another scientology victim

02 Sep 2000

bwarr@pacbell.net

I'm posting this for a person who does not wish to be identified, as they are afraid of what the cult might do.

I'm writing this without any idea of how I am going to get it posted. I don't want to post it myself, because in reading things from this news group, I am very scared about the Church of Scientology right now. I'm afraid that some people will laugh at me for how foolish I was, but if there are any out there in the same situation I am in, I want them to know. I wasn't in for very long, not long enough to learn very much, but I learned enough.

Recently some one asked how people get involved in Scientology. I will tell you how I did.

I was feeling very alone and had no one to turn to. I had screwed up royally in my life and everyone was giving me a cold shoulder, when this really nice young person started cultivating my friendship. I was starved for that, and when he casually mentioned Dianetics and how he was learning auditing, I showed an interest in it. He came back to me later with the information that since I had been a Pysch patient and was currently on meds, that he wasn't allowed to audit me, but implied just how much auditing could help me. So he invited me to a Sunday service. I went.

Everyone was so sweet and caring and interested in hearing everything about me. I told them I was on disability, that I was mentally ill. They pooh poohed that and told me there was nothing wrong with me. They constantly harped on how I hadn't been helped by my shrink, otherwise I wouldn't feel the way I still felt. They also brought into the conversation several casual mentions of how people on psych meds were the ones who had done the shootings at Columbine. They gave me the test, and told me just how bad off I was on the test, but they didn't let me keep it.

I left there after six hours having blown my grocery money on several books and terrified of the medications I was taking.

They called and personally invited me back on Sunday! It was so thoughtful of them. One of the women I had talked to remembered so much about me and asked about how things were going. So I went again.

They told me how auditing could solve so many problems. I expressed an interest in auditing, but was told that people on meds were never audited. I mentioned that I was going to see my doctor to tell him why I wasn't going to be a patient any more and was asked in a very cold tone why would I want to do that? I said because I wanted to be upfront with him about why I was quitting. I was told in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't go and that Psychs didn't deserve nice people like me being upfront with them. I left that service a few hours after it was over and went cold turkey on my psych meds. These nice people knew I was going to do it. I spent the next two weeks in physical hell but my Scientologist friends were really there for me, comforting me and telling me it would all be worth it.

The Sunday I told them I was off my meds, they immediately signed me up for a course. I asked about getting some auditing, but was put off, and encouraged to take the course which would start me up the bridge. I was also asked to sign a contract saying I wouldn't sue CoS. I didn't leave with the course materials or a copy of the contract. They put the materials on a bookshelf with my name on them. I did however, leave with some other materials I also bought. I bought these things, because I was given the impression these things were vital to my well being.

I was constantly being phoned by the really nice caring people from the org., who were constantly telling me just how good things were going to be for me and urging me to sign up for even more courses and come down to the org for different special events. I felt loved and accepted.

I did my first course and during the course, I received an injury ( not because of CoS). I mentioned I was in pain and was going to take some aspirin for it. They sent me to an ethics officer to get permission to take an over the counter pain killer! This is when they introduced me to the touch assist to help my pain. I pretended it helped because I was really embarrassed and later I talked myself into believing it had helped. I wrote it down as one of my wins. I was definitely getting the idea that my friends liked me a lot better when I could document wins for them. I began to think of different things that I could write down for them. I knew that they got points for stuff like this and I really wanted to help.

I told some of my friends how I felt CoS was helping me and when they expressed doubts I took these doubts to my new and good friends at CoS to ask them why my friends had doubts. And they kept telling me how all these suppressive people in my life were keeping me down. I stopped talking to the supressives and even deleted all their addresses from my address book and e-mail list.

Now let me tell you my financial situation. I am on disability for mental illness and these people knew it. Hell, they probably know more about me than my shrink. They encouraged me to put courses on a credit card. They asked me to borrow money from friends to pay for courses. When I told them those were things I couldn't do, they began to hound me to get a job to pay for courses. I was in the catch 22. I needed this auditing they were talking about in order to get better, but I couldn't pay for it without a job which I couldn't get because I hadn't had the auditing that would make me better.

Then one Friday I went to a meeting about sea org. (after I had indeed borrowed some money from other sources and spent it on materials). I discovered the term illegal PC. I don't think it was a meeting they really meant me to be at, but someone else had brought me ( I think in order to raise the stats.). After all the money I had already spent, I found out that they wouldn't audit me at all!! (a term which had become a grasp on sanity for me) because I was an illegal PC!

I made an appointment to talk about it and was shown the regs. in this really impressive book. Then, they calmed me down because I was crying. I had been denied something they had held out to me as a life saver. I had been pouring money into them for about two months and no one had mentioned this to me before!? Then they started being really conspiratorial with me. They told me what I needed to do was to learn how to audit , and then find another illegal PC who knew how to audit and then we could audit each other, just not at the org. and under their auspices. They also told me how some high muckety muck in CoS had been an illegal PC and now she was one of the highest level OT's there was now. That after I went Clear (auditing with another illegal PC, mind you!) I could petition to take the OT stuff and continue on the bridge. And I was asked then if I wanted to sign up for the auditing course. I couldn't afford the course. I had eliminated all my resources and was in debt to the tune of six hundred dollars. ( Sorry, but that's a lot when you only get $700 a month to live on).

It was the money ( or MY lack of it) that finally clued me into what was going on. They would call and ask me how my job hunting was going and ask me to Services. By this time my car had broken down and I couldn't afford to fix it, but no one thought to offer me a ride to services. They just told me that I really needed to get that job to fix my car and to pay for more courses.

So why did I join the Church? They seemed to really care about me. They gave me attention and hope when I had none. They made me feel a large part of something that was going to fix humanity and me along with it. They seemed to want to share this huge wonderful secret with me that made me feel like I had a place to come home to finally.

They stopped calling me finally after I made it clear that I had no more money, and that I had no way to earn any more money. I thought they cared about ME. They just cared about me as a source of income. They really didn't get that much from me, all in all, but it was a lot from my standpoint.

I was in despair. No new friends, anymore. Certainly no hope of ever becoming an Operating Thetan. And still just as sick as I ever was. As sick as I was when I walked into the org. I had no recourse. I called my shrink and got back on meds. I started back into therapy, a lot of which is about how betrayed I was by these people. I actually ended up in the hospital.

Why do people join the Church? Because these people make you feel special and welcome. Because, like me, they are searching desperately for something they can't find elsewhere and unfortunately they don't find it there either. Probably because some are just as mentally ill as I am and the Church uses that illness to clean them out of any kind of income they can get.

Some Scientologists are probably going to say that I am sick and don't know what I am talking about. My answer to them is this: You're damn right I'm sick!!!!! I was when I walked in there and I told every single one of you who talked to me that day how sick I was!!!! And you still convinced me that Psychs are evil and you still convinced me to stop my meds!!!! Of course, you did it in such a way that I can never prove it. And saddest of all, I have even fewer friends now than I did when I started going to the Church.

And now besides being sick, now I'm scared as well. I convince myself that I didn't get far enough into it to be dangerous to them. I've kept quiet about it until now. But, just in case some one is surfing the net trying to decide if CoS is for them, I wanted my story out there.

Don't do it.

I'm not going to sign my name and hopefully I can figure out out to get this posted anonymously.

Another Victim of Scientology