i'm on the way out. i know its going to be one hell of a journey from this point now, til i'm REALLY free and clear. but i needed and wanted to start posting this. i haven't been on the board for too long, but long enough to feel that if my story can inspire those "still in" who are lurking to have the courage to go through with leaving themselves... well.. thats all i can ask. ESMB saved my life. here we go...
----------------------- Part 1
My story actually begins some time before my introduction (and eventual life turn-over) to Scientology. It is these events leading up to my involvement that made it so hard for me to let go, and made it so hard for me to see what should have been plain as day.
Growing up, life was extremely confusing. My parents had divorced when I was still a baby, and my father had moved away. Living with my mother was not easy. Many times I thought she forgot my name, as she so often preferred to call me "bitch". The beatings she dealt out are another story altogether. Every day was a struggle just to make it to bed that night alive. I lived in fear, and walked around in a cloud of self doubt and betrayal. This was my mother, wasn't she supposed to protect me from pain? I didn't know. I tried to make her happy, doing anything she asked, but it never seemed like the right thing. Somehow I had messed up, I had failed. It was just never enough for her.
And at the time, I had believed in a “God”. But where was God now? Why wasn’t he keeping me safe? Why was he allowing these things to happen to me? It was this sense of betrayal that started it all. Betrayal from my mother for not being what a mother was supposed to be, and betrayal from a god who seemed content to sit back and watch us all suffer.
As I got older, the beatings became more severe. She started using household items as weapons, brooms, drawers, cooking utensils, even high heeled shoes. She remarried and a couple years later, she had a son. I protected him with my life, often taking any blame to spare him from her wrath. It was a very confusing and chaotic time of my life, many parts I simply don't remember, or the events are mixed up. But to me, it is the simple fact that they occurred, not when, that made me who I am today. As you can imagine, I turned into a very angry and rebellious girl. I wasn't wild though, and honestly, my true nature was one of love and wonder. I was just so hurt and disappointed. I had lost all faith in any organized religion, flat out denying the existence of a supreme being for many years.
Nothing made sense to me, and when I was 11 I decided to find out if there was anything out there that might. I didn't want to believe that I was destined to die, having had the childhood I had. It just seemed so unfair. This was when fair and unfair were real terms that I felt belonged in the world. I truly thought "there must be a balance to things". I still don't really know, but I digress. I studied many different religions, buddhism, taoism, judaism, christianity, islam, catholicism. None of it provided me with a solid foundation for the "why"s of life. Such as “why are people the way they are?” and "why didn't anyone love me" and "why is life like this?" And "why am I all alone?" And "why is this happening to me?" I was a very sad child, and by 13 had completely given up in my search for spiritual enlightenment.
At the time, I was attending a Catholic private school. I never really made any friends growing up, and consistently felt alone. The disappointment in my mother’s behavior grew, and became a burning hole in my thoughts. I admit that I thought about suicide every day, waking up in tears at the fact that I had to face another day with her and my awful life, crying myself to sleep, knowing I’d have but only a few hours of bliss in my dreams before having to face reality again. Around this time, I met a boy who was a few years older than me, and it was the first time I’d ever had any feelings like this for anyone. For a short period of time, my little crush on him had me smiling. At the end of the school year, he asked me out and I was absolutely elated. I felt I finally had something to live for. It turned out to be exactly the opposite of what I’d anticipated. A few weeks later, he forced me to have sex with him, and I thought that it would bring me love. I was dead wrong. I was a virgin, and it hurt, more emotionally than physically, especially when he dumped me a few days later. It took me almost 7 years before I looked back on it and realized that it was rape. In fact, in those 7 years, I completely blocked it out of my mind.
(This is probably one of the biggest things for me, because it changed how I felt about love and relationships and sex. It was definitely my “ruin”. I couldn’t understand why I felt the way I did, I couldn’t understand why, when I was older anyway, I couldn’t understand why my friends were having successful relationships full of love, and actually ENJOYING sex while I hated it, and hated the very idea of being touched, and cringed away from the situation if kissing went too far. I wanted to be normal. To this day, I feel I am still recovering from that, trying to get back my sense of appreciation for the act of it. It got to the point where I just refused to get involved with anyone because I’m so screwed up about it.)
Anyway, the following year, I’d had enough of my mother’s treatment. I called my father and told him to come get me, that I didn’t want to live with her anymore, that I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take my brother with me, but I told her that if she touched him again I’d never speak to her again. She hasn’t touched him since. So I moved in with my father the summer after I turned 15.
That’s when it all started. I’d gotten into smoking weed, and to be honest, I was having the time of my life. I had friends, a boyfriend, and had no worries. I never went hungry (as I so often did when my mother was mad at me), I wasn’t being screamed at or hit, and I had freedom. It was a great feeling. My father and I moved into a bigger apartment, and I cant remember how it happened, but my father found a bag of weed among my belongings. Next thing I knew, I was at a local mission, and this guy was talking to me about Scientology.
--------------- more later