Hi again! Today, as I sit here in my cozy home, with my loving husband at my side and surrounded by a menagerie of snuggly pets—seriously, two dogs and two cats in a 1400-square-foot home!—I can’t help but think about how grateful I am to have so much love in my life.

It wasn’t always the case. As a Scientologist, the concept of “love” wasn’t even in the picture. Maybe there was a bit of love between my ex-husband and I, but not a lot. As Sea Org members, we were both working day and night and our production was FAR more important than our relationship. No time for intimacy in the Sea Org!

But it goes deeper than that. The concept of love in Scientology is pretty much nonexistent. L. Ron Hubbard developed something called the Emotional Tone Scale, which is a list of emotional “tones” from highest to lowest. At the top of the scale is “Serenity of Beingness” and at the bottom is “Total Failure”. There are dozens of tones in between, each one with its own set of characteristics.

Basically, it’s supposed to help you understand others better because you can spot which tone they’re displaying.

What it really is is a control mechanism. Here’s what I mean: Say you look at someone and determine, based on the Tone Scale, that they’re displaying a certain emotion. Well, to be able to “handle” them (i.e. control them), you’re supposed to communicate at a half to a full tone above them on the scale.

So if someone was being antagonistic to you, you’d just go up the scale to “Boredom” and that would deal with the situation.

How insane is this? Basically, I learned how to display totally false emotions in order to “communicate better” with others. It’s actually just sinking in now how incredibly damaging that can be. How do you even know your real emotions?

But here’s the craziest part. “Love” isn’t an emotion on the Tone Scale. But guess what is? “Hate”. Well, of course!

Here are a few choice emotions I experienced in the Sea Org: Pain. Anger. Shame. Hate. Blame. Fear. Despair. Anxiety. Terror. But Love? Not that I can remember.

So now that I’m out of Scientology and have built a new life, it’s completely centered around love.

Meeting the Love of My Life

When I met my wonderful Tom for the first time, I knew immediately that he was a kind soul. He looked straight at me when he spoke to me. He was intelligent and funny. I hadn’t experienced that kind of pure, straightforward communication in a long time and frankly, it caught me off guard.

Here’s the deal. I was working in the coffee shop at the local hospital and I wasn’t interested in meeting ANYONE new. I had made a few friends, sure, but men? No thanks. I had decided I’d be living the rest of my life as a single woman, and that was just fine with me. Obviously I had a lot of work to do on myself, right?

So in walks Tom. CRAP. All those plans went out the window. The walls came down because there was something incredibly pure about him. No artifice. I wasn’t used to that.

We were friends first, then I asked him out on a date because he wasn’t about to ask me. He said he wasn’t really interested in a relationship, since he was still trying to heal from a horrible breakup. But I persisted, because I knew I wouldn’t find anyone like him again.

Four months after that, I had worn him down and we moved in to a house together. We’re still here 10 years later. He’s the best partner I could have ever asked for, and we have a truly happy marriage.

But things were a bit scary at first, because I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Scientology. I “just knew” if he found out about my past, he’d leave me. I mean, who wants to be saddled with a crazy ex-cult member?

However, I also knew that I had to tell him because I wasn’t being fair to him. We’d been living in this house for a few weeks, and I decided it was now or never. I sat him down on the couch and told him I had something really serious to talk about, and that I was scared to death he’d leave me. I broke down crying.

He assured me that it would be okay. So I blurted it out: “The reason I’ve been living with my parents is that I had nowhere else to go. I was in Scientology for almost 20 years.”

“So are you still in?”

“No.”

“Well great. You’re here with me now and that’s all that matters.”

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? He wasn’t going to judge me?????????? WHO WAS THIS MAN???????????????

Not only did he not judge me, he married me. And he kept my “dirty little secret” for 10 years, until I was ready to tell the world.

That, my friends, is love.

Love is the Answer

At this point in my life, I’m surrounded by love. I have the most loving family, as you already know by what you’ve read on this blog so far.

I’ve also built friendships over the past years that are truly my chosen family. I love them all so much, and they love me.

Now I experience love every single day. My husband and I never leave each other or go to sleep at night without a hug and a kiss. I’ll call him and the first words are “Hello, my gorgeous wife.” Come on! I’m so incredibly lucky!

My friends (family) and I are all about the love, too. Lots of hugs and kisses, lots of “I love you”. It’s such a joy to be living this way.

That’s why I feel like it’s so important to expose what Scientology is really all about. There’s no love in Scientology, just control and domination. That’s not the answer to the problems of the world, much as L. Ron Hubbard would want you to believe otherwise.

There’s only one answer: LOVE. If we all try to love each other just a little bit more each day, maybe the entire world wouldn’t change overnight, but our lives would be a whole lot happier.

So spread the love, baby! Tell someone you love them today and feel the love in return. It’s the best!