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How many people went type III (ie. had a Psychotic Break) in your org?

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JustSheila

Crusader
Here Eldritch: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/sch...vironmental-factors-development-schizophrenia

There's been research discoveries in recent years. Schizophrenia has a strong genetic factor, but nothing like was previously believed.

And anyway, we are not particularly talking about a schizophrenic break. Just a mental breakdown, which may or may not be temporary. It would be too difficult to break down diagnoses, as you have already pointed out.

Think groups. Think Sociological studies. Think broad numbers. It's a comparison of those members in a fairly closed group who became temporarily or permanently mentally dysfunctional compared to similar raw numbers from regular society, less any high risk groups eliminated by Scientology's own A-J and other procedures.

Of course stress is a factor. It's the most important factor. But a study of WHAT part of what COS does that causes such incredible stress would be another study, based on the results of the first study. And physical factors.

But since Scientology is ONE body of quack science that all Scientologists have to uniformly apply, finding which part of what the cult does to people that causes this is not really necessary, at least, not straight away. The Cult of Scientology is bad. It kills people. Its application hurts the mental health of individuals. That's huge right there.

We know the factors. Lack of medical. Lack of sleep. Money stress. High anxiety over extended periods. Intimidating sec check procedures. Unresearched, unauthorized experimental mental procedures. Group and other pressures. Disconnection from family. Isolation from groups and from others. We know these things are hurting people. We don't want to fix the cult, it's a cult. We want to simply show how badly it is hurting people compared to the rest of the population.

Not a psychological study, but a sociological study. Shut them DOWN.
 

MrNobody

Who needs merits?
Strictly spoken, there's still a flaw in the statistics (experimental setting), and a huge one - people are prone for certain psychiatric issues, and these might break out or get more severe ... or not. Psychiatric issues (of all sorts) can be triggered, by single incidents or stressful periods - causing burnout and more. (Just as I had anxiety problems "triggered" by periods of stress and insecurity. Some of the anxieties were directly related to the situation ... but others decidedly weren't. I was aware of that, but that didn't really help. :coolwink: )
Let's look at a really good trigger for schizophrenia: cannabis.
<snip>
(my bold)

I strongly disagree. I've had quite a few kilograms of personal experience with cannabis, I've never seen any user getting schizoid from it. What I have seen though, are quite a few people who had a schizoid episode while being stoned.

In that way, I'd agree that cannabis can amplify an already existing schizoid episode, but trigger it? Nope, not as far as I could see.
 

eldritch cuckoo

brainslugged reptilian
And anyway, we are not particularly talking about a schizophrenic break. Just a mental breakdown, which may or may not be temporary. It would be too difficult to break down diagnoses, as you have already pointed out.

I KNOW, okay? Well then, sorry for straying off into the diagnostic issues. But, as things are, many people here, and elsewhere, know fucking ZITS about psychology and psychiatry, so I thought I'd stuff in a bit of that... :p


Of course stress is a factor. It's the most important factor. But a study of WHAT part of what COS does that causes such incredible stress would be another study, based on the results of the first study. And physical factors.

But since Scientology is ONE body of quack science that all Scientologists have to uniformly apply, finding which part of what the cult does to people that causes this is not really necessary, at least, not straight away. The Cult of Scientology is bad. It kills people. Its application hurts the mental health of individuals. That's huge right there.

With pointing out that different people experienced the same situations differently, I merely intended to rebute equally generalized defenses that but usually omitt central facts, such as to be expected from cult apologists or trolls (having had, coming again). I was breaking it down for that reason... solely.

Providing a bit of a scientific frame to the topic, even when that is, strictly spoken, to make a "body count" ... that really isn't off-topic.

Anyways. I haz said what I can for now. Bye-bye, I'm back to lurking. :hattip: :wave:


We know the factors. Lack of medical. Lack of sleep. Money stress. High anxiety over extended periods. Intimidating sec check procedures. Unresearched, unauthorized experimental mental procedures. Group and other pressures. Disconnection from family. Isolation from groups and from others. We know these things are hurting people. We don't want to fix the cult, it's a cult. We want to simply show how badly it is hurting people compared to the rest of the population.

Not a psychological study, but a sociological study. Shut them DOWN.

:yes:
 

Terril park

Sponsor
(my bold)

I strongly disagree. I've had quite a few kilograms of personal experience with cannabis, I've never seen any user getting schizoid from it. What I have seen though, are quite a few people who had a schizoid episode while being stoned.

In that way, I'd agree that cannabis can amplify an already existing schizoid episode, but trigger it? Nope, not as far as I could see.


Marijuana induced psychosis is a well known phenomenon.


http://www.livescience.com/17707-marijuana-thc-brain-psychosis.html
 

La La Lou Lou

Crusader
Difficult to say unless you have the hard numbers - people go nuts all the time for all sorts of reasons. You would need to compare a reasonably large group of ex'es with a similar group of people who were never in, and see if there is any difference in how frequently and seriously they become ill.

One thing I can say anecdotally is that none of my several crazy friends without a scn background are very much of what might be called conspiracy freaks, while that seems to be a frequent theme among ex'es. Not strange perhaps, when you used to belong to a group that actually used various black ops in the real world, plus taught a paranoid world view. Even when you go crazy, you interpret stuff according to your background. Kind of like if I was walking in the forest and saw something weird, I might think it was a UFO, while a 15th century man would have thought it was a troll.

That's interesting about normal crazy people being less in to conspiracies.

As a scientologist I did feel that I knew what was really going on and that them out there didn't have a clue. The normal rules just didn't apply to scientologists, if it meant getting a product then anything was OK. It was the duty of a scientologist to make it go right and to let nothing stand in your way. We were simply a superior group.

I am having trouble understanding what my beliefs were then. I thought that time went in big circular movements repeating itself over and over, that always the same pattern emerged, and after Victorian world came WW1 world then WW2 and rock and roll and atomic warfare and the end, unless we did something to change the pattern. There really were implant stations and bodies in pawn and nasty Marcabian people becoming world leaders for a day to start wars and then go home, similar to David Icke's Lizard people. No conspiracy theory I have ever heard compares to what I what once fully accepted. Yet nothing in any SO secret organisation I have heard about vaguely addresses this stuff. The highest OT level developed just addresses BT's. Perhaps we were all just a little type three? I have had the most awful panic attacks knowing that I was a big thetan bigger than the physical universe squashed into a micro-body on a speck of dust whizzing around a grain of sand in a universe so enormous it literally has no edges yet is expanding. All this stuff hurts! It just can't be mentally resolved and going type three is probably just the result of having been a scientologist.
 

Enthetan

Master of Disaster
That's bullshit, in my experienced opinion.

I've had "experience" as well -- decades ago. The strains of marijuana being sold today have a MUCH higher THC content than what was available in the 60's and 70's.:
[Editor's Note: The University of Mississippi's Potency Monitoring Project (UMPMC) tested seized marijuana from all 50 states to determine the percentage of THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

The average potency of all marijuana in the US, according to the UMPMC's Dec. 2008 – Mar. 2009 quarterly report, was 8.52% (5.62% domestic and 9.57% nondomestic).

The highest tested sample had 22.04% THC (domestic) and 27.30% THC (nondomestic). The highest tested sample ever tested between 1975 and 2009 had 33.12% THC (domestic) and 37.20% THC (nondomestic).

For comparison, the national average of marijuana's THC content in 1978 was 1.37%, in 1988 it was 3.59%, in 1998 4.43%, and in 2008 8.49%.

Although average potencies have increased, the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported in the June 4, 2002 Washington Post article "The Real Dope: Tried the 'Today's Pot Is Stronger' Claim With Your Kids? Your Cover Is Blown" that "joint sizes have dropped over the years from half a gram to about a quarter of a gram." In addition, pipes, water pipes, and vaporizers typically require less marijuana per use than joints and these items have become increasingly popular over the last 30 years. Some medical marijuana advocates contend that more potent marijuana means less marijuana is needed to achieve the desired medical benefit.

(More at the link)
 

lotus

stubborn rebel sheep!
To mods and readers
Re: post 912 on this thread contains a wrong link

The link for Lisa MacPherson clause (at the end of the post) should have been this one:

http://jeta.home.xs4all.nl/scn/scans/Introspection-Release.html

Sorry for the mistake and thank you!



Introspe.jpg


Full text version here
Please print it, read it,
consult a lawyer to ask for his take on it
and never let anyone go to flag without being aware of it


To be printed


http://jeta.home.xs4all.nl/scn/scans/Files.txt
 

Maria Cuervo

Gold Meritorious Patron
Do you think that NLP/hypnosis used on a person (unknowingly) could trigger an issue? Just wondering. I was a Sr C/S so I was the head shrink/mental state goddess/head cuckoo in CoS Miami, keep that in mind. LOLOL.

Strictly spoken, there's still a flaw in the statistics (experimental setting), and a huge one - people are prone for certain psychiatric issues, and these might break out or get more severe ... or not. Psychiatric issues (of all sorts) can be triggered, by single incidents or stressful periods - causing burnout and more. (Just as I had anxiety problems "triggered" by periods of stress and insecurity. Some of the anxieties were directly related to the situation ... but others decidedly weren't. I was aware of that, but that didn't really help. :coolwink: )
Let's look at a really good trigger for schizophrenia: cannabis. Somebody gets schizophrenia because of taking cannabis. Or did they? Wouldn't they have gotten it anyways? In the end, it's a numbers game, and a science of reading and sorting the statistics. A person is considered prone to schizophrenia because the family history indicates that much, the involved genes aren't yet known. This person then takes a lot of cannabis - which effect practically makes the brain to simulate schizophrenia, free floating associations, inducing delusional thinking. After a while, probably after the drug already has been stopped, the person gets schizophrenia, real psychotic breaks and returning episodes (if they won't take meds). BUT, here's the problem: 1) That person would probably have gotten schizophrenia anyways after the first traumatic incident or stressful time in their life, e.g. got sick just a bit earlier because the drug literally "trained" their brain to be schizophrenic. OR 2) that person got more severe schizophrenia because of the drug - together with some other problems, e.g. all making the confusion more deep settled, more difficult to untangle, the paranoia deeper (nothing like a horrortrip to let paranoia dig in :melodramatic: ), and prolonging the recovery phase after remission - characterized by feeling depressed, worn out, insecure, mildly confused. :p
But ofcourse there are many people that are taking lots of cannabis, and never getting schizophrenia. :p
And vice versa, there are a lot of people who get schizophrenia but have never touched any drug. :p
Statistics is a bitchy Goddess... :p :p :p


People's experiences in Co$, be it as public or staff or SO, were, ofcourse, quite different, I acknowledge that. For many, it couldn't be called horrific or even "traumatic", and they left for another reason than "I can't bear it anymore". Aside from genuine disinterest or disappointment, it might have been financial issues, or being "declared", - they might have been kicked out for some mysterious reason.
I suppose it's fair to say that any lengthy AND stressful period in this psychotic cult will work as a trigger to worsen one's mental condition.

Whether people get anxious (a state of generalized insecurity and nervosity), or paranoid, or hateful, or distrustful (regarding people), or psychotic, depends on one's experiences and on the personality itself.
Co$ (and the more radical Indies) provides a special environment and pseudo society, a subculture, in which one is emerged (to differing degrees), an essentially sick environment that glorifies and encourages sociopathic and schizophrenic personality traits. The details of this are depending on one's processings and also on their job when being a staff member.
Some are "stuck" on some level or with certain aspects of cult nuttiness, which causes friction. That combination creates a time bomb.

For example, Mockingbird seemed to be particularly "terrorized" by study technology and seemed to be "stuck" with it a lot, apparently because he took it so serious, and (seemingly, I don't know) because the kind of processing, courses he did, afforded considerable amounts of it. Some other people, in comparison, "got over" with their study tech experiences, passing them swiftly and finding no "MUs" or ignoring them at some point to be able to walk out of that room without losing their money and "eternity".
Many didn't take clay demos serious, but some worked days on one clay demo, and I suppose they got somewhat stressed and neurotic over it, especially if that experience was repeated.
Some people fast-forwarded their tapes (I've read what you did there... :coolwink: ), others, feeling more serious and obliged, wouldn't ever have done such a thing, instead they would probably haggle with every word of Hubbard's ramblings, and desperately trying to make sense of it, and experiencing a lot of stress about that, and being stuck in auditing, and getting sec checked, etc etc.
Many lived for years in shabby SO quarters with stacked bunk beds and many people in a room, and experienced all sorts of stress and social problems over these conditions, from an experienced lack of privacy to other problems, while what Paul wrote seemed to indicate that for him this particular aspect was no all too humiliating or extremely stressful experience, as he never "needed much to be lucky", if I may say so.

It is likely that any prolonged (bad) time in Co$ (or amongst particularly nuts Indies) will worsen a case of borderline personality and their characteristic problems, such as it will worsen a case of a personality prone to the schizophrenia/psychosis/paranoia cluster, and it likely will also worsen the problems of a person generally prone to anxiety issues and insecurity; and so on. That doesn't mean that TRs don't occasionally help one with their shyness or that auditing doesn't sometime help one to sort issues in their past, but IN SUM, Co$ usually makes things worse, I hope we can agree on that.
The same stands for a long time of fighting Co$.
It's all about how the experience was perceived, personally.

As we furthermore see, the behavior of some people leaving after decades of intense involvement shows a considerable unfamiliarity with social norms, the symptoms come close to mild cases of Asperger autism. This but is only an appearance and temporal, caused by their estrangement from society and "wog" rules of communication. I've seen some of what I've seen here before, but from people who WERE autistic. Nonetheless the familiarities are remarkable. :) So, please... be a bit patient with these cases. If you SEE change happening, and I DO see it, in small steps... can't we wait a bit?

Regarding psychosis: if a person at a certain age only shows mild symptoms that but are slowly increasing, one can conclude that with great likelyhood this person will never have a full-blown "psychotic break" or severe, suddenly set-on (and vanishing) episodes - unless there are extreme triggers present.
We will see whether the extreme disappointment and grudge about the fact that things went quite different than probably envisioned for decades, and that there are different names in the headlines around the final days of the cult than imagined (namely Tony, Mike, Marty, Tory, Karen, Chris, Lawrence Wright, Alex Gibney,...), will work as such a trigger.
I don't expect it,... but when it happens, we should know why.
Just that, then I'm gone again from this thread: I've seen it coming as far as it HAS already happened. :wink2:
 

eldritch cuckoo

brainslugged reptilian
Do you think that NLP/hypnosis used on a person (unknowingly) could trigger an issue? Just wondering. I was a Sr C/S so I was the head shrink/mental state goddess/head cuckoo in CoS Miami, keep that in mind. LOLOL.

The most condensed posts I remember, that treat this question, or a similar one, are Mockingbird's posts about "study tech"... where he describes how it is designed to make one confused and to become docile and prone for the indoctrination, using numerous mini "false flags". By all these wrong assertions what a physiological symptom (yawning etc) means, and the partially nonsensical and perverted word definitions that shift one's reality, it seems to have a seriously confusing and ofcourse indoctrinating effect.

http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?36369-INSIDIOUS-ENSLAVEMENT-STUDY-TECHNOLOGY

EDIT: here is a post that leads to more explanations of that kind (complex persuasion and confusion, psychoterror), just follow the links in it:
http://www.forum.exscn.net/showthread.php?37203-MOCKINGBIRD-RECOMMEND-S-A-SEQUENCE-OF-STUDY

Similarly nasty things could, and have been, said about TRs, objectives, or RPF, or the perverse ideas about "self determinism" - how everything bad that happens to one, including sicknesses, is "pulled in", causing feelings of guilt and desperation. ALL that causes cognitive dissonances makes one less stable, and Scientology does that in many respects, by all the gobbledegook and unrealistic rules and demands in the materials. (To some degree, this has been aggravated by DM, who also constantly increases the pressure to sell/buy stuff and to be "upstat", which causes stress.) I think most of Scientology "technology" tends to make people more psychotic, more schizoid, since Hubs was deliberately implanting his own psychotic personality traits into others. This really was the only "wisdom" he had to give, - how to become a psychotic, sociopathic, narcissistic madman. :p
 
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catarina

PTS Type III
That's interesting about normal crazy people being less in to conspiracies.

I should qualify this - there are of course a lot of non-scn mentally ill persons who are conspiracy freaks, my personal friends are not a random sample since I am not much into conspiracies myself, so I don't seek out those persons, and my friends are reasonably high functioning and more in the sphere of mood disorders than psychosis, although the boundaries are not distinct.

Still, I have certainly met more intensely paranoid people in scn orgs than in my several stays in psychiatric hospitals, again not making any absolute claims, it's just one person's experience.
 

JustSheila

Crusader
Scientologists who had Psychotic Breaks with surnames starting with "Q" "R" or "S": (Continued from post #873, Page 88)

Please provide any additional information (especially dates and location) or names you may know or a list of psychotic breaks you witnessed by area/org/mission/NN/etc. can update the list. Thank you.


Gary Rist -
a staff member at CCLA, had a breakdown in 1975-76. He kept going on drinking binges. A former staff member was assigned to watch him, and while accompanying him to visit his father, reports that Gary got drunk and physically abusive. He was returned to CCLA by the staff member, but then was not seen on staff again. Apparently CCLA, Scientology, and his unhandled alcoholism ruined what had been a promising acting career.

Ilya Rakhmanov - Suicide. He was 21 years old, from the Russian town of Saransk, 600 km east of Moscow. Ilya left Scientology around 2001. On Friday, 15 October 2004 Ilya announced on several Internet forums that he wanted to leave this life. A Russian exScientologist who knew him stated, “Ilia was very lonely. He hated totalitarianism, lies and hypocrisy. And he attempted to fight them. All alone. He put upon himself too heavy a burden, and it broke him. His life was very short, and his end was terrible.” Are there any further details about his death?

Jude Richmond - Murder/Suicide - Jude was a florist and possible Scientologist. On the 13th or 14th of March, 2009, she apparently drowned her 9 year old, handicapped daughter Millie and then drowned herself in the lake adjoining their luxurious Gloucester (England) home. She was 41 years old. Ms Richmond suffered from bipolar syndrome and according to a neighbor quoted by The Sun newspaper, Jude ‘had become obsessed with Scientology’. Jude might have been distressed by demands to disconnect from her low-toned daughter.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234242/Florist-drowned-disabled-daughter-bath-accident.

Rodney G. Rimondo,
22 - Suicide? From San Jose, California. Rodney joined the Sea Org in Los Angeles in January 1986 and jumped, fell or was pushed out of a window at the LA Org on 25 November 1986. A suicide note found on his bunk bed at the Scientology center was a clumsy forgery. It was not in his handwriting, according to his mother, and made reference to a “wife” but Rimondo was single.

Bob Shaffner - Suicide? Was OT3. Killed himself in 1987 or 88 by riding his bike under a truck. According to Jesse Prince, Bobby and his wife Cindy were harassed because they wanted to have children, and children were frowned upon.

David Sandweiss – Suicide, 1977. David was a GO agent who allegedly confessed to being Quentin Hubbard’s lover.

Frank Suarez - was an OT (perhaps OT III) who shot himself in late 1991 at his home in Broward County, Florida (near Ft.Lauderdale), leaving a wife and two children aged 9 or 10. The reason appears to be that he had used LSD in his youth and could not do higher levels in this life.

James Stewart, 36, who suffered from epilepsy, was found dead 50 feet below a window at the Advanced Org in Edinburgh Scotland, in August 1968. He was on OT3, a class 7 auditor, and the Executive Director of the Durban Org. A few days before his death, had completed an Ethics Condition wherein he stayed awake for 80 hours. This prolonged lack of sleep apparently triggered an epileptic fit and James suffered a head injury during the fit.
The following notice was then posted on the org bulletin board: “James Stewart has been put in a Condition of Doubt for having seizures in public and thus invalidating Scientology. If there is any reoccurrence of these either consciously or unconsciously on his part he will be placed in a Condition of Enemy.”

At the time, Doubt incurred 48 hours sleep deprivation. One of James' tasks during these ethics conditions was to crawl about the carpets picking out bits of fluff. Stewart’s real crime was telling the hospital that he was a Scientologist, thus supposedly giving Scientology a bad name. He had injured his head, and wore a blood-stained bandage while performing his demeaning “amends project.” It is also possible that he was made to crawl across the steep and slippery slates of the Org roof, as a final part of his Doubt Formula, which was apparently usual at that time. Shortly before his death, Stewart had been suspended from his course at the AO. Stewart, described in the newspapers as an encyclopedia salesman, had been a founder of the Cape Town Org, and was a senior executive there. He was a Class VII Auditor, the highest level of training at the time, Clear number 153, and on OT 3 when he died. Ironically, one of James' Success Stories was published in the Auditor magazine around the time of his death, entitled, How Scientology Training Has Helped Me In Life. James wrote, “I find that training and auditing experience helps me in innumerable ways – in driving a car (patiently, in heavy traffic), waking up in the morning, confronting anything unpleasant in life, keeping myself occupied in leisure hours, in writing letters, making telephone calls, in chance conversations with strangers – In fact, training helps in every conceivable situation or experience anywhere, any place, anytime – Try it for yourself and see!”
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/kult-epelep.htm

Lloyd Speedy - Suicide. After spending all his money on services, Lloyd killed himself.

Karen Simon - Suicide. Karen hung herself in London, May 1991, shortly after she refused to sign a Sea Org contract. She was preparing a negative report on Scientology at the time of her death.

Mark Schaatsbergen – Suicide. Mark left Scientology in early 1988, as he felt it Scientology was perverting its own goals and didn’t live up to their statements. He committed suicde in June or July 1998. According to his mother, Mark felt crushed by the enormous amount of pressure the cult still exerted on him. His father and sister remain members. His mother is still devastated.

Meagan Shield’s daughter - Suicided by hanging herself as a teen. (Does anyone know her name or have more information?)

Melvin Streim -A former Harvard student who had a mental breakdown after Scientology. By 1981 he “was getting worse and worse, forgetting to shave, dressing in dirty clothes, and generally out of touch with reality. They off-loaded him around 1983 or 4. … he was schizophrenic, and broke. How does a former Harvard student end up as a bag boy?” http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dps-cos.htm

Patrick William Salvo, once a great guy, “who seemed to have lost his mind completely before he died about 2005 (ref: Kathy Mace blogspot.com).

Paul Schaeffer - Suicided in the early 70s shortly after he had apparently been declared SP or similar. Does anyone know any details?

Quentin Schnehager - Suicide in Copenhagen. Hung himself.

Rita Smith - Suicide by hanging in East Grinstead, 1987.

Steve Surrey - kept having psychotic breaks in 1973, while he was the ED of Alan Walter’s Salt Lake City mission. “He’d be screaming his lungs out during sessions, begging for someone, anyone to help him. His auditor, Geri Knight, swore that he was just running out dramatizations, as if this was really good for him. I think Steve is still happily in Scientology.”

Susanne Schroder - from Denmark? Had a complete mental breakdown and her husband had her hospitalized.[/B]
------------------------

Other Possible Psychotic Breaks/Suicides:

Ruth Ann Roberts, 58 – died in 2000. Does anyone know the cause of death?

Venus Cecolia Rojo, 4 Jun 1980 – 13 May 1998 (age 17) - From Los Angeles. She died at the former Scientology Mohave desert location. Does anyone know anything more about her? Cause of death? Details?
 
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olska

Silver Meritorious Patron
I knew Patrick Salvo. Lost touch with him some years before he died. Don't know anything about him having a "mental breakdown", but he died of cancer. Was almost cured once, but then it came back and he died of it.

Last I knew, he was a dedicated and determined true believer scientologist who like most of the "ordinary" people in the cult was scrambling to get the money to pay for services. Hadn't done services in quite awhile because he didn't have the money, but still very much connected.

There's an internet address on Mace's BlogSpot site that is supposedly a YouTube video about him? but all I found at that address is stuff about a much younger person with the same name. So I don't know if what she says is true.
 
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sallydannce

Gold Meritorious Patron
Scientologists who had Psychotic Breaks with surnames starting with "Q" "R" or "S": (Continued from post #873, Page 88)

Please provide any additional information (especially dates and location) or names you may know or a list of psychotic breaks you witnessed by area/org/mission/NN/etc. can update the list. Thank you.


Gary Rist -
a staff member at CCLA, had a breakdown in 1975-76. He kept going on drinking binges. A former staff member was assigned to watch him, and while accompanying him to visit his father, reports that Gary got drunk and physically abusive. He was returned to CCLA by the staff member, but then was not seen on staff again. Apparently CCLA, Scientology, and his unhandled alcoholism ruined what had been a promising acting career.

Ilya Rakhmanov - Suicide. He was 21 years old, from the Russian town of Saransk, 600 km east of Moscow. Ilya left Scientology around 2001. On Friday, 15 October 2004 Ilya announced on several Internet forums that he wanted to leave this life. A Russian exScientologist who knew him stated, “Ilia was very lonely. He hated totalitarianism, lies and hypocrisy. And he attempted to fight them. All alone. He put upon himself too heavy a burden, and it broke him. His life was very short, and his end was terrible.” Are there any further details about his death?

Jude Richmond - Murder/Suicide - Jude was a florist and possible Scientologist. On the 13th or 14th of March, 2009, she apparently drowned her 9 year old, handicapped daughter Millie and then drowned herself in the lake adjoining their luxurious Gloucester (England) home. She was 41 years old. Ms Richmond suffered from bipolar syndrome and according to a neighbor quoted by The Sun newspaper, Jude ‘had become obsessed with Scientology’. Jude might have been distressed by demands to disconnect from her low-toned daughter.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1234242/Florist-drowned-disabled-daughter-bath-accident.

Rodney G. Rimondo,
22 - Suicide? From San Jose, California. Rodney joined the Sea Org in Los Angeles in January 1986 and jumped, fell or was pushed out of a window at the LA Org on 25 November 1986. A suicide note found on his bunk bed at the Scientology center was a clumsy forgery. It was not in his handwriting, according to his mother, and made reference to a “wife” but Rimondo was single.

Bob Shaffner - Suicide? Was OT3. Killed himself in 1987 or 88 by riding his bike under a truck. According to Jesse Prince, Bobby and his wife Cindy were harassed because they wanted to have children, and children were frowned upon.

David Sandweiss – Suicide, 1977. David was a GO agent who allegedly confessed to being Quentin Hubbard’s lover.

Frank Suarez - was an OT (perhaps OT III) who shot himself in late 1991 at his home in Broward County, Florida (near Ft.Lauderdale), leaving a wife and two children aged 9 or 10. The reason appears to be that he had used LSD in his youth and could not do higher levels in this life.

James Stewart, 36, who suffered from epilepsy, was found dead 50 feet below a window at the Advanced Org in Edinburgh Scotland, in August 1968. He was on OT3, a class 7 auditor, and the Executive Director of the Durban Org. A few days before his death, had completed an Ethics Condition wherein he stayed awake for 80 hours. This prolonged lack of sleep apparently triggered an epileptic fit and James suffered a head injury during the fit.
The following notice was then posted on the org bulletin board: “James Stewart has been put in a Condition of Doubt for having seizures in public and thus invalidating Scientology. If there is any reoccurrence of these either consciously or unconsciously on his part he will be placed in a Condition of Enemy.”

At the time, Doubt incurred 48 hours sleep deprivation. One of James' tasks during these ethics conditions was to crawl about the carpets picking out bits of fluff. Stewart’s real crime was telling the hospital that he was a Scientologist, thus supposedly giving Scientology a bad name. He had injured his head, and wore a blood-stained bandage while performing his demeaning “amends project.” It is also possible that he was made to crawl across the steep and slippery slates of the Org roof, as a final part of his Doubt Formula, which was apparently usual at that time. Shortly before his death, Stewart had been suspended from his course at the AO. Stewart, described in the newspapers as an encyclopedia salesman, had been a founder of the Cape Town Org, and was a senior executive there. He was a Class VII Auditor, the highest level of training at the time, Clear number 153, and on OT 3 when he died. Ironically, one of James' Success Stories was published in the Auditor magazine around the time of his death, entitled, How Scientology Training Has Helped Me In Life. James wrote, “I find that training and auditing experience helps me in innumerable ways – in driving a car (patiently, in heavy traffic), waking up in the morning, confronting anything unpleasant in life, keeping myself occupied in leisure hours, in writing letters, making telephone calls, in chance conversations with strangers – In fact, training helps in every conceivable situation or experience anywhere, any place, anytime – Try it for yourself and see!”
http://www.holysmoke.org/cos/kult-epelep.htm

Lloyd Speedy - Suicide. After spending all his money on services, Lloyd killed himself.

Karen Simon - Suicide. Karen hung herself in London, May 1991, shortly after she refused to sign a Sea Org contract. She was preparing a negative report on Scientology at the time of her death.

Mark Schaatsbergen – Suicide. Mark left Scientology in early 1988, as he felt it Scientology was perverting its own goals and didn’t live up to their statements. He committed suicde in June or July 1998. According to his mother, Mark felt crushed by the enormous amount of pressure the cult still exerted on him. His father and sister remain members. His mother is still devastated.

Meagan Shield’s daughter - Suicided by hanging herself as a teen. (Does anyone know her name or have more information?)

Melvin Streim -A former Harvard student who had a mental breakdown after Scientology. By 1981 he “was getting worse and worse, forgetting to shave, dressing in dirty clothes, and generally out of touch with reality. They off-loaded him around 1983 or 4. … he was schizophrenic, and broke. How does a former Harvard student end up as a bag boy?” http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/dps-cos.htm

Patrick William Salvo, once a great guy, “who seemed to have lost his mind completely before he died about 2005 (ref: Kathy Mace blogspot.com).

Paul Schaeffer - Suicided in the early 70s shortly after he had apparently been declared SP or similar. Does anyone know any details?

Quentin Schnehager - Suicide in Copenhagen. Hung himself.

Rita Smith - Suicide by hanging in East Grinstead, 1987.

Steve Surrey - kept having psychotic breaks in 1973, while he was the ED of Alan Walter’s Salt Lake City mission. “He’d be screaming his lungs out during sessions, begging for someone, anyone to help him. His auditor, Geri Knight, swore that he was just running out dramatizations, as if this was really good for him. I think Steve is still happily in Scientology.”

Susanne Schroder - from Denmark? Had a complete mental breakdown and her husband had her hospitalized.[/B]
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Other Possible Psychotic Breaks/Suicides:

Ruth Ann Roberts, 58 – died in 2000. Does anyone know the cause of death?

Venus Cecolia Rojo, 4 Jun 1980 – 13 May 1998 (age 17) - From Los Angeles. She died at the former Scientology Mohave desert location. Does anyone know anything more about her? Cause of death? Details?

Lloyd Speedy was a New Zealand scientologist. He took his own life c. 1992/1993, in Auckland, New Zealand.

The NZ Archives holds the Coroners Report: Record number: COR93/0316

RIP Lloyd. :rose:
 
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