Several weeks ago, a Scientologist friend (lets just call her Kate) that I had reconnected with through facebook, asked me if I was back on lines. I told her no. She took it upon herself to "pull strings" on me. I ended up telling her my whole story, something I haven't even done on this message board. At that time she told me she would not write any reports on me.
I agreed to tell Kate my story. My whole intention was to be honest, and to also listen to her side of things. However, I should have realized from the beginning the whole thing would not be a real debate, but a true attempt to "handle" me. I should have stopped as soon as she said, "You aren't on my shit list yet".
She asked me to stop reading this message board at least during the time were were "talking" about things. I actually did that for a few weeks - (it wouldn't negate all the many things I've already read over the years). She had me watch the DVD with the Basics event on it. Long! Very good piece of advertising. I told her I would probably do some extension courses.....(don't have to go to the org for that, don't even have to have your freeloader debt paid to do it). The year previous, 2 S.O. members had come to my door to set up an ARC break session with me. I was actually going through an early miscarriage at the time (which I told them)...I was very tired, my house was in disorder. They came in, and sold me an extension course. They were very sweet and nice to my children. By the way, when I opened the door...they walked right in without me inviting them in. They talked very sweetly, but I definitely felt intruded upon. I bought the extension course to get them to leave...as soon as I wrote the check, they gave me the extension course packets and they were gone. Anyhow.....that was almost 2 years ago. But I told Kate that I'd do this course I'd already paid for. Problems of Work extension course...I'd read the book a few times when I was still in. Of course, this was the new book now. One thing I also told her was....hey, I've read the OT level stuff and even if I went to an org I'd probably just want to do a purif (but I was thinking if I did a purif it would actually be outside of an org, but I didn't tell her that).
Concurrently to this, an old friend that I was in the S.O. with (who happens to live in the same apartment complex as me) - Lets call him Mike - I ran into him in the laundry room. He asked me if I'd done conditions yet and gotten back on lines. I said no. He told me how he'd finally done them after 10 years out and it wasn't half as bad as he thought it'd be.
I found myself actually looking at the Doubt formula. I read it several times. My friend Kate suggested I may be in a lower condition since I read "squirrel stuff"...like enemy and treason. Find out that you are, find out who you are. (During this time I started doing my reading here on ESMB again...it really helped get me feeling grounded again.) As much as a packaged answer was seeming appealling to me in a very stressful time of our lives right now, after everything I'd learned I knew I didn't want LRH's packaged answers. Looking at those lower conditions, all I could come up with for "find out that you are " is "I'm an ex-Scientologist"...and for who you are "Someone who values truth and enjoys life without the Scientology filter, thinking for myself," That includes figuring things out without Ron's ethics formulas. He's a dead man who has no say on my ethics or my freedom. At that's as far as my "almost relapse" went. Seriously, I've been working on removing my Scientology "filter" for a while now (years, really), including kicking out the vocabulary I grew up using.
I then emailed Kate, who'd emailed several times about my progress, that I truly consider myself an ex-Scientologist. She immediately wanted to know who are what had gotten in my way of rejoining. I replied LRH was a human being like all of us, and I don't think he mapped the way to freedom for every soul. I then received a scathing email which included her absolutely arrogant opinions (since she is 3/4 way through the basics, she's the bees knees and knows way more about Scientology and how its better than all the sources Ron got it from ) - - and also pointed out that ex-Scientologists are all ingorant and out-ethics , and that my kids are now cursed.
I have now also recieved copy of a KR she wrote on me to RTC and FSO.
This whole handling she was doing on me, I have saved as a chat in gmail as well as emails. I may post it someday. It's sort of embarrassing though because I can see how I was being sucked back into the "vortex".
