her that I was tired of her trying to force me back to Scientology and I changed my phone number. She still has my address but it is too far for her to just show up. I guess I should have tried to repair our relationship. But I don’t want to have one with her. And I’m WAY happier being in charge of my own life, and not talking to her. I am happier focusing on my husband and son and not even thinking about Scientology. Those are the best days.

I just wish I could see my brother. He doesn’t know that I am here, that I am Anonymous. He would disconnect from me if he did. Someday maybe I will get him to come visit and he can learn that there is life outside the org, and he could have kids of his own. I wish he would go to college and get the job that he wants, instead of the one the org assigns him to. I wish I could make up for failing him as a big sister, all those years ago. I don’t have much hope though. I’ve only seen him twice in over 10 years, and one of those times was for 1 day. I don’t really know him anymore. But he is still my brother and I love him. I always will.

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