I guess I was really needy and not in a good condition when I was introduced to Scientology (at 16).
I made lots of great friends who were very supporatative.
I was actually quite antagonistic to Scientology before I went in, but I agreed to do the HQS in exchange for something I needed from someone (another story).
I thought they were all a bunch of kooks and I could wing my way thrugh the course in two weeks and get the hell out of Dodge. Furthermore I hated hippies and they all looked like hippies to me.
This was the early 70's, in New York, and no one there was using anything connected to "justice" by the way.
I pretended to read the stuff on the checksheet and checked it off, I didn't even read it.
Then I got sat down to do tr's.
Then I went exterior on ottro.
Really, way out, three feet in back of my head.
I jumped up out my chair like a rocket ship going off.
I got sent to the examiner.
My first origination was, "I feel like I just shot a great bag of dope".
My motives for continueing changed at that point, although perhaps still a little murkey.
I figuered if I could feel that great all the time I wouldn't need money for heroin anymore. And that in itself could delete a lot of madness in my life.
And that was my reason for continuing.
Auditing was very reasonable then, I got through clear over the next five years, by the time I was 21, for about 6400.00. And that was a lot of hours including the drug rundown.
The clear experience put me into a whole other galaxy, and I still hadn't read the Dianetics book.
I can't very well explain the rest of my time while I was officially on lines.
All of my auditing was great, I didn't know why some people weren't having a good time.
I stayed very uninvolved with the Org for the most part, had all my usual friends that were not into Scientology and just went into the Orgs for service except for a few contracts I signed, worked for while, a few months, and said I was bored and wanted to leave or had something else I had to go do.
It was never a problem, even in the Sea Org.
I don't know why I never had a problem, except I was never anyone very important.
I really liked the PEOPLE in the Orgs and missions, and later, at the base.
I liked the company of Scientologists, and they liked me too and I had many friends all the while.
Things were really easy going in New York City and after all, they all knew me from when I was kid and they were all proud I'd made something of myself.
People like me were the reason people like them were on staff, because they really saw the Scientology make a difference in my life.
Then things got a bit more serious when I became Flag public.
I didn't like going to Flag at all and I felt so sorry for the staff I couldn't enjoy my service.
Funny, I wasn't able to move up the bridge there either, just round and round in the case cracking unit year after year.
(seven hours of ot preps in the FZ and I was onto ot1).
Also the big purge had come before I started at Flag and my place had become the place escaped staff landed because I didn't care about what "justice" actions might occurr to me from Sea Org staff, I was WAY too woggy for them to deal with.
For some wierd reason they always looked at me like an outsider, someone who wasn't with the program or someone who wouldn't understand.
Even when I was on staff there later!
A guy yelled at me once and I slapped him, he just walked away.
A lady grilled me once with my PC folders on her desk after a sec check.
I just thought, "She is kind of fucked up".
When I saw people doing bad things to other people I said, "This is kind of fucked up".
So I left.
I walked out the front door.
Paid off my debt.
I didn't get any benefits from the Sea Org like auditing or training or any Scientology service.
In fact, i used seven years of my life, did a LOT for them, and got handed a debt.
But I had other benefits.
I figured when I went in they would be able isolate my 3d insanity and my face would get rubbed into it and I would be able to confront it and handle it.
It did a hell of a lot for my morale to find out I wasn't the crazy one.
In fact, I had NO idea how sane, competent, stable and aware I was until I spent six years in that place.
It was the best process I ever ran in Scientology.
I went in suspecting I was a DB and left feeling like a God.
The red carpet rolled right out in front of me.
The illusions and worship was over.
I had to deal with some recovery missionaires, and some survivors guilt, but that wasn't a big deal.
Over the years I had to shed some of my allegience to the ideas of not granting others beingness or rightness if they differed from me, but I got over that too.
I only made one enemy in the Sea Org.
All the other people were very good friends.
I loved them.
I won all the way on that cycle.
I consider myself very lucky to have spent company with those people, that was a huge benefit.
I met some amazing people there, and that really bought up my ARC for the world.
I decided to forget about it then and went off for ten years to do other things.
And I did things I never thought I could do before the Sea Org.
I might have never looked back on what I saw a sinking ship, if 9/11 hadn't occurred.
I would have gone back into thje Org for my ot levels, but there wasn't an org near me.
That's how I got in the FZ.
Getting through ot3 in the FZ can have it's ups and downs.
I managed to do it all right, get the ot preps, have highly trained people in front of me for as long as they could wear a hat and get me through something.
I woke up one day after auditing on ot3 for some time, and I was driving somewhere, and it hit me out of the blue that for the first time in my life I had full certainty that I was sane.
So, I consider my benefits to be priceless.
And I want to thank all of you here who worked and sacrificed in whatever way you did to make that possible for me.
T.I.