Since I was not on staff when I left Scientology, there was no physical space I had to leave.
I was a Vice President at a Scientologist-owned company, and was surrounded by them. All my money, all my contacts, and what I thought was all my future was tied up in them.
I knew that if they found out I was no longer a Scientologist, I would be fired and disconnected from, and I had no idea what I was going to do.
I walked among them for months, observing the mindset, not one of them. I was fascinated and terrified that I would be found out. One day, one of the other Vice Presidents, who they had been working on hard to become a Scientologist, asked me about God and Scientology.
I told him the truth. I told him that in the beginning, you are allowed to believe whatever you wish about God. But later, you find out that Hubbard said there was no such thing, and that you are all that exists.
Somehow, I got a call a few days later while at work from a local OT8, saying that she heard that I wasn't doing well as a Scientologist. Somehow we got on to the subject of dissemination and I told her that I had decided that I was no longer going to lie when disseminating to people.
Then I told her about God. She told me that Scientologists can believe anything they want about God. I told her that was not true, and she knew it.
After the call, I saw that she had called my boss, and the two of them had talked for over an hour.
I knew they were closing in at that point. The president and the other partner both smiled at me when they saw me in the hall for the next few days, but I knew that they were arranging for my demise at the company.
I had a non-Scientology friend at the company, who was living in a relationship with a Scientologist - the OT8's daughter. And he was not cooperating with their coercive attempts to get him to change his thoughts and attitudes. He was a writer, and he really didn't hang with having people not let him question things. He was unaware that debate was not allowed, and that he was simply being targeted as a PTS terminal, and that his demise was being arranged, as well.
It was a terrifying time.
I didn't believe any more. I wouldn't lie.
In the end of course, I caused my own demise. I was terrified. But I did it anyway.
It takes courage to get out of Scientology.
Congratulations, Sky.
You had the courage to make it.
Geeeze Alanzo, What a stress that must have been.
The minute I decided to leave I announced it to the whole world.
It somehow put me at cause, everyone was the effect of me then.
But I know stories about other people who were put under similar stresses:
After I left the Sea Org a lot of the local Scientologists got in touch with me to see if I needed any help. Over the next year I was shocked at the things people said to me after I left the Sea Org that they never said to me before. The entire field was arc broken. I couldn't believe my ears!
Two OT8's I knew that were basically Scientology celebrities had a Sea Org recruiter hit on their son and they packed him up with all of their belongings and relocated to a very remote place. They actually left everything and fled the scene to save their son from being pulled into the Sea Org.
Another guy I knew was in a very bad situation, his WIFE started writing KR's on him for being critical and sending them to Flag. And he had been ordered to the Base for sec checks. All of his partners and whole family was in Scientology. He DESPISED his wife, and she didn't care one hoot. They had two boys and he was in the marriage because he didn't want to loose his children and his whole family and business partners. They had only been married about seven years and after she had the children she had been full time, more or less, on service from the botton of the bridge all the way through ot8 while he stayed at home with the nanny, his mother in law! It had run him approx 250,000 a year to keep her on service and she was considered an upstat and an O.L.. If he complained in any way she wrote KR's and sent them to the MAA. I felt really bad for that guy. The last time I was at their house she was there and showing me the new kitchen she had put in. While her husband sat there obviously caved in, enturbulated, and B.I.'s. When his wife left the room he looked at me, stood up shouting in a whisper with so much force that some of his spit landed on me, and said, "
SHE IS MY WORST ENEMY"!
Another guy sent his wife to do OT8. They had a very young daughter. Their marriage according to him was "A Dream" when she left to do OT8.
Upon her return she had no ARC for him whatsoever, refused to touch him and filed for divorce. He was really spun in on this as a bad indication. He couldn't get any help from anyone in the Church to explain what had happened to her or why she did not want to be with him. It turned out she had decided to disconnect because of some critical remarks he had made about the Int execs and the church's out PR. Some thanks for three week vacation on the Carribean huh?
A girl was living with a guy for four years and caring for his two children when it becamme apparent he was sexually molesting his youngest son. She caught him in the act masturbating his six year old son. Not once, but three times after they had blow up fights about it after each incident. She wanted to call the child protective services and was told by some local Scientologists how out PR it would be as the guy was an ot4. She went to Flag and had him called before the chaplain. The chaplian decided he would be ordered to do 3L's. Yes! He was routed to the HGC and paid too for the three L's. He stayed there and she returned home to look after the kids. When their father returned from doing the L's he complained he had a constant headache from his service at the church and contacted other locals who had done the L's too and they all nattered about the Church and their results with the L's, and he reported all of this to the girl. He also said what he had done with the son didn't amount to a hill of beans and that it was natural. The girl ended the relationship and moved out, had a loss on the kids and felt guilty for not contacting the audthorites. Six months later the guy had become a patron of the IAS and had moved up the bridge and was auditing on OT7! She said she thought, he thought, she might make a scene after she left with authorities or the church, and that he went back to Flag and spent money and did some more service to look good and avoid legal hassels and church hassels, as the children's real mother was a Scientology staff member. I guess the stress for people in that story was on those children.
There was a woman on OT7 who's son was recruited into the Sea Org. About four months later the stats in his Org crashed and the MAA was doing "roll backs" or something and in his ethics handleing that came up the citisisms his mother had made, just comments here and there, about the church. She was published as the why for the Org Stats crashing! The son was mortified that he had gotten his mother in trouble and routed out of the Sea Org. His mom paid off his 20,000.00 "freeloader" debt and they went under the radar. But their friends stopped calling and distanced themselves and they could not walk back into the lobby of that Org anymore.
This girl and her husband went from Texas to Clearwater with their young daughter to do OT6 and get started on OT7. While they were there, her husband was seduced very overtly by another woman on OT7. Nobody wanted to get involved as the "other woman" had signed a Sea Org contract and was on a program to go into the Sea Org as an exec for the Freewinds. She was also recruiting the guy to leave his wife and child and come into the Sea Org too. The girl didn't want to come in the Sea Org or put her child there so she was black sheep in all of this see? So, she was kicked to the curb as her husband filed for divorce and signed a Sea Org contract and went straight in the Freewinds Org. The "other woman" had to pay off debts and she lived in the Sandcastle and went from table to table regging public to pay off her credit cards since SHE was committing to the Sea Org and THEY were not, all the while wife number one is there getting going on OT7 as a single mom left with all of her husbands debts. The "other woman" apparently got the public to pay off all of her credit cards / her bridge.
That's not the worst part. The husband follows this other woman into the Sea Org and they are married as fast as the ink is the dry on the divorce papers in Flarida, six weeks. The girl ends up staying in Clearwater, getting a job, and supporting herself and her daughter and she still has not made any noise whatsoever. She get's through OT8. The "other woman" starts calling her from the Freewinds office saying she wants to wear the hat of the step mom and demanding the girl drop off her daughter at the Freewinds Relay Office for visits whenever she calls to say she is available! NOW the woman makes some noise! The "other woman" who was the CO of the Freewinds Relay Office, writes KR's on her and has her recalled to the ship for "ethics handleings". She said she cried non stop all the way from Florida to the ship.
It cost her a fortune which she couldn't afford too well paying off all the husband's bridge debts, supporting the child as a single mom too. She says she managed to escape from the suppression when she returned to Florida, and met a man from L.A. she married quickly, packed up her kid and belongings, and escaped to the west coast. STILL, every time there was an event or something new to be sold from the Freewinds, the "other woman" called her from a Freewinds office and made her buy it or confirm through HER! She never said "No" because she didn't want trouble.
I guess there are more stories too, but I have to run.
Other's have been put under stresses too, with work and especially the family.