Beyond Belief (36 page)

Next, I was informed that I would be doing the PTS/SP course, a major Scientology course dealing with SPs and PTSs, Potential Trouble Sources. In this study, you learned LRH’s thoughts and techniques on how to identify and handle SPs, and what happened when you were connected to such an evil person. The purpose of this course was to interconnect those times when you were sick or not doing well in life, locating the occasion and properly handling or disconnecting from the root source, the Suppressive Person. The victim of the SP was the PTS, the Potential Trouble Source, because in the presence of an SP, the PTS would undoubtedly mess up, get sick, have problems, lose something, and basically have a hard time in life.

The implied reason I had to take the course was that my parents were SPs; thus, I had to learn the mechanics of suppression so I could confront and no longer be affected by their suppression. Still, they didn’t seem like SPs to me. Trusting my own intuition instead of the Church’s labels, I refused to see them as the toxic force that Scientology said they were. Of course, I was not in a position to share my point of view.

I spent the next several weeks on the course, during which I had to learn all the characteristics of an SP and the Tone Scale verbatim. Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. H., who were extremely rigorous coaches, didn’t know that I still wasn’t buying into the concept that my parents were the SPs as outlined in this course. My parents had never “invalidated” me, a Scientology term for making less of me, or making me feel bad about myself. “Suppressive,” another term we discussed in the course, was described as something that held you back or confined you, and there was little in my parents’ behavior that fit this description. Sure, they had gotten mad at me maybe once or twice, but to say that they were suppressing me was preposterous. I certainly had plenty of problems with my parents, but words like “invalidated” and “suppressive” had nothing to do with them.

Several times during the course, it even crossed my mind that I felt more suppressed by the organization. Even my Aunt Shelly had made me feel more invalidated than my parents. She would tell me that I was unethical, or say preposterous things like I caused the downfall of the Ranch. But, of course, I liked her, and making my observation known would have been a disaster. Anne Rathbun was someone else I seriously considered as being much more invalidating of me personally.

For the next few months, everything about my life was incredibly controlled; concerned about the risks I posed, they were pretty much trying to reprogram me to ensure that I didn’t discuss my parents and didn’t use their departure to spread suppressive thoughts. I couldn’t go anywhere, unless it was the bathroom, and for that, I had to knock on Mr. H’s door to get permission and secure an escort. I had to eat every meal with Mr. H and Mr. Rodriguez, only being able to wave to the friends I’d see in the dining room. I had thought I was done being held prisoner when I had come to L.A., but, instead, the reward for my loyalty was more punishment. I had to be under the supervision of one or the other of them at all times. During meals, Mr. Rodriguez would often trash my brother, telling me how off the rails he was. She would also tell me things about my mom and Don and about Justin that were inappropriate and sexual in nature. I felt this was downright vile.

Mr. Rodriguez would also quietly gossip with Mr. H about how she was auditing Lisa Marie Presley. From their behavior, I concluded that nothing was private or protected but, rather, fodder for whispering. RTC was supposed to be the most on-policy, rule-respecting, and enforcing group in all of Scientology, charged with keeping the tech pure to its cause. However, in my experience, they were the worst. I had had many other auditors outside RTC, and not one of them had ever gotten angry at me in the way that RTC Reps had, or treated me with such disrespect, like answering a phone call in the middle of a question in session, which was against the auditor’s code. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was really depressed at having been cut off from everyone I cared about. At mealtime I hardly ate. Mr. H once yelled at me so loudly to eat my food that everyone in the dining hall looked over.

Nothing about this situation was unfolding as I’d thought it would. The freedom I’d once enjoyed at Flag prior to my parents’ leaving the Sea Org was gone, and it was hard to imagine ever getting it back. I’d thought I was choosing between my parents and returning to Clearwater, when, in reality, I was choosing between leaving my friends to live with my parents and leaving my friends to live in L.A. Neither option was what I’d wanted, but still I couldn’t bring myself to regret my decision. In retrospect, I hadn’t been given much of a choice, but bad as life was in L.A., it seemed better than living in Mexico with my parents. At least it left open the possibility of seeing my friends again someday.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about all this was that, regardless of the specific location, I’d chosen the Church over my parents. And, yet, for that loyalty, I was being punished. Rather than recognize my sacrifice by returning me to Clearwater, their response was to strip me of my freedoms and regiment my life.

This new reality cast a shadow over every part of my life. Depressed, I was prone to bouts of crying that I tried to hide in the bathroom or in my room at night. I was often in trouble with Mr. H for refusing to eat and not communicating. However, Mr. H, unlike Mr. Rodriguez, wasn’t all bad. She could see I was struggling, and did take pity on me, once even asking me if I was upset about Martino, whose name she’d apparently gotten from my security checking reports. At night, she started taking walks with me, which is what LRH said you should do if you can’t sleep, and on those walks we would chat. She had divorced her husband for some reason, and from how she talked about him, I could tell she really missed him. In these moments, there was a humanity to her that was comforting, even if it didn’t change anything about my situation. I at least felt like she understood a little.

A
FTER ABOUT TWO MONTHS OF THE
PTS/SP
COURSE,
M
R.
H.
ALLOWED
me to do minimal work outside the course room, which consisted of bringing select CMO execs coffee or drinks. I was happy to discover I already knew many of them, some of them from Flag and some from Int.

A lucky chance encounter with a friend from Flag, who was now posted at PAC, brought me news about Flag. As Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. H were walking me to my room, the friend passed me in the hall, and just as Mr. Rodriguez yanked me away, I whispered I’d be right back. I gave Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. H sufficient time to get to their own rooms before sneaking back to the elevator door, where he was waiting.

The friend was happy to see me and he told me how my friends had said I had just disappeared, that they had no idea where I was, and that he was super-happy that he could tell them he had seen me. We finished talking with a quick hug, and just as he was promising to tell everyone I said hi, Mr. Rodriguez, not by coincidence, stepped out of the elevator and grabbed me. Apparently, she had been alerted by security, who had seen me on their cameras.

“What was that all about?” she asked me, annoyed and exasperated. She had the nerve to ask me why I felt the need to sneak around.

“Because every time I see someone I know, you yank me away from them,” I responded. Thankfully, she half laughed instead of accusing me of backflashing.

Christmas came a few months later, and I was miserable. Christmas had always been a festive time with my friends, but this year, not only had I not received any letters from my friends, but I was also told I couldn’t write any. This was a first, as writing letters had always been allowed. I heard nothing from anyone in my family. For Christmas, I got to go out to dinner at a restaurant with Mr. H and Mr. Rodriguez, which wasn’t much different than eating with them at the dining hall every day. For the big treat, I was allowed to watch two episodes of
Dharma & Greg
: Jenna Elfman, who played Dharma, was a public Scientologist.

Actually, the best part of Christmas was that Mr. Marty Rathbun sent me a present, my first Harry Potter book. I stayed up late into the night until I finished it. I
loved
it. It was an escape from my actual life.

At some point in January, I finally finished the PTS/SP course. Mr. H said I would be allowed to have some kind of post now but would have to wait a couple of weeks before knowing exactly what it would be. She told me that, no matter what, I would be posted in CMO IXU instead of CMO PAC. I was happy about that, because I had gotten to know many of the people, but her words effectively ended my dream of being allowed to return to Flag.

Two weeks later, I had my post: I was going to be a Word Clearer, which bummed me out. I had wanted to be in Services, but instead I would be stuck helping people who were bogged down or in trouble in their studies or their job to find their misunderstood words. The good part was that I could eat among friends, no longer being obligated to eat with Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. H at the RTC table. The bad part was that the crew food was gruesome. Everyone’s pay was usually spent in the canteen.

I now lived in a dorm with five other girls in the Hollywood Inn on Hollywood Boulevard. Our twenty-foot-square room was on the eighth floor of the berthing. There was no AC, the water temperature was either freezing cold or boiling hot, and the elevator didn’t work. At night, crowds of people always walked by outside the building making noise, partying, screaming, or fighting—sometimes all three. I was told to count my blessings, because the Hollywood Inn, which was the berthing for CMO and executives, was nice compared to the Anthony Building on Fountain Avenue, where the crew lived. Despite the yucky food and the berthing, I was so happy to have at least some sort of freedom, where I could live with friends, eat with them, and not have to be escorted to the bathroom. If I couldn’t have my old life and my old friends, at least I was now allowed to find new ones, which proved easier as the staff at CMO IXU were much more laid back.

I was given an office to use for my word-clearing duties during the day. It was outfitted with a surveillance camera for Mr. H to view in her office, so that she could make sure I wasn’t stepping out of line. I still couldn’t use the phone, and I was required to check in with Mr. H at least once a day. It was still better than it had been, and I felt things were starting to look up. I had many new friends.

All my mail went straight to her, too. One day, she mentioned something in passing about my friends writing letters to me, which made me ask her if any had come. She shocked me when she said yes. Many friends had been writing for several months now, including Martino. She said that she hadn’t passed them along because some letters contained inappropriate comments about seniors, and that the letters had been sent to ethics. I was so upset. All these months, my friends had been writing, and I didn’t even know it. They had probably thought I had been ignoring them, or, even worse, that I had reported them to ethics myself.

When I heard about the letters from my old friends, I started to hope I could find a way back to Flag, only to realize quickly that that was never going to happen. Equally disappointing was that more than likely none of my Flag friends would ever be posted here. I started writing to everybody, even though I didn’t know who specifically had written to me. Mr. H still read through all of them, so I was very restricted as to what I could say.

Martino wrote me a few times, apparently being more careful about what he wrote now, after having gotten into trouble for his previous letters, which I never did get to read. He told me he was doing really well at Flag, and that he had actually reconnected with his long-lost father, who he learned was a lot like him, and that it was really cool getting to know him. I could tell Martino was getting more and more into being a Sea Org member and Scientology than he had before; he even told me he had gotten some auditing. He sent pictures and told me he missed me. I missed him, too, but the geography being what it was, it was now more futile than ever to go back to those feelings, so my letters remained casual. More than ever, I knew that we would never be together. It simply wasn’t workable.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
OUR

DALLAS

T
HE FIRST TIME
I
EVER LAID EYES ON
D
ALLAS
H
ILL,
I
WAS WALKING
out of the canteen with a friend. Sparks didn’t fly or anything like that. I mostly noticed him because he was good-looking. He wasn’t particularly dark or mysterious like Martino; rather, he was attractive in a boyish sort of way. He glanced at me briefly as I passed, and I smiled at him. That was the extent of our exchange.

After that, I would see him in the hallway when he came to the fifth floor to make a delivery to Mr. H’s office, but I didn’t even know his name.

“Hi, sir,” he’d say, the proper way to address me, as I was in CMO.

“Hi,” I’d reply and smile back.

Being called sir always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. But telling people not to call me sir was not an option, because the fact that I was a superior had to be acknowledged. I resolved to try to be gracious with everyone who greeted me, by smiling and saying hello back. One day in the future, I might need these people if I found myself in my inevitable serious trouble, and they might take pity on me because I had always been nice to them.

Less than a month after I first saw Dallas in the canteen, I was checking my in-basket and found a “Goldenrod,” announcing a justice action against someone in the Church whose name I didn’t recognize. Goldenrods were the kind of announcements that no one wanted his or her name on. They were usually written because a person had messed up on his or her job, or had done something else the Church considered wrong, and the Church wanted to make an example of that person, putting their head on a pike. They only mentioned personal things that were considered unethical, and that could be anything from stealing to being externally influenced, such as taking gifts or getting help from family members without exchange. An example would be allowing someone to buy your groceries or pay your car insurance without paying him back, which was rarely possible because Sea Org members were paid so little money. In addition to calling out people publicly for mistakes, they often also made mention of highly personal things that were unethical, like that person’s masturbation habits or some other personal thing that would embarrass him or her. Usually these announcements were gruesome exaggerations of the truth, but what made them worse was that they were always sent out to the entire base of five hundred people, so everyone knew your business.