suspiciouscoffee said:
I have a lot of family tension <snip>
Your words really spoke to me. I have personal experience with everything you've described. I'll give you the short version of my life story, so you can dig that I'm not just saying "I've been there, keep your head up, it gets better."
(I write a lot of words sometimes. It's because I care. Trust me, this
is the short version... From a certain point of view. Read my book for the long version.)
I was born into a Scientology family. My parents were dedicated Scilons when they met. When I was born, my mother had been drinking the kool-aid for 17 years already. They didn't force the beliefs on me, there was no threat of eternal damnation if I didn't go to Church. The introductory study courses I did in my youth were akin to Sunday School, but for me I only had to do the weekly Church lessons during the summer months. Every time I was at the Church of Scientology all the staff members there were so incredibly nice, everybody smiled at everybody and I always felt pleasant when I was there.
My mother worked at the Church, my father was an accomplished and respected Scientologist, and they were the greatest people I had ever known. My older sister went through drug problems and general emo issues during her teenage years, then she did the Scientology drug rehab program and she turned her life around completely. She got her "Grade 12 Equivalent" at the age of 16 and started working full-time at the Church. I saw firsthand the positive effect that Scientology had on my sister.
I didn't get into drugs like my sister did (although I did smoke some reefer a few times) and I wasn't a trouble-maker like she was (she was expelled from two different public schools for being drunk AF during class every day). My deal was that I was an awkward fat kid. I was bullied, but to be honest it wasn't anything harsh, I never got physically beat up and the insults were juvenile. High school sucked, but it was basically just a privileged white people problem.
When I was 15 I made the choice to quit public high school and dedicate myself to Scientology. Absolutely nobody talked me into it, in fact my parents were surprised when I said, "Hey guess what, I signed a staff contract today. Next Spring I'm gonna take that equivocal test thingy and bail on my education." I was a minor, so I needed a parent/guardian signature before the deal was binding. Ma & Pa Neglify supported my devotion to the faith, but they told me to give it a little time to think everything over before they approved it. Springtime came, I still wanted to ditch school and chase the eternal smile, so I passed that Final Final Exam and my parental units gave their legal support to that contract.
One week after I started working there I realized that things were not what they had seemed to be. When I was a paying customer, an outsider looking in, I got nothing but love from my Church peeples. When I became a contracted staff member, I got to see inside the slaughterhouse, from the cow's point of view. I remember that first Thursday night weekly staff meeting, behind closed doors with no paying customers nearby. Every single person there looked exhausted and miserable. I remember the first time a senior officer yelled and cursed at me because I was moving all those heavy boxes too slowly.
There was no such thing as "putting in your two weeks notice" when you worked at a Church of Scientology. You toed the line or you lost your toes. And, like most major organized religions, non-believers were shunned. I did my best to "find my faith" and I studied a ton of Scientology scriptures, because this couldn't really be as bad as I thought it was. My mother was the smartest person to ever exist, surely she wasn't the victim of an evil cult's brainwashing techniques.
I remember when I realized, "Yeah... so... uh... yep this is a cult and my parents are brainwashed. Oops I'm a slave. The Boss is coming, put on a smile so I don't get a whipping."
Long story short (
too late). Ten years of hell.
I finally fulfilled all contractual obligations that the devil tricked me into agreeing to. I was able to stop my "volunteer work" and become a "private citizen" outside of their influence. But, when I left working there, I was "this close" to being labeled an enemy of Scientology. If anybody knows me, they know I have an incredible ability to piss people off. I pissed off a lot of prison guards during my stint in the pen. I was definitely on more than one Watch List after I left. I didn't want to do Scientology ever again, but I still loved my parents dearly and didn't want them to ex-communicate me.
I didn't know how I'd be able to live life without my mother in my life.
So anyway, here's the big Third Act Twist that nobody saw coming. I eventually pissed off the wrong Scientologist for the last time, and that devoted Scilon reported me to the Thought Police, and soon enough I was an ex-family member.
Who was the Scientologist that narc'd me out? My sister. What did I do to deserve eternal damnation? I posted Tool lyrics on Facebook, as a passive aggressive protest against L. Ron Hubbard and all his clones. Scientologists are not Tool fans, and they really hate that song Aenima. I was scrubbed out of my family photo albums because I openly listened to Tool. That's metal.
After my sister wrote her "Knowledge Report" and before the "Suppressive Person Declare Order" was officially approved, I had one last face-to-face conversation with my mother. I finally said all the things I had wanted to say to her. I knew that her religion was evil, and I knew that she knew how evil those people were. I pointed out many things that she couldn't argue, I showed her smoking guns that she had no defense for, but nothing could shake her faith.
I remember what my mother said to me that day. "I've been in Scientology for over 40 years. I've only known you for about half that time." That's mental.
Needless to say, I was depressed about this whole thing. I became a drunkard when I worked at Scientology, and immediately after I stopped working there I started smoking pot again. In the two years between leaving and being Declared I had become a devoted drinker and a serious stoner. I worked at a local grocery store and I learned how to steal liquor from work without getting caught. After being labeled Suppressive I drank at least a fifth of liquor a day and smoked all the weeds all the times. Eventually my boss at the grocery store became fed up with my stoned-drunk shenanigans and I was given the option to either resign from that company, or go to a rehab program on that company's dime and work off my debt with years of sober work. That was an easy decision for me. I said foul words to my boss, signed my resignation and that was the last time I was gainfully employed.
CUT TO: The one-year anniversary of my Suppressive Declare. I attempted suicide.
That wasn't no cry for help suicide fake-out. I wanted to die that day. I had planned it out months in advance. My plan didn't work out how I wanted it to and I survived that day. Because I decided to send some goodbye messages to @reave, @blueyoda and @L8wrtr, and those bastards narc'd me out to the police. (I love those bastards so much. heartheartheart.)
The day after, I called my mother from the hospital. She picked up the call (because I wasn't using my cell phone, since they all had my digits blocked) and when she realized that the mystery caller was her son, she told me that she couldn't talk to me. I said that I attempted suicide the day before and I was on my way to spend a week in the psychiatric ward. She said goodbye and hung up on me. That's the last time we spoke any words to each other. Almost four years ago.
I felt no grief after she hung up. The week I spent in the psych ward was great. I realized that everybody has problems, nobody has all the answers, yesterday will never be today again, other words. I still went through hard bouts of depression, I still spilled tears, I still wanted to do nothing in life, I still considered my life to have been a great big waste. I never got another job, because I had no desire to work dead-end jobs I hated until the day I died. I basically spent a year couch-surfing, living off minimal food stamps and cash benefits.
I wanted to live more life, the desire to kill myself faded away, but I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I had that normal human fear of becoming homeless, thinking that would be such a horrible life to live. I eventually realized that I had already lived a terrible life. Because I had never lived MY life. I lived my family's life until they voted me off the island. There was no use trying to convince my family that their life was wrong, because that would be the exact same thing Scientology did.
The downward spiral came to an end when I told myself, "They're free to live whatever life they want. And I'm free to live my life how I want. (As long as I'm not killing babies or something like that, that's not cool.)"
I stopped being an introverted weirdo. I became an extroverted weirdo. I made all sorts of new friends, most of whom were homeless bums in this great city of San Francisco. I quickly saw that it's not so terrible to be homeless. I finally stopped leeching off my productive friends and started living my life.
I am a drunk drug addict. I sleep in the bushes. I like to be friends with everybody, I ain't got no time for enemies. I don't hurt people. I know how to walk away from a bad situation. I don't lie to myself about who I am. I love my life. Because it's my life.
Yadda yadda yadda, skip the history lesson and get to the bottom line. GET ON WITH IT!
Life ain't easy, that's a fact. The easiest thing to do in life is Nothing. At the same time though, when facing most of life's harsh decisions, doing Nothing is the worst thing to do. Life's a bitch like that.
Only YOU can live YOUR life. You can't live your mom's life. And if your mom don't want you in HER life, because she can't accept YOUR life, then maybe you'd be better off living your own life. Go play outside, make new friends, Choose Your Own Adventures, find your own path through the Misty Mountains, be you.
But srsly though, life's a bitch. And that's why I love it. Every new day has the potential for anything to happen. Sometimes you fall face first into a pile of feces. Clean that shit off, learn how to avoid falling in shit next time, and get back in the game. Or don't, it's your life, I can't tell you how to live it.
P.S. I spent five hours writing this post. Five hours well spent, even if nobody ever reads a single word. It's good stuff to remind myself of.
P.P.S. Damn Neg, even the TL;DR segment is three paragraphs. Go play outside now.