Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Highs and Lows.....

So, I'm taking care of my kids during the day, and more and more nights of each week,
I'm spending out with my friends at clubs or at their houses.

I'm also hanging out more and more with my 'old flame/best friend' Dave and his sister Vicky and
her boyfriend, Dan. They are all Musicians and Artists and I find myself feeling more free
and among a comfortable environment, as I also start exploring my own artistic leanings
(Writing, Music) with them.

Soon, we decide to 'jam' on the weekends. Dan owns a set of drums and Dave is an
extremely talented guitarist who can play anything by ear and expertly. I grew up with music
in my household (Piano, Flute, Sax, etc.). And I play keyboards and flute with them.

I end up spending so much time with my friends, that I take my kids with me. I'm still
breastfeeding my baby at this point and trying to potty train my nearly 18-mos old son.
(Who was sadly overdue to be so, at this point, but earlier tries proved unsuccessful).

In between nursings, feeding my son and diaper changings, I'm playing in our band.
My young son ends up dancing to our songs and tries to sing, it was a joy to watch!
(And to this day, he loves music and writes and produces beats and taught himself
keyboards!).

Well, as you can imagine, this is not the best environment for young kids, nor a lonely
(and yes, irresponsible, immature) Army wife.

Things started spiralling downward from this point, as Dave and his sister (who was
a heavy Vodkaholic at the time) were also pot smokers.

Well one day, I tried it, ..and stopped breastfeeding my daughter after that point.

So things went from bad to worse and long story short, something happened to my
daughter, and when I took her to her next check-up, it was found (to my horror) that
apparently somebody was abusing and causing some bruising to my baby daughter!

Well at this point, she was rushed to X-Ray, the Police were called in, and myself and
Dave (oh by this point, he and I were living together, as I could no
longer afford rent where I was living... I had moved out of my mother in law's house
during all this and was living on my own, yet my husband wasn't sending money
and I was looking for a job).

And from that point onward, I was in a Nightmare of my own making.

My kids were taken away from me and put into the care of my parents
(who were not even close to my children since they were 'mixed'), till a courtdate was set.

I was being investigated as to possibly abusing my own children!

My own mother even doubted me, when I had NEVER so much as rasied a hand to either
of my children, in fact, no one had ever even seen me so much as display anger at anyone
or anything in my life.
She also suspected my paramore of doing something, Yet, I'd never seen him even pay attention to my daughter.
He did like my son but was always nice to him and even tried teaching him to play the keyboards and drums.

Even though their investigations were 'inconclusive' and found no evidence that I or Dave
(or anyone else, the daycare that I took my children to were also investigated and sadly were shut down)
had done anything.

Despite all this, it was being heavily hinted at me by the courts that my children were going to be put
in the Foster Care system. My mother was a Guardian Ad Litem, and I think she was sort of part of
my kids being taken and wanting them placed anywhere else, just no longer in her life. They (and I)
shamed my family, you see.

I grew up in a comfortable middle class family, attending elite Private
Schools and she hated her friends knowing that I had married a black man (even though he was
educated, spoke perfect english, had manners, hard worker, and I was supremely happy before
the move to fla thing.... that didn't matter, no!).

This horrified me and spurned me into quick action!

I agreed that I was guilty of neglect what with my partying ways and introducing them
into non-optimum environments, so I knew there was no way I could fight to
get my own kids back (or felt there wasn't anyways).

So I called my husband's CO in Korea and told my husband what was happening
and demanded he be sent home from Korea NOW to save his kids from being adopted
out from under us! My family who right now had my kids under their temporary care
could not keep them (or wouldn't).

It was very weird and painful having to see my own children under supervision
of my own family as if I was the abuser (and yes, I actually WAS in a way, so I accepted this).

So, I made the painful but resolute decision that I would tell the courts my decision when
they asked me what I would do:

I would give up my children to their father.

And that's what I did.

So he was thankfully stationed back in the USA out of state, with our children as a single father
while I and my paramore were sent to Anger Management/Parenting Classes.

And we went to them and completed them.

Still, I continued doing pot, drinking heavier, then started doing LSD and
descended into heavier and heavier use of all three
(all this WHILE both of us successfully
keeping a full time jobs).

My depression worsened with all this loss and I didn't care what happened to
me as long as I was numbed with some substance.

We worked and in the evenings and weekends, we partied.

One day, a few months after my kids were gone, Dave was being more of a jerk
than he normally was, and was out of Pot and couldn't find any.

I was getting fed up with our lifestyle and relationship by this point and we went
to the bookstore.

There, on the shelf was this really pretty foil-blue paperback book called:
'Scientology: The Fundamentals of Thought'.

I told Dave how I was involved in this when I lived in TX, but had never looked
much into scn, yet we looked at the book and it made sense, everything we were
reading so we bought it.

Dave read it in two hours. I read it but grew a bit disenchanted with it.

Yet he was getting more and more interested in it.

So one day, I call the nearest Mission to us and they invite us THAT NIGHT,
it was about 8:30pm. So....we went.

When we pulled up, we found it was somebody's HOUSE!? Well, I didn't like that
and suggested maybe it was some 'religious thing' and we should not go in. But
we were just too curious, because the guy on the phone was really nice to me and
did the Mystery Sandwich spiel really well.

So we went inside.

Two VERY nice people greeted us. They were a husband and wife team.

Don and Jan Meuse.

Don had this sharp gaze that reminded me of those at the San Antonio TX Mission and
this unnerved me again.

But he was so friendly and calm to us. So much so, that he gets
Dave to open up and tell him personal info about us, like that my kids had just been taken away!

My jaw literally fell open that he shared such personal info and in front of me, like that!

He even opened up and admitted the truth that we smoke pot and have used LSD!

I was shocked at how much info Don was eliciting out of Dave in this first meeting of him!

Next thing you know,

We both buy our first course, The Comm Course. (I don't think it was known as the STCC yet).

Don casually said that just for the duration of the course, we had to not use any drugs. We didn't
mind and said, ok. (Cuz we were gettin' high on all this new info we were learning about already).

We paid for it a week or so later on a Sat night. We were dressed to go clubbing.
It was, I think my 25th birthday...Aug 16th 1991). They said all we had to do was
open the book and read the first page then we could go. (found out later that was
so we could be counted as First Starts for that week's stats, lol).

We came in the next day and started 'for real' .

The courseroom was an attached garage of their house. There was one other student
in the room. He kept asking our course sup over and over: 'Do fish swim?'

Does he not KNOW they swim? THEN he switches and starts asking over and over: 'Do birds fly?'

Poor guy, we thought. He must be retarted or something.

The moment we read how to do the TR's, it said we had to look at each other, then sign our
initials that we'd done that.

So I glanced at Dave, he glanced at me, and we signed ourselves off.

Our course supervisor, Tim Flynn came over to us and patiently explained how they're
REALLY done and it's not just a 'glance' lol.
We had to 'confront' each other for a longer period of time, it seemed. And face our chairs
to each other. We thought this was sooooo strange, but we did it. At first we were literally
staring at each other, till we were cleared up on that. Then once we were doing it right, we
LOVED it and noticed how much crisper the colors and sights and sounds of the room were!

WOW, THIS stuff was like doing LSD only without any side-effects, cool!

We started really loving this new course, having lots of wins, didn't bother doing drugs
again and eagerly signed up for this stuff called 'Auditing' as we heard it would give one
relief and improve one's character, etc.etc.

So we each bought an intensive of Life Repair.

Dave's Auditor was Jan Meuse and my Auditor was someone who had to be be brought in
to be mine, as Jan was the only qualified Auditor.

Mine was a really nice lady named Patti Thompson. I'll never forget meeting her. I heard her
infectious, merry laugh before I saw her, and I liked her already! But I met her and she was so
sweet and friendly to me, wow, this was going to be an interesting experience!

So during the weeknights and on weekends, Dave got audited by Jan and me with Patti.

I saw that scary machine again with the cans and decided to be bold and hold them, this time.

(When I saw one at the San Antonio, Mission, I was scared it would shock me, lol).

The first question that was asked of me: 'How can you help me help you?' I answered her.

Next question: 'How can you help me help you?'

'Excuse me' I said patiently to her. But you already asked me that.

She smiled but didn't say anything back.

Quickly I recovered and thought, 'Oh, I guess you are SUPPOSED to ask me the same question
again, ok!' And I loved it from then onward.

We finished our Life Repair I think within about two weeks and each of us had great wins.

I never wanted mine to end, but sadly, it did. Patti was a great Auditor and to this day, I consider
her one of THE best Auditors I've had! :) (Loved all my Auditing, actually).

Well...during this time, it was found out that Dave hadn't quite completed his Life Repair
(and wouldn't be allowed to continue doing scn) until he told me something, first.

So I was pulled into the room for him to 'confess' to me, something.

And that's how I found out HE was the one who had in fact been abusing my baby
daughter at night while I was asleep. It had been going on for a couple months by the time
everything was found out.

I was told to 'acknowledge him' to 'set him free' from this 'overt'. And I struggled to do so,
but I did so.

Well, as you can all imagine, it did mess with me, and upon learning of these things called
'Ethics Conditions' while doing them, I came to the sudden realization that I wanted to leave Dave
and go back to my husband and kids and try to make up the damage that I had caused.

So I did so. Within a few days, I was on a plane to another state to try and patch things up with
my husband (we weren't divorced).

I was high on life with this new 'tech' and sober and sharp and felt I had all kinds of 'tools'
to help us get back together and be a family again.

Well, it wasn't that easy....


Found out he was with someone already, and plus, I, stupidly kept talking to Dave on the
phone while my husband was at work. When he found this out, he punched me in the temple,
breaking my thick glasses and causing me to pass out. (This in front of my kids. My young son
rushed over and kept asking me if I was ok).

Well, I had never been hit before in my entire life by anyone and this frightened me, badly.

I was out of there back on a plane, kissed my children promised them I would visit them soon and
was gone back down to Fla again and with Dave.

So I ended up being asked to join Staff at the Mission, and was told this would be a way I could
get my Bridge (since we'd run out of money by this point).

And I signed a 2.5 yr Contract and was Foundation Staff. Dave wasn't qualled to be Staff.

At night, I studied these various Div 6 'Mini hats' and finished them in checksheet time. I was a good
student and was always a voracious reader. I was routed onto the Bookstore OfficerFull-Hat

Soon, I was also actually through my Purif (where I ran out tons of previous surgeries, drugs, etc..or so I thought anyways)
and onto my TR's and Objectives.

Because I didn't have a Twin for this, I was sent to the Miami Org to do it on weekends. I drove myself the hour
and a half trip each way and got through the course in checksheet time. My twin's name was Isreal. He was a real
sweet guy!

While being at Miami and learning how a real scn org is run, I had to learn how to sell books and I was paired
with a Public who was really good at selling books, his name was David Weiss. A quirky, geeky but sweet gentleman
who was a gung-ho scn and awesome bookseller.

He introduces me to the Div 6 Bookseller of the Org.

His name was Dean Wentling.

He looked to be about 30 with a thick dark blonde hair and a thick mustache.

I shook his hand. He was also going book selling with us, but not that day.

More soon!

3 comments:

Becca Archer said...

Hey great blog WO

~INSTBH
matahariblogspot.blogspot.com/

Formerly Fooled said...

A belated thank you for writing this. You wer not an abuser, you were only negligent. Stop being so hard on yourself. Is that guy Dave, who molester your daughter, still in Scientology? Did you ever press charges?

Keep writing!

Formerly Fooled said...

ps: I am AnonyMary aka Mary McConnell :)