Here goes nothing....

I am going to attempt to start writing my "novel". So like others have, I will do this in parts.

Part 1

My parents were Scientologists when I was born. I went to Scn schools for most of my childhood (well until I joined staff...)

I joined staff when I was 9 years old in a Class V org. Somehow I managed to get a worker's permit at the age of 10 and worked in a Class V org until I was 12 - when I left my family and joined the Sea Org.

My parents were not Sea Org members or even staff for that matter.

When I was recruited for the Sea Org there were several things that were promised to me. a) I was going to be able to have kids when I was older -- I would just have to go to a Class V org while they were younger. b) I would be able to go home every couple months and see my parents (I mean, I was 12 years old for god sake and was going to a different STATE to join the SO). c) I would continue to go to school.

All three of those promises were pretty rapidly proven as lies.

As a "youngster" I was immediately put into the CMO.

I no longer went to school (well unless you call sitting around reading novels under no teacher "school").

Things seemed "ok" at first. Although schedule-wise within the first few weeks I had already been demanded to do my first "all-nighter" for some all-hands. At the time I thought it was pretty "cool and exciting" to get to stay up all night.

Oh and I forgot to mention, the girls that I was living with (in my dorm) were all older than me and one actually convinced me to start smoking cigarettes! Yes, I was still TWELVE (as a mother now that makes me cringe - not to blame my mother as I am sure she will read this). I smoked for a couple months.

So then a few months in it comes time to go home and visit my parents. They had a whole trip for my family planned. My mom bought my plane ticket and we had the whole thing all worked out.

Well at my ripe age I must have been "glib" while doing the EPF as I didn't know a damn thing about needing an LOA sec check. Apparently the rest of the "command line" didn't either . Come the day I was supposed to leave my CSW was still with the CO (despite the fact that I had submitted it 2 weeks earlier). Someone was picking me up at 4pm and 3:45 the "Supercargo" comes out and tells me that the CO says I need to get an LOA sec check.

WTF? My plane leaves in 2-3 hours. I freak out and start crying my eyes out, I miss my parents, my mom has purchased a non-refundable plane ticket, I tell him I need to go no matter what. He tells me if I go it will be considered a blow and I will get a Comm Ev and no longer qualify for CMO.

All I know is that I am 12 years old and was promised by my recruiter that I would get to see my parents whenever I wanted.

I decide that I am going to go anyway and I go downstairs and catch my ride to the berthing building to get my stuff. My super shuttle is supposed to be there soon to pick me up.

I get to the berthing, pick up my suitcase and run down to catch the shuttle to be met by Security Guards and another CMO staff member trying to stop me. I was crying and got into the shuttle and the security guard kept trying to open the door to get me out. It is beyond me now that this driver didn't think anything was wrong with the scene that was playing out in front of him. (Maybe he did but I never heard anything about it).

Somehow I was convinced to get out of the shuttle and go back and get the sec check. I think I was told that the org would pay for my ticket home (which meant my mom wouldn't have to pay for it) and that they had someone ready to do my sec check that night.

So I go back and go in session to get my sec check. Oh and before I do this I have to call my mom and tell her that I won't be on the plane. Needless to say, that was not a fun conversation.

I finally finished the sec check and kr handling the next day in the evening (it was a 24 question sec check plus 10 end ruds or something like that). The next flight l could catch didn't arrive to my parent's city until about 2am.

I got dropped off at LAX minutes before my plane was supposed to leave (something like 10pm at night by the way) - by myself. I missed the plane. Luckily there was another flight that was leaving in 45 minutes that I could still catch my connection....

And that was my first experience with the promised visits to my parents.

I came back a few days later as scheduled.

Within a couple months of being back I was put on a "hot" post at the time, in charge of getting people through their OEC.FEBC -- there was a HUGE evolution at the time to get people from Class V orgs and orgs in the Sea Org into training. I was in charge of those in training for all of the Int Mgmt and Upper management orgs. I think was "almost 13" by this time.

During this "evolution" I was kept up overnight several days a week as there was a CMO Int mission in the org to get these people into training. Myself a couple other people were making sure everyone that came to do their training was "qualified". This included reading plenty of life histories (like Melanie did too... so fun ). I got to learn about all kinds of lovely things that every 12 year old should know about.

Sometime during this whole period I turned 13. My mom actually came out to LA and wanted to spend the day with me on my birthday. Another lovely experience with taking time off. I ended up taking the day off without having an approved CSW (the CO hadn't looked at it by midnight the night before and I went and met my mom at the airport at 8 the next morning). Apparently she disapproved it because of the fact that I hadn't gotten any new people into training that week. Oh well. I went anyway and somehow it still wasn't considered a blow.

I was yelled at and assigned lower conditions for spending the day with my mother on my 13th Birthday.

Ok, that's all I have time for tonight. I may do this by age... That was my first 9 months in the SO. ETA - I was in the SO for 13 years so have quite a bit more to write.

dt2000, thank you for Part 1 of your story. Although I have read quite a few SO stories, I still am shocked by how very young people were/are treated. I will be watching for Part 2, but of course you should write it on whatever schedule is convenient for you.

[astra]

[RLSteve]

[Tru2form]

doubleVee already covered the points I would have made and expressed them better than I could have. So ditto doubleVee on the coerced abortion. And all the rolling eyes seem appropriate, so feel free!

[Tru2form]

The last chapter of my time in the Sea Org.

So begrudingly I agreed to go to the RPF. I did not want to lose my husband. I got to the PAC RPF late one afternoon. The MAA left me there. Within a couple hours I changed my mind. I did not want to do this. I told the RPF I/C to call my MAA I wanted to go back and leave the Sea Org.

I ended up being up until 3am being "handled" to do the RPF. I was obviously tired and wanted to go to bed, I finally "agreed" again. And went to bed in the middle bed of a 3-tier bunk. There were 9 women in a 15x20 foot (max - that is an estimate) room. In fact, this one "dorm" was smaller than the room that I had shared with my husband.

So I started the program.

About 5 days into it my husband came to see me. He told me he wanted a divorce. I had "blown" the Sea Org and was no longer qualified for the Int Base. He wanted to go there someday and if he was married to me he would not be qualified.

I basically told him to shove it, I was not giving him a divorce. We sat in the RPF I/C's office for about an hour and I convinced him that I would get through the RPF rapidly and we would be back together again.

I don't honestly even know what to say about my time in the RPF other than it honestly was a joke. I had 5 or 6 twinships and finally got through all of the auditing. Most of the time I was a co-audit supervisor and would get out of doing "the decks".

I will never forget when someone from the RPF had left some flammable material in the galley which started a major fire. The entire RPF was punished for it. Cancelling all of the enhancement time to clean up the mess, went on for two days I believe.

Meal breaks in the RPF were 15 minutes.

Prior to agreeing to go to the RPF I had told everyone involved that I needed to go home for my sister's wedding with my husband all of my family would be there including the "wogs" and they would not understand at all if we weren't there.

As the time got closer I was told that I shouldn't go as it "violated the FOs". I finally got it approved for me to go but the RPF I/C disapproved my husband going with me (although he had approved time off to go with me). He didn't want me having sex with my husband as it "violates the RPF Flag Orders". In fact I was told that I was not to drink alcohol or watch movies or basically do anything fun while I was gone :eyeroll: Of course I did mg:

Oh, and this was right after Sept 11th 01, and the whole RPF was on an "all hands" to get shelter space in the basement of the building. We had to empty out THOUSANDS of boxes and crates of old records and paper. As we had "chains" of people passing the boxes and crates rapidly I ended up going home to the wedding with bruises all over my arms and legs. It was gross.

The first year that I was in the RPF I was allowed time off at Christmas to spend it with my husbands family. I got to spend half a day with them. I "broke the rules" again and went and saw a movie with them.

It is so sad to me that things like watching a movie or kissing my husband (yes - even kissing) was made to seem like an "overt". I actually was made to "get off" overts of kissing my husband or even just SPEAKING with him. That's right, if I ran into him in the hallway I always said hi, even if he didn't "originate communication first".

Other ridiculous things about the RPF... the "Rocks and Shoals". Basically punishment for various things --such as missing a "TM" (a time target set for a certain project), for talking back to a senior, etc. You had to run around the basement of the PAC Base. Or do push-ups.

You are not allowed to originate communication to anyone unless spoken to. That includes family. I was not allowed to call my parents or family. It was consider that as they were "Scientologists" they should understand.

Time passed, I had been the RPF for just about 2 years and had finished everything. Our graduation CSW was sent up to RTC. It came back as I had a "dirty needle" on the "final assessment" (A list of 16 questions that you are supposed to assess and have NO reaction on).

I was then accused of "going out-2d" with another RPF as I was "flirting". Because of this "flirting" that added all kinds of additional time and auditing that "had" to be done.

Then while all of that was happening my husband showed back up in town, he had been out of town on a project. He was "on the decks" himself. Not good. I ran into him in the hallway on his Birthday and asked him what happened. He had "gone out-2D" with some girl that he was on project with. He didn't sleep with her. But had done more than flirting.

I was understanding (I mean we had been seperated for 2 1/2 years by this time) and said we could work it out. As he was walking away I told him that I loved him, he didn't answer. He said he wasn't sure anymore.

And yes, this is WHY I just put myself through 2 years of humiliation and torture. He now wanted to leave the Sea Org himself.

I was told that I wasn't allowed to talk to him. Another few months went by and I was finally allowed to talk to him and now it was me trying to convince him to stay, to keep our marraige, etc. etc. He was pretty much adament that he didn't want anything to do with any of it. He stormed off mid conversation.

My twin and I meanwhile had completed everything again and were trying to get "approval" to go back onto the final assessment. It had been a month of doing nothing except waiting and working.

Finally I was told that I could no longer hold the technical position that I was holding as I was "not moving on the program myself". Sure. It would be nice if I had been told what it was I was supposed to do to move on the program. :eyeroll:

That is when I decided I was fed up with it and said and did what I needed to say and do to get out of there within 24 hours. Having held the posts that I did and seen what I had seen, I knew that the only way that I would be offloaded rapidly would be if I did something suicidal. So I took a nice big gulp of bleach and made sure people saw me spit it back up. And I was out of there within less than 24 hours. I was not suicidal. But I was not going to spend MONTHS "routing out". It's pretty awful when a grown adult has to resort to that in order to leave somewhere that they don't want to be.

My now ex-husband decided to stay in the Sea Org. And is still there.

Oh and we can't forget to add, not only did I spend 13 years of my life there working about 100 hours a week but when I left I was told that I owed THEM about $120,000. hmy:

I am now very happy with someone else (non-scn) and have two beautiful kids. And have no intention of giving them another penny or second of my time.

Thank you for sharing your story.

One of the few things that causes me any surprise anymore is hearing about the RPF. I did know, as much as any one outside of it, that it was bad. But I never really heard about it from someone who had gone through it. The people I knew who had spent time in it didn't talk about it ever. And of course, we never spoke to the RPFers even when working along side them. I feel bad about that now. I was just being a sheep, going along with the rules. I remember working in the basement folder room and being circled seemingly endlessly by RPFers running laps. The whole idea of that program scared the crap out of me. Now I know it was for a very good reason. It's a frakking gulag.

I'm sorry your then-husband caused you pain. He obviously didn't deserve you.

I am so glad to hear that you are happily married and a mom now. I think being a mom is the most wonderous thing ever. And it has really changed me, healed some things, opened my eyes, and made me a stronger person -- along with bringing the most joy and happiness of anything other than marrying my husband. I hope it has done the same for you.