I was involved with Scientology for 25 years. I have a really long story to tell. I'll try to summarize it here. I have written more on the Ex Scientology Message board, under the name "Twin A".

I got involved originally when I was 14 years old. My parents were never involved. In fact, I was approached and sold courses by the Church of Scientology Mission of Stevens Creek (San Jose) staff without my parents present in 1980.

In retrospect, I do not feel that this was correct or even legal -- despite the fact that the helpful and friendly Scientology staff did help me to improve some aspects of my life at that time.

I guess I kind of liken my Scientology experience to a bad bandage. The kind that sort of stops the bleeding but then causes a worse infection later on and has to be removed and replaced.

I'm going to college now, I'm 41, and I often find myself wishing that I'd never dropped out of High School in the first place, that many of the things I was looking for in Scientology, I could not find in Scientology at all, but I have found in the school system and elsewhere. So, here is kind of my story about how I ended up skipping out on my education and staying involved in Scientology for so long.

When I was 14 I was having trouble in school, I was having trouble emotionally and I did need help for it. Scientology was right there, prominently in my community, handing me a bandage. How could I refuse? And how could I not then, walk around and tell my friends and family afterwards how great Scientology was? I had my new band aid on and I felt better, and I was happier. When my step father or my school friends did not share my new enthusiasm and were skeptical. I of course, defended my new friends to my older friends and family... because my older friends and family didn't seem to understand that I needed a band aid at all. Somehow, any lack of enthusiasm for my new found religion meant that they were against my new happiness and my new sense of hope, that they were against ME.

My friends and family didn't know that I needed anything extra, that maybe they could have helped me with. Because I was never very communicative. In fact, I didn't communicate to the Scientologists that I was having any trouble. They already knew! So that solved that situation. The weird thing is that I have no idea that they DID really know. I found out later that Scientology Registrars (sales people) are TRAINED to ask a person if there is anything about themselves that they want to change, and then to say that Scientology CAN help them with it! They say it to EVERYONE. It wasn't just that they somehow already knew what all my problems were and really truly knew that they could help me with them or not. It's a sales pitch. Something I was very unfamiliar with at age 14.

And what exactly were my really pressing issues at age 14? Well, one of them was that I was at odds with the Mental Health System. I'd seen my mother taken away in a straight jacket. I'd seen her after she'd gotten shock treatments. I'd seen her experiencing the side effects of the earlier drugs for manic-depression (bi-polar). I'd visited her at Agnew State Mental Hospital when she was there and San Jose State Mental Hospital. These were places etched in my mind. Not nice places. I'd seen her go to the California Mental Health system for help and instead get abused. She woke me up one morning when I was only 7 years old, to tell me about how she'd been repeatedly raped while in restraints at the San Jose State Mental hospital by a male nurse there.

She tried to tell her social workers and her psychiatrists and they did not BELIEVE her because she had earlier been diagnoses as being delusional. So, I was the only one who believed her. I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't call the police or write to a government official. I was only 7. But I could hold my Mom's hand and let her cry on my shoulder about it. And I could promise to myself that someday I would DO something about it. That someday I would help my mom with her problems, whether she was delusional or not.

I told one of my new Scientology friends about how I was having trouble with my Mom and he promised that learning Dianetics and Scientology would enable me to help my mother; that Dianetics and Scientology were the REAL answers to mental health problems. It was explained to me that they (Dn and Scn) were not accepted by the mental health professionals because it actually cures people and would ruin their "racket", but that eventually organized Scientology would expand and take over and make everything better.

I was impressed to see an entire religion dedicated to the improvement of the mental health system. They already had THE ANSWERS and just needed to teach them to everyone. Scientology needed to be "disseminated." I was enthused about this. I did not even know what Scientology and Dianetics really were or how they could help with mental health problems, or IF they could. But I did understand the enthusiasm and friendliness of the Scientology staff member looking at me eye to eye telling me this. I saw sincerity and conviction and I was convinced.

I had very few critical thinking skills at age 14 and 15. I tended to just trust anyone who took the time to sit down and talk to me carefully about anything. It was beyond my imagination that I, a kid on welfare with nothing that I really owned, could have anything that someone would want to steal from me. I had nothing to steal of value. No one had a reason to lie to me. But that was not true. Because I had my youth, my health and I could work very long hours if I had to. I had my labor, and that was stolen from me. I was easy game.

I didn't know how much money my Mom paid for rent. I didn't know how much money she paid for food. I did not know anything about the cost of living, I had no idea that, at 18 I'd be financially responsible for myself for the rest of my life. So... to expect me to make decisions involving my financial future was ridiculous. But that is exactly what the staff members at the Stevens Creek Mission asked of me. I was approached in 1981, when I was 15 years old, to join staff and work for the Mission of Steven's Creek. I was asked to sign a five year contract. So was my little brother, only 13 years old.

Because I'd been sold on the idea that Scientology was somehow the answer to all my problems, of course I signed up for staff. I was told that I would get all the Scientology training and counseling I needed in return for my work on staff. They were somehow doing me a "favor" by allowing me to work for them. I was told it was some kind of work study program.

I was not paid for my work for most of my work, occasionally 20 dollars at the end of a full time week. It was nothing in the scheme of things. I thought it was a lot. If I had accepted a job arranged for me by school counselors as soon as I was 16, at a local TV station for pay and school credits, I would have made about 60 a week for part time work, and 120 dollars a week full time in the summer AND I'd have gotten school credits for it towards college. Yet, because I was approached by a staff member at the Church of Scientology at age 15, without my mom present, without consulting our social worker or my school counselors, I got tricked into making a dumb mistake.

I'm not against people in Scientology who have been made happier or helped when no one else seemed to be around to help. I'm not against those people in Scientology who still have hope that the Scientology movement is the cure all for all the world's problems. I am not an enemy to Scientology or Scientologists. In fact, I consider myself a friend. If I was not criticizing, or talking to journalists about my experiences, or posting stories on the internet, or trying in some way to reach others about Scientology --- then I wouldn't care and I'd be perfectly willing for anyone getting involved, about to get involved, to just fall into the exact same traps I did. I'd be perfectly willing to let members of the Church of Scientology keep making all the same mistakes and telling the same lies to themselves and others.

Cults spring up around the world to solve problems real or imagined in the society. I can see that maybe my attraction to Scientology was somehow a way for me to solve my problems with an imperfect and not fully functional family unit. I could imagine that maybe, somehow the school system was letting me down, my social workers were letting me down and my family too. Yet, at the same time, I can also see that this idea didn't occur to me until AFTER I'd been contacted by Scientology recruiters. I did not walk into Scientology looking for an escape from my own family and the school system, but that is what I got. I did not think that I was depressed about my life until a Scientology recruiter showed me my free Personality Test (OCA) telling me I was depressed.

So after about a year of working part time and full time for the Steven's Creek Mission for little to no pay, and only two counseling sessions that didn't go all that well , I was recruited by a Sea Organization Recruiter from the Church of Scientology of Clearwater. He told me he was from the Flag Personnel Procurement Office. An important sounding name. The recruiter was dressed in a navy uniform and explained to me that the Sea Organization was an elite group of well organized Scientologists dedicated to resolving all the worlds problems using the new discoveries of L. Ron Hubbard about the mind and life. I felt flattered that I was being approached to be a member. I'd seen this recruiter and other Sea Organization members in Navy uniforms treated with respect, their orders followed, around the Steven's Creek Mission.

This Sea Organization recruiter told me that if I joined the Sea Organization, that I would get all the help I needed to finish high school and get a college education. I was even promised film school which I wanted to do. I was promised that I would be put immediately into full time training as a Scientologist. I'd learn how to become a Scientology counselor and I could learn how to help people. I could learn how to help my mom and others. I would get paid regularly/weekly and I would get room and board and free medical and dental care. I was promised that I'd get a vacation every year for three weeks to visit my mother AND a day off every other week as well. I was also told I could easily leave if I didn't want to be in the Sea Organization anymore. I could not wait to sign up...

The recruiter came to my apartment in Santa Clara and told my mother all the same things to get her to sign the parental consent form. My mother was drunk at the time and she saw my enthusiasm, was intimidated by the guy in a navy uniform and she signed the parental consent. My little brother was there and he wanted to come with me. She signed a consent form for him too. He was only 14 years old.

The recruiter had lied about all the things I would get when I joined the Sea Organization and he lied to my mother too. My little brother and I were essentially kidnapped and put on a plane to Clearwater Florida.

My twin sister joined the Sea Organization two years later, when she completed high school and found that she really missed us both. She is still involved and not speaking to me or my brother because we left staff and she has not.

I had no way of knowing back then that the C of S would make important promises to me and my mother and then not keep them. The internet didn't exist back in 1982, and I hadn't seen any bad reports about Scientology. I had no reason not to trust this guy in the navy like uniform in helping me make a very life changing decision.

Upon our arrival to Clearwater Florida, we were both put to work immediately doing laundry duty. We did this for a month. It was hard work. We also cleaned rooms. The duties assigned to us often kept us up until 4AM in the morning. We were violating child labor laws in Florida, but I did not know that and my new superiors at the Church of Scientology of Clearwater didn't care.

When I complained that my brother and I needed to go to school, I was told by the Scientologist (also a 16 year old kid) supervising my work, that "wog schools will just brainwash you, all you need to study is Scientology." When I complained that I was also promised full time training as a Scientology counselor, I was told that "Oh, well, you don't have enough work experience, so you have to work more before you can get rewarded with full time training."

When I complained that that was not what I was promised, I was told that I was being "first dynamic oriented" which is the Scientology and Sea Organization term for "being selfish." I did not like being called selfish. I did not want to be that, so I quit complaining.

I was in a difficult position. I did not really like my assigned guardian, I wasn't enjoying the work and the long hours. How could I get my little brother and I back home? I had no money for a plane ticket. My mom certainly could not afford it. I'd learned when I was 11 that my step-father was not my "real dad" so I was reluctant to ask him for anything, he'd never officially adopted us and I already felt like I owed him too much. I went to my superiors in the Sea Organization and I expressed that I was unhappy and that I wanted to go back to California.

I was told calmly that I "had withholds" and that I could cure myself of wanting to leave by writing them down. I didn't really know what to write at first. I had to figure out that it meant things I didn't think my new friends would like to hear about. I wrote that I'd complained over the phone to my sister about the Sea Organization and how it was not what I expected, I wrote that I made mistakes on the laundry—I had trouble with "double creases" on the shirt sleeves and pants and got poor service votes for that. I wrote that I could never get the laundry done on time. I was assigned a condition of "Confusion" and I was shown the Scientology Ethics Book on how to deal with confusion. I got given a "Locational" to help me to find out where I was.

I greatly enjoyed the "Locational". It gave me the opportunity to look around and explore the Scientology buildings in Clearwater more. I got to go to the top of the Fort Harrison hotel and look out over Clearwater from high up. The person helping me with the locational was very friendly and nice to me. It was good to get out of the laundry room and be making a new friend. It was good to see Clearwater at a more leisurely pace than my first brief tour of the place. I asked questions about the FH and about the other buildings. I could see there were things about Clearwater I could like. I wanted to check out the beach, but we didn't have time.

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