How I joined Scientology, escaped Scientology, rebuilt my life — and became a WAY better human in the process
Kintsukuroi, “to repair with gold,” is the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. Just like me. I had an interesting conversation with an old friend the other day. I hadn't spoken to him since about 2003, when we worked together at … Continue reading From Post-Traumatic Stress to Post-Traumatic Growth: A Continuing Journey
NOTE: Up to now in this blog, I've changed the names of many people. I no longer choose to do that, so these are their real names. “Here we go. I think we’ve got it nailed this time.” I sure sounded confident when talking to my design team about our latest submission—such a good faker. … Continue reading The Slap That Changed Everything
What does it mean to be strong? I’ve been working it over—a lot. Am I strong because I survived a 20-year cult experience? Because I left with nothing and rebuilt my life from scratch? Because I continue to believe in the goodness of people despite the horrors I observed? Maybe. I was talking to my … Continue reading STRONG
When I was a Linguistics and French major in college, I read a lot of Camus: L'Etranger (The Stranger), La Peste (The Plague), and of course, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus). Poor old Sisyphus. Doomed to push the same rock up a mountain every day, only to see it fall to the … Continue reading Surviving Trauma: Oh, the Burdens we Carry.
The other day I saw an ad for a show called “Life After Lockup.” I wanted to find out what it was about. My curiosity took me down a rabbit hole to “Love After Lockup,” the first show in the series. Where have these shows been all my life??? If only I had spare time … Continue reading “Life After Lockup” Scientology-style!
Hi Y'all! I'm currently sitting at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport waiting for my flight to San Francisco, so I figured I'd take this time to drink a mimosa and share this blog post that I wrote on the flight from Tampa. It's all about my adventures on "Clearance Lines". Enjoy! There I was, whisked away … Continue reading Int Clearances: What an “Adventure?”
Hi there! Nice to see you here again! If you're not familiar with the total insanity of the sea organization, what I'm about to tell you will seem completely bonkers to you. But this really happened to me. And it's still happening to those poor, unsuspecting souls who still want to join the sea org … Continue reading A Billion-year Contract? Yeah, I signed one.
I don't know what got me thinking about this today, but scientology is definitely NOT the authority on human rights. Maybe it was all the writing about sex and marriage in my last blog post. It got me thinking about my wonderful married friends who happen to be gay, and how in scientology, that's … Continue reading Human Rights in Scientology? What a joke.
Don't let the image fool you—sex and marriage in the sea org was no walk in the park. In fact, if you were caught "walking in the park" with someone and you weren't married, you'd have hell to pay! In scientology, it's called "going out-2D". I know, weirdness. I'll explain all that later. Right now, … Continue reading Sex and Marriage, Scientology Style!
My heart was pounding. I'd broken out in a cold sweat. I had only minutes before it would be too late... Sounds like something out of a thriller, right? What if I told you this happened to me every single week for almost two decades? That's right, every Thursday before 2. That's the arbitrary week-ending … Continue reading The dreaded “Thursday before 2” (and a crazy nightmare just for laughs).
NOT CULTY: My Scientology Story 