Ex Scientology Women speak out

[Free to shine]

Following the Blog Talk radio show X Women; Escapes from Scientology there is a blog being set up to bring together all these stories, and many more.
See http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?29887-Big-Radio-Show-Coming-This-Friday

The site is www.xscientologywomen.com

This blog came about from a group of ex-scientology women who are extremely passionate about how women and families are treated in scientology. Scientology neutralises femininity. Women are reduced to being mere “cogs in the machine”.

Families are ripped apart, marriages are treated as expendable commodities and children are just “adults in little bodies”.

We decided to put together a collection of articles, stories, videos, interviews, etc, from the feminine perspective.

We are the ex-scientology women. And these are our stories.

So what is needed now are more stories, links and permission from the authors to post them. There are a lot on ESMB and I will start doing searches and would welcome any help. Just post the links here and thankyou!

(If you have a story you would like posted anonymously, please send me a PM.)

 

[AnonyMary]

So glad this has been set up so quickly!! Already there are stories posted!! I hope many more pour in soon. Thanks to all for making this happen

 

[Type4_PTS]

The site is www.xscientologywomen.com

I just took a quick peek and love the design and content of this site and believe it can (and will) play an important role in educating others about the corrosive impact scientology has on society.

 

[sallydannce]

Thank you FTS. For your tireless caring and the heart and soul you bring to the ex-scientologist community.

As a community - dotted all over the world - we have this unique connection, a unique intense experience which only another ex-scientologist truly relates to. That can be isolating and lonely. As women, we have watched and experienced some of the cruellest insane mind-bending experiences a woman could bear. We've lost children and husbands and lovers and families and friends, and too often, our dignity.

After I heard the Blog Talk Radio interviews, I sat here, moved to the core. I'd laughed and I'd cried. I thought about what I'd been through - as a woman and felt this great need to tell it like it was. Everything from my sense of femininity, my sexuality, the pain of watching families being ripped apart, of friendships being carelessly reduced to nothing - all because of a system which is supposedly about "freedom". Pfff!!!

I'm not big on gender division. Some of that is the legacy of being in scientology, some of that is cultural influences. But the reality is there are differences between men and women. I don't mean that in some trite divisive condescending way. I love the masculine energy, I love the way men try to fix everything and how they protectively love their women and their children.

Women, on the other hand, tend to deal with life in a different way. We like to talk about our feelings and shed a few tears and douse an issue with a feminine passionate rant. Then we quieten down, wipe the tears from our faces, arrange a simple bunch of flowers, make a nice cup of tea and get on with what needs to be done.

Ladies, grab a cup of tea and let's have some open dialogue. Let's talk about what it felt like to be treated as a mere “cog in the machine”, where our children, our men, our friends, our families, were all expendable in the name of “clearing the planet”. Let's talk about what it felt like to have our femininity neutralised so we became "effective terminals" in a crazy cult.

Roar if it helps. Laugh if it helps. Cry if it helps. To hell with being meek! To hell with putting up with this cruelty!

Enough is enough!

Ex-scientology women are speaking out!

http://xscientologywomen.com/

 

[Purple Rain]

That's great, FTS! I loved the show and also thought it was awesome that you called in!!

Just a couple of comments - there seem to be some typos such as "RFP" instead of "RPF" and I don't know if the word should be "escapees" instead of "escapes".

Anyway, also thrilled the link to the Jeanette Lang story is there. Carmen Rainer might be another good one.

I have subscribed to the blog and can't wait to see more stories go up! It's such an excellent idea!

 

[Purple Rain]

Thank you FTS. For your tireless caring and the heart and soul you bring to the ex-scientologist community.

As a community - dotted all over the world - we have this unique connection, a unique intense experience which only another ex-scientologist truly relates to. That can be isolating and lonely. As women, we have watched and experienced some of the cruellest insane mind-bending experiences a woman could bear. We've lost children and husbands and lovers and families and friends, and too often, our dignity.

After I heard the Blog Talk Radio interviews, I sat here, moved to the core. I'd laughed and I'd cried. I thought about what I'd been through - as a woman and felt this great need to tell it like it was. Everything from my sense of femininity, my sexuality, the pain of watching families being ripped apart, of friendships being carelessly reduced to nothing - all because of a system which is supposedly about "freedom". Pfff!!!

I'm not big on gender division. Some of that is the legacy of being in scientology, some of that is cultural influences. But the reality is there are differences between men and women. I don't mean that in some trite divisive condescending way. I love the masculine energy, I love the way men try to fix everything and how they protectively love their women and their children.

Women, on the other hand, tend to deal with life in a different way. We like to talk about our feelings and shed a few tears and douse an issue with a feminine passionate rant. Then we quieten down, wipe the tears from our faces, arrange a simple bunch of flowers, make a nice cup of tea and get on with what needs to be done.

Ladies, grab a cup of tea and let's have some open dialogue. Let's talk about what it felt like to be treated as a mere “cog in the machine”, where our children, our men, our friends, our families, were all expendable in the name of “clearing the planet”. Let's talk about what it felt like to have our femininity neutralised so we became "effective terminals" in a crazy cult.

Roar if it helps. Laugh if it helps. Cry if it helps. To hell with being meek! To hell with putting up with this cruelty!

Enough is enough!

Ex-scientology women are speaking out!

There's also the issue of having your sexuality sort of misappropriated to lure other people into the cult. Putting the attractive girls on bodyrouting, love bombing others, manipulating "wogs" to help you get your product out. Let alone the stories from celebrity centre about sea org women regularly sleeping with prospective recruits. I think as a woman that sort of thing makes you cynical and hard and kind of cheapens you. And others have stated that one of the big draws of Scientology in the early days was the "free love" culture - the fact that you could get a lot of sex with a lot of lovely young women if you joined Scientology. Of course, that might have been a product of the times, but you wonder what sort of effect it had on people - I mean apart from the health risks the using and being used aspects of a woman's sexuality.

 

[Petey C]

Wow, that was quick work! Thanks to FTS and others for getting this set up so quickly. I'll be spending some time there.

 

[Free to shine]

As a community - dotted all over the world - we have this unique connection, a unique intense experience which only another ex-scientologist truly relates to. That can be isolating and lonely. As women, we have watched and experienced some of the cruellest insane mind-bending experiences a woman could bear. We've lost children and husbands and lovers and families and friends, and too often, our dignity.

After I heard the Blog Talk Radio interviews, I sat here, moved to the core. I'd laughed and I'd cried. I thought about what I'd been through - as a woman and felt this great need to tell it like it was. Everything from my sense of femininity, my sexuality, the pain of watching families being ripped apart, of friendships being carelessly reduced to nothing - all because of a system which is supposedly about "freedom". Pfff!!!

I'm not big on gender division. Some of that is the legacy of being in scientology, some of that is cultural influences. But the reality is there are differences between men and women. I don't mean that in some trite divisive condescending way. I love the masculine energy, I love the way men try to fix everything and how they protectively love their women and their children.

Women, on the other hand, tend to deal with life in a different way. We like to talk about our feelings and shed a few tears and douse an issue with a feminine passionate rant. Then we quieten down, wipe the tears from our faces, arrange a simple bunch of flowers, make a nice cup of tea and get on with what needs to be done.

Ladies, grab a cup of tea and let's have some open dialogue. Let's talk about what it felt like to be treated as a mere “cog in the machine”, where our children, our men, our friends, our families, were all expendable in the name of “clearing the planet”. Let's talk about what it felt like to have our femininity neutralised so we became "effective terminals" in a crazy cult.

Roar if it helps. Laugh if it helps. Cry if it helps. To hell with being meek! To hell with putting up with this cruelty!

Enough is enough!

Ex-scientology women are speaking out!

http://xscientologywomen.com/

That says it perfectly! Thanks Sally and everyone else involved. Back to work....

 

[Free to shine]

That's great, FTS! I loved the show and also thought it was awesome that you called in!!

Just a couple of comments - there seem to be some typos such as "RFP" instead of "RPF" and I don't know if the word should be "escapees" instead of "escapes".

Anyway, also thrilled the link to the Jeanette Lang story is there. Carmen Rainer might be another good one.

I have subscribed to the blog and can't wait to see more stories go up! It's such an excellent idea!

I just took the show title as it was.

Can you tell me exactly where the typo is, that would be a great help. And is there a story of yours we can add?

 

[Magoo]

Originally Posted by sallydannce


As a community - dotted all over the world - we have this unique connection, a unique intense experience which only another ex-scientologist truly relates to. That can be isolating and lonely. As women, we have watched and experienced some of the cruellest insane mind-bending experiences a woman could bear. We've lost children and husbands and lovers and families and friends, and too often, our dignity.

After I heard the Blog Talk Radio interviews, I sat here, moved to the core. I'd laughed and I'd cried. I thought about what I'd been through - as a woman and felt this great need to tell it like it was. Everything from my sense of femininity, my sexuality, the pain of watching families being ripped apart, of friendships being carelessly reduced to nothing - all because of a system which is supposedly about "freedom". Pfff!!!

I'm not big on gender division. Some of that is the legacy of being in scientology, some of that is cultural influences. But the reality is there are differences between men and women. I don't mean that in some trite divisive condescending way. I love the masculine energy, I love the way men try to fix everything and how they protectively love their women and their children.

Women, on the other hand, tend to deal with life in a different way. We like to talk about our feelings and shed a few tears and douse an issue with a feminine passionate rant. Then we quieten down, wipe the tears from our faces, arrange a simple bunch of flowers, make a nice cup of tea and get on with what needs to be done.

Ladies, grab a cup of tea and let's have some open dialogue. Let's talk about what it felt like to be treated as a mere “cog in the machine”, where our children, our men, our friends, our families, were all expendable in the name of “clearing the planet”. Let's talk about what it felt like to have our femininity neutralised so we became "effective terminals" in a crazy cult.

Roar if it helps. Laugh if it helps. Cry if it helps. To hell with being meek! To hell with putting up with this cruelty!

Enough is enough!

Ex-scientology women are speaking out!

http://xscientologywomen.com/

The interviews were a grand start to this.
Also, I agree....great job on setting this up, FTS!

I look forward to reading, sharing, crying and laughing even more than
I already have over the last 12 years out.

to you ALL..

Tory/Magoo

 

[Purple Rain]

I just took the show title as it was.

Can you tell me exactly where the typo is, that would be a great help. And is there a story of yours we can add?

Hmmm, the "RFP" one was in the "The X Women; Escapes from scientology" post. And I guess thinking about it now "escapes from Scientology" obviously relates to the escape itself not the person escaping, so that does make sense.

I could try and write something. My story isn't dramatic, but it's probably about time I did it. Maybe I can do it while I'm in Melbourne and you can help me. It would also be interesting to get my sister's point of view. I know my mother thinks me getting into Scientology is the worst thing that ever happened in her life, even worse than breast cancer which she also considers was caused by the stress of Scientology. Even though I'd been in a Christian cult before that, the emotional trauma she went through with that cult was nothing compared to when I was in Scientology.

 

[Lurker5]

Following the Blog Talk radio show X Women; Escapes from Scientology there is a blog being set up to bring together all these stories, and many more.
See http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?29887-Big-Radio-Show-Coming-This-Friday

The site is www.xscientologywomen.com





So what is needed now are more stories, links and permission from the authors to post them. There are a lot on ESMB and I will start doing searches and would welcome any help. Just post the links here and thankyou!

(If you have a story you would like posted anonymously, please send me a PM.)

WOW !

 

[Free to shine]

New articles and links are coming in, wow. The more the merrier!

 

[Panda Termint]

Excellent!

 

[Sautez]

Fantastic work!

This makes me so happy-- We have needed a site like this for years.


:dancer::dancer::dancer:




Sautez

 

[Type4_PTS]

So what is needed now are more stories, links and permission from the authors to post them. There are a lot on ESMB and I will start doing searches and would welcome any help. Just post the links here and thankyou!

I just read Haydn James story:
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/20...t-family-t-paine-and-the-james-gang/#comments

He and his wife Lucy came out as Indies several years back after a combined 61 years on staff/Sea Org. I haven't attempted to contact him for permission to put any of it onto this other website, but for now just posting an excerpt here (below). The full story is well worth reading as well!

We tried to make the best of it and carry on, but things were coming to a head. Our daughter Katrina (now just 14 years old) became unhappy with life in the Sea Org in LA (it didn’t seem to be anything like my descriptions – and she was right). She broke the news to me early one morning, sitting on a bench by a bus stop on the outskirts of PAC (because of Miscavige’s weird co-mingling rules I wasn’t allowed into PAC to see my daughter, something that contributed to the problem). It was the first time my rose colored glasses began to shatter something I now often thank Katrina for. She told me with all the solemnity and dignity she could muster that she didn’t want to be in the Sea Org but that she didn’t want to pull Lucy or me out because she knew what being in the Sea Org meant to us so she would just go back to England and live there. She was barely 14. I was choked, both incredibly proud of her strength and devastated at the same time — my world fell apart.

Lucy and I proposed a number of sane solutions whereby we could accommodate the handling of Katrina and remain on staff. I even proposed in writing that I take Katrina back to England and become a Flag Rep in an Org while Lucy remained on her post in LA. Quite a sacrifice I thought but the powers that be would have none of it. We had to dump Katrina out into the world and both remain on post in LA – nothing else would be acceptable. In the endless “talks” it would often seem like good sense was going to prevail as we had real comm. cycles with our “handlers”. They seemed to understand. But they would return next day stony faced and zombie like, parroting back Miscavige’s immensely ruthless and unbending, out of valence viciousness. It was a no-go and a stalemate.

The terminals “handling” us began to use Katrina as a pawn in the matter. She came very close to making the decision to stay in the Sea Org for the next four years just for the sake of her parents. She would leave the moment she came of age (18). We couldn’t let her make that sacrifice so I realized that in the interim I would have to get her out of the picture, I would have to place her far away with a relative, out of harm’s way. So I proposed that I take her to Sacramento and I wasn’t surprised that it received immediate approval from the powers that be. I was to leave right away.

Driving the 500 miles north was the saddest journey I have ever undertaken. I had no idea when or if we would see Katrina again. I had very little time so I dropped her off at a relative’s house, paid my respects, gave my daughter a hug and left her, a forlorn figure disappearing in my rear view mirror, standing on the front steps as she waved goodbye as I struggled to drive away — it was hard to see the road in front of me.

I consider myself fairly tough but the whole experience gutted me. And Lucy would later remark how that night, back in LA, was the only time she had ever heard me cry myself to sleep.

The months passed slowly after that and Lucy and I became increasingly desperate. I had looked into the eyes of some Sea Org members that had been made to dump their kids – they were dead inside. And besides, I thought our strength came from aligned dynamics? Very strange indeed that at just about the highest level in Scientology; under Miscavige’s blatant influence, basic Scientology was not being applied.

http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/20...t-family-t-paine-and-the-james-gang/#comments

 

[Purple Rain]

I just read Haydn James story:
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/20...t-family-t-paine-and-the-james-gang/#comments

He and his wife Lucy came out as Indies several years back after a combined 61 years on staff/Sea Org. I haven't attempted to contact him for permission to put any of it onto this other website, but for now just posting an excerpt here (below). The full story is well worth reading as well!

Wow, that is so powerful and so moving. Thank you for sharing that story here.

 

[Type4_PTS]

Wow, that is so powerful and so moving.

Yeah, it was for me as well.

It's not written by a woman so not sure if this is the type story wanted for this web site, but it really communicates powerfully one of the ways in which Scientology breaks up families, and illustrates how little value was placed on keeping families together.

 

[Purple Rain]

Yeah, it was for me as well.

It's not written by a woman so not sure if this is the type story wanted for this web site, but it really communicates powerfully one of the ways in which Scientology breaks up families, and illustrates how little value was placed on keeping families together.

I'm not sure either, but it is definitely a story about how families are treated in Scientology and there is a section on the blog titled "The Male Perspective". It's up to FTS, but I think it's very illuminating on the blog theme of how families are treated in Scientology.

Families are ripped apart, marriages are treated as expendable commodities and children are just “adults in little bodies”.

 

[Free to shine]

I just read Haydn James story:
http://markrathbun.wordpress.com/20...t-family-t-paine-and-the-james-gang/#comments

He and his wife Lucy came out as Indies several years back after a combined 61 years on staff/Sea Org. I haven't attempted to contact him for permission to put any of it onto this other website, but for now just posting an excerpt here (below). The full story is well worth reading as well!

Thanks. I am collecting the womens/children's stories first but also about families in general, so that certainly qualifies. If you can contact him for me that would be great - just an excerpt of the relevant story - and if not I guess I can contact him through Marty's blog?