My first post

[incognito]

My parents were Scientologists while I was growing up and later I joined the SO and was there for 12 years. After leaving the Sea Org, I still saw myself as a Scientologist.

Some time later, after throwing a lot of money and quite a bit of time at the church I suddenly realized that I was doing more damage than good being involved and needed to remove myself from it. The problem was that just about all of my friends and a lot of my family were in. The vast majority of who I dealt with in business were Scientologists as well. For the last two years, since deciding I no longer saw myself as a Scientologist, I have gradually withdrawn myself from dealing with Scientologists, except for family.

When I started doing this, I felt that I was in a dangerous situation, constantly suppressing what I felt like saying in various situations, not wanting to cause problems that would attract the attention of the local org so they would try and handle my disaffection which would cause me to say things that would just make things worse and affect my relationship with my family.

I put a lot of effort into trying to fix my mindset, trying to remove and all Scientology thinking but have found this to be a slow and painful process. The biggest challenge I am having at the moment figuring out what information I am thinking of as fact and operating on that is just Scientology indoctrination.

As part of going through this process, I have found that I have not only withdrawn from Scientology and Scientologists, I have withdrawn from society as a whole which is the next thing I need to tackle.

I am angry about how I was sucked in but feel the way out is not to have attention on the past but the future. A little hard to do at the moment. I never thought that going through this process would be so difficult!

 

[I told you I was trouble]

Yes, it's incredibly difficult to decult while remaining under the radar, I tried it myself for years and then gave up and joined ESMB and in one way I never looked back (but yes, I did lose my family).

Withdrawing from society in general for a while probably isn't ideal but if it gives you some space to work things out I wouldn't worry too much ... then, when you are good and ready if you choose to form some friendships with some non scientologists you can always tell the scientologists in your life (who may be keeping a beady eye on you) that you are trying to get them into scientology!

That seems ridiculous (the white lie) I know ... but the situation you and so many of us found ourselves in IS ridiculous and is all part of the cult trap, sometimes it may seem easier just to stay in the cult and be "handled" on your "out ethics"... but I was never happier than the day I left for good.

I do wish you well.

 

[incognito]

Yes, it's incredibly difficult to decult while remaining under the radar, I tried it myself for years and then gave up and joined ESMB and in one way I never looked back (but yes, I did lose my family).

Withdrawing from society in general for a while probably isn't ideal but if it gives you some space to work things out I wouldn't worry too much ... then, when you are good and ready if you choose to form some friendships with some non scientologists you can always tell the scientologists in your life (who may be keeping a beady eye on you) that you are trying to get them into scientology!

That seems ridiculous (the white lie) I know ... but the situation you and so many of us found ourselves in IS ridiculous and is all part of the cult trap, sometimes it may seem easier just to stay in the cult and be "handled" on your "out ethics"... but I was never happier than the day I left for good.

I do wish you well.

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate what you have said.

 

[dchoiceisalwaysrs]

Welcome incognito,

I don't see any problem with occasionally reflecting on the past just as long as ya don't get thinking that you need to drag it into the now or into the future. And as regards society as a whole or scientologists as a homogeneous group my view is they are each composed of individuals none of which are exactly the same so notice as your life keeps moving into what is going to become your past just reach out and get involved in some things that do grab your attention, experience them a little, and while doing so take note of what you enjoy and what motivates you and what you dislike and sooner or later you will find your life filling with what you want.
Who you want to be with, when you want to get involved or not and so on.
Life is happening. Make some choices, participate and you be the judge what is good for you. And don't worry about making mistakes , coz nobody ever met a CLEAR ya know one of those baby OTs who are so perfect that they don't even exist.
Have fun here. You have just joined a group,,, or not. Lol

 

[WildKat]

Scientology is toxic, whether you remain a member or leave. Big price to pay either way, but I think you will find you made the right choice. So many people have lost family and friends. Living a lie would end up costing you more, however.

You sound like a strong person, a survivor, like all of us here. Best wishes on your journey out of the cult. Take care of yourself, and know that you have friends here.

 

[JustSheila]

My parents were Scientologists while I was growing up and later I joined the SO and was there for 12 years. After leaving the Sea Org, I still saw myself as a Scientologist.

Some time later, after throwing a lot of money and quite a bit of time at the church I suddenly realized that I was doing more damage than good being involved and needed to remove myself from it. The problem was that just about all of my friends and a lot of my family were in. The vast majority of who I dealt with in business were Scientologists as well. For the last two years, since deciding I no longer saw myself as a Scientologist, I have gradually withdrawn myself from dealing with Scientologists, except for family.

When I started doing this, I felt that I was in a dangerous situation, constantly suppressing what I felt like saying in various situations, not wanting to cause problems that would attract the attention of the local org so they would try and handle my disaffection which would cause me to say things that would just make things worse and affect my relationship with my family.

I put a lot of effort into trying to fix my mindset, trying to remove and all Scientology thinking but have found this to be a slow and painful process. The biggest challenge I am having at the moment figuring out what information I am thinking of as fact and operating on that is just Scientology indoctrination.

As part of going through this process, I have found that I have not only withdrawn from Scientology and Scientologists, I have withdrawn from society as a whole which is the next thing I need to tackle.

I am angry about how I was sucked in but feel the way out is not to have attention on the past but the future. A little hard to do at the moment. I never thought that going through this process would be so difficult!

Incognito!

Thanks for joining us. This is a good group with many others who experienced similar things.

I can completely relate to how you feel, especially the bolded part.

During the first few years I was out, it was so many years ago that counselors didn't know how to deal with cults. So I had a few sessions that went pretty much nowhere. Things have changed, though, and there are trained psychologists who now even specialize in cult recovery. My counselor had a good heart, though, and observed and told me something extremely helpful:

He told me my thinking was structured.

Scientology created that structure. Before Scientology, I wasn't that way.

We have structures in our brains, usually developed when we are young. There are language structures, math structures, direction structures, all sorts of structures.

Scientology created a structure with a lie that it was more basic than the other structures. It created a structure to be senior to all other structures, like a pyramid, with all thinking going through a tiny little funnel to be reinterpreted through scientology think.

You can get rid of the information piece by piece and it will take years. IMO, to be rid of the scn structure itself and free your mind and life from it means you have to let go of some serious scientology basics. To me, these are:

That all aberration stems from past lives. FALSE
That a 'Basic on the Chain' exists from E/S recall that resolves experiences. MOSTLY FALSE, but OCCASIONALLY TRUE so UNRELIABLE as FACT.
That what you recall in sessions are your actual past lives. FALSE. It's what you imagine.
That you or anyone else has OT abilities others do not have. FALSE
That Scientology makes you superior or different. FALSE
That your reality is true. NOT A FACT. It's often FALSE so UNRELIABLE as FACT.
That life is simple, you just label and categorize people, especially those you don't understand or who disagree with you. FALSE

Others can add many more, I'm sure.

A couple of weeks ago I did an interview for a book and told the interviewer that even after teasing apart all the false facts of scientology, I still had a structure. The structure, though, is no longer scientology.

I put something else into the structure void that was once scientology. Something I liked more, something that made more sense and doesn't hurt me.

It takes a while, but you'll work out your own principles and personal code. That's what scientology replaced and that's what you have to put back in your life - your own ''senior datums," your own priorities.

Then instead of working hard to fit in, you can just be yourself. There will still be people who don't understand you, those who see you think a act a little differently, but does it matter? There are so many nice people in the world who would have the same principles as you, that believe in things like love, compassion, honesty and honor, and these things trump the minor differences in thinking.

I wish you success, luck, love and friendship with the best kind of people throughout your new life.

 

[This is NOT OK !!!!]

Welcome Incog!

I too have found counselling to be helpful.

I rather arbitrarily picked one and I've been pleased with the results - I've only gone 1x/mo., perhaps a total of 10 visits.

If you have insurance, pick one that takes insurance, so you only have a small co-pay, in my case it's $25.00. No need to get fancy in the beginning, almost any certified councilor will do more for you in a visit or two than all the auditing you ever received. If you're not hitting it off, just pick another one to try.

That being said, my NUMBER ONE recommendation is to read and post here at ESMB.

See you around the board!

 

[Knows]

WELCOME to EXSMB!

What was your tipping point?

Glad you are here...we have quite a few fellow lurker's coming on the board....Scientology ship has sunk!

 

[PirateAndBum]

Welcome to ESMB! It can take a while to sort things out. It's been 9 years for me so far and I'm still working on it.

A lot of people have told their stories here. Reading them can be helpful. Telling your own can help even more.

 

[cleared cannibal]

Welcome.

I find the withdrawing in general you describe interesting as I have the same urges. It is like you don't trust anyone. I guess what I am saying is I can relate.

You will get more than you realize from telling your story and it will take time to realize how much you get. To use a term you will understand, you will get a lot of new cogs from telling it. LOL You will find ESMB will cause you to know and understand yourself more than any number of intensives. I would not worry if something you think is from Scn or not. All ideas from Scn are not bad and that is the danger of discarding all you learned there. That is what makes it so bad, to discard everything is to deny some basic truths. I think you are experiencing a cognitive dissonance on this as am I. I really think a lot of the introductory/lower bridge is good and true but with time and training and processing you change your true beliefs to a Scn world view and it is so subtle you don't realize it. The trick is to find your old view and retain the good and discard the bad. As an example: Just because Hitler may have said it does not automatically make it bad. I feel your struggle on this about denying something because it came from Scn but it seems right.

If you have been lurking a while I guess you know the importance of being vague and even including the occasional white lie if you wish to remain anonymous . It is the idea we care about not the specifics.

 

[Chris Shelton]

Hey incognito, the best immediate advice I can give you is to check out some of the material I've written about recovering from Scientology, which is in written form on my blog (http://mncriticalthinking.com) or on video on my channel.

For example:

[video=youtube;7740UnlY4YQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7740UnlY4YQ&t=237s[/video]

There are other videos too. Almost everything I've been learning about that has helped in my recovery (17 years in the Sea Org, 27 in Scientology altogether) is on my channel. I recommend videos because they are quick to watch and learn from. There are many other resources, such as books on cults and recovery from them, that are amazingly good too, such as Steve Hassan's Combatting Cult Mind Control.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

snip

I put a lot of effort into trying to fix my mindset, trying to remove and all Scientology thinking but have found this to be a slow and painful process. The biggest challenge I am having at the moment figuring out what information I am thinking of as fact and operating on that is just Scientology indoctrination.

As part of going through this process, I have found that I have not only withdrawn from Scientology and Scientologists, I have withdrawn from society as a whole which is the next thing I need to tackle.
Snip

I think you will find as you live a life apart from Scientology it will drift away. I suggest reading Jeff Hawkins blog and Ask the real scientologist - you will find good posts there that will help you break free as they put some truth on the table for you to digest. They helped me a lot. The real scientologist has a good article about talking to scienetologists that may help, and I totally understanding pretending when talking to scios and how it feels. Mimsey

https://leavingscientology.wordpress.com/

https://therealaskthescientologist.wordpress.com/

 

[lotus]

Hi Incognito!

Warm welcome!

Most of us didn't get any instruction on ""how to leave $cientology''especially 20 years ago! We did what you are presently doing..pretty much the same steps, but we didn't have internet before 95 to find truth. Getting truth and facts, a little at the time, as you can digest...will make the job of undoing the indoctrination, event though the deeper stuff we are not aware of! It's quite remarkable how things begin to align when there is light passing through the whole system of indoctrination.

When I left, I did as you, I withdrew..
I wasn't part of $cientologist bubble and I had the impression I was like an impostor in the wog world.

But as soon as I made new friends, got a job out of $cientology reach..and began a little bit at the time to live like wogs ...I took Tai-Chi classed to help me lower the anxiety of all the sec checks, com evs , false accusations and BofI I received..and one day..it began to move from present tense in my life to past tense in my mental..

AS you said..it's a slow process..but as soon as you have found some basic truth..all things settle one by one..even if it takes some time...You will certainly get more and more comfortable with the $cientology part of your life.

I hope your passage here will help you to move on and to meet with people you can enjoy!

 

[incognito]

WELCOME to EXSMB!

What was your tipping point?

It was a bit of a gradual process. A while after leaving the SO, I started to do really well then thought I could do better with a little auditing. This is where everything fell apart including everything had built. When I got back into receiving auditing, I thought that I would continue with it as long as it was "improving conditions". Even though things were falling apart, I carried on too long hoping that things would get better the drifted off lines. This is when I realised I had done myself a disservice and started educating myself on the specifics what is wrong with Scientology.