When they took my best friend

[Tru2form]

This one's a tough one to tell. Not because it's hard to think about - not anymore, with such an awesome surrogate family listening - but because the subject of my story is still connected to the CoS, and she isn't participating in this because of family concerns. But I have to tell the story. We'll call her Kris.

Kris was my best friend through most of elementary school, all of middle school and highschool at Delphi LA. We were close. That kind of close that makes an impervious, two-person wall of psycho-deflection. A little bubble of sanity in an insane world. When we both started to veer away from Scientology, my parents blamed her for my disinterest, and her parents blamed me for hers. Go figure.

As we moved further and further from Scientology ideology, and as our similar-minded friends began to leave Delphi, we became each other's life support. She was the only person I could entrust with my secrets, and *know* that she'd keep them, without turning around and reporting on me, and vice versa.

One day they took her. We were supposed to go out on Sunday, and I called and called and called. Her mom told me she was grounded and couldn't come to the phone. Her dad told me she wasn't available. My parents told me nothing at all.

When I finally got through to her kinda-sorta boyfriend, I asked her if he'd seen her that weekend, and he dropped the bomb. "She's not in L.A. anymore. She's at the MK Ranch school. They took her on Saturday."

I think I died in that second. My heart stopped, my vision filmed over, my throat constricted. The MK Ranch was hell for Scientology kids, talked about with disdain and disgust and loathing. Only addicts and juvie kids went there, we thought. And Kris hadn't done anything like that. It was in the middle of New Mexico, totally isolated. Kid's phone calls to their parents were only allowed 10 mintues a week, and they were monitored by staff. Friends couldn't call - and she and I hadn't been separated for more than a week in about 5 or 6 years at that point. There was hard labor, social isolation and intensive auditing. I knew they'd try to brainwash her there.

They had taken her. My parents had known. My teachers had known. Her parents had known. And no one let me say goodbye.

I went completely and utterly off the rails. I cursed my mother. I screamed at my dad. I tried to run out of the house, but mom stopped me. I tore my hair. I cried for days. The kids at Delphi, the ones who knew, laughed at me.

When I showed up back at school on Monday, her things were just as she'd left them Friday at the desk across from mine. Just as I started tearing up, one of the guys in my class spoke up behind me: "I heard they sent her away."

I nodded.

"Yeah," he said, "She deserved it." And he shrugged.

I have never, ever, to this day forgiven him for that. When my heart is big enough to forgive him for that, I'll let you know, but don't hold your breath. If it turns out that guy becomes a Buddhist monk, and brings the next great era of peace to planet earth, I'll still be hard-pressed to forgive him for that.

Another installment later...

[Tru2form]

[Tru2form]

Yes, SaintBastard is right. The MK Ranch closed. It was run by Mace Kingsley as a camp for out-ethics Scientology kids, and it was located in the middle of nowhere, outside of Reserve, New Mexico. From what I understand, kids that went there were first put in "the cabin", an isolation tent with no heating or amenities away from all the other kids. When they had calmed down, they were allowed to come and participate in the main camp.

So, on with the story:

The next few weeks I had no idea what to do. I tried calling the ranch secretly, but of course they wouldn't let me talk to Kris. I immediately went nuts at school. I refused to study, I refused to participate in sports, I refused to do anything but write, which my awesome teacher thankfully allowed me to do - all I did all day was write letters to Kris.

I wrote her 30 page letters every day. "Morning, Kris, it's me. I just got to school." And then I'd detail out every day, and every thought, so she could be part of my life still. Every night at midnight, I went out to the post office drop box and posted the letter.

After a month, I'd heard no word, and I was a complete mess. Later, I found out what was happening:

The staff of the MK Ranch were getting my letters, opening them and reading them, then throwing them away. They told Kris that I had become a good Scientologist, and that I didn't want to talk to her until she had done the same.

Meanwhile, I was told that she was getting all of my letters, but that she had become a good Scientologist, and didn't want to speak to me until I got my ethics in.

About three months in, I was in total rebellion mode, and I got a letter from her that said: "I've decided that the things we were doing were wrong. You need to get your ethics in."

I almost died. Once again, later it turns out that they'd sat her down at a table and said, "If you don't write this, you're not getting out of here until you're 18." She was 16 and I was 15 at the time.

But of course I didn't know that. I thought they had broken her, and I determined to make it through this on my own.

Once, I pretended to be Kris' mom (I used to do fair voice impersonations) and called the Ranch demanding to talk to her. They said to me, "You've already used up your 10 minutes for the week, sorry," but the lady on staff talked to me for half an hour about how Kris was doing.

I fantasized about stealing the car and going to pick her up, but I couldn't drive, and I knew I'd be caught before I ever made it out there. Besides, where would we go? Her parents wanted her to be there. My parents wouldn't take her.

It was during this time, when she was gone, that some of the staff at Delphi started circulating rumors about me to their kids. Everyone was told not to speak with me until I had gotten my ethics in, so people that I kind of sort of knew, who were my surrogate best friends, suddenly stopped talking to me out of nowhere. I remember standing in the hallway yelling after them while they ignored me.

"John. John! Why is no one listening to me?! Can you hear me?"

I finally cornered one of them in the stairwell and made him tell me what was happening. "I can't be seen speaking to you, it's orders," he whispered, and then he broke away and ran off.

Rumors that were completely false started going around about me. I don't know who started them. They said I was on drugs (I wasn't). They said I was a slut (still a virgin). They said I was whoring myself for cocaine (doesn't deserve comment).

I started going down to the lower field to meditate after school, just to get all this stuff out of my head.

I couldn't talk to anyone except some of my Scientology friends who were no longer at Delphi, but most importantly, I made friends with some non-Scientology kids from another school. They kept me going.

One day, she came back on probation. I got a phone call that she was back, and she was allowed to come see me at CCHR where I was volunteering. I took one look at her, and she took one look at me, and we hugged. They let us go out and have lunch together, warning us not to do anything wrong, and that we only had an hour to see each other.

"So..." I said.

"So..." she said.

And we looked at each other, and everything went right back to the way it was, as if she'd never been gone.

Over the next few months, we saw each other all the time, but she was always scared they would send her back. Her parents threatened to do so if she screwed up again, though I'm not really sure what "screwed up" means, because she hadn't really done anything in the first place other than start refusing to go on course, and wearing black lipstick.

Listen up, Scientology: Love conquers all.

[RLSteve]

[Tru2form]

[Tru2form]