0:00

This is a Glassbox Media Podcast.

0:10

I live about 20 minutes from

0:12

world-famous Clearwater Beach.

0:15

I do bike around that area sometimes, but that's

0:17

about the only time I go there, because

0:19

I'm not much of a beach person. But

0:22

people come from all over the world to

0:24

sit in that sand, because that's

0:26

one of the things Clearwater is known for.

0:30

But there's something else that makes this city

0:32

famous. Clearwater

0:35

Florida is also the worldwide spiritual

0:38

headquarters of the Church of Scientology.

0:42

Back in 1975, there

0:44

was a Scientology-founded group

0:46

that purchased the large Fort Harrison

0:49

Hotel in Clearwater for $2.3 million.

0:54

On the paperwork, the tenant was listed

0:56

as United Churches of Florida,

0:59

so the City Council and the citizens of

1:01

Clearwater didn't realize that the

1:04

new owners were actually the Church of

1:06

Scientology until after

1:08

the purchase was finalized.

1:11

Citizens groups and even the mayor of

1:13

Clearwater at the time protested

1:15

against the church establishing a base

1:18

there, and they repeatedly referred

1:20

to the group as a cult, but

1:22

the group stayed.

1:24

And now, the Scientologists

1:27

own almost 200 properties

1:30

in downtown Clearwater.

1:32

If you

1:32

drive around the city, you'll see these people

1:34

walking from one place to another, doing

1:37

their work or taking courses.

1:40

My guest today is Kat, and

1:44

she knows about the Church of Scientology from

1:46

first-hand experience. When

1:48

she was barely a teenager, Kat

1:51

was given to the Scientologists

1:54

by

1:55

her mother. people

2:01

in unreal situations. There

2:05

is a girl hanging by

2:07

her broken leg from the telephone

2:09

wire. And I called 911 and I said,

2:12

I found a baby.

2:13

I turned around, I see a gun

2:15

pointed at me close enough I could touch it.

2:18

She would hold her head underwater all the time. He

2:20

levels the gun, pulls the trigger, and

2:23

I go down.

2:23

Her eyes were full of tears.

2:26

She didn't want to leave us. My hair catches

2:29

on fire. I swear to God, this image

2:31

is burning my head for the rest of my life.

2:35

I'm Scott Johnson, and this

2:38

is What Was That Like? Before

2:46

we get into today's story, you're about to

2:48

hear from a couple of our sponsors. Sponsors

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play a big role in my being able to bring you these amazing

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So now, a quick word from our sponsors, followed

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by today's What Was That Like story.

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You know, on this podcast, we cover a lot of

3:35

really crazy and bizarre stories,

3:37

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3:40

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4:52

Cat grew up in Canada and

4:54

her family was religious. I

4:57

grew up in the Mormon faith. We

4:59

went to church every Sunday. My older

5:02

siblings were part of seminary and

5:05

totally involved with all that. And

5:07

I got baptized when I was eight. The

5:09

whole nine yards. Very Mormon.

5:11

And Mormons are instructed to have

5:14

lots of kids. We're very Mormon.

5:16

My parents were very good at doing that

5:18

part. There are six of us.

5:21

Cat's dad was an oil engineer.

5:24

So he traveled a lot for work. So

5:26

he actually, I think he had a big part to do in

5:29

fracking. He would travel down to

5:31

the States. He did a lot of work all

5:33

around Alberta and he would go to the Middle East a lot

5:36

and do whatever it is oil engineers do while they're

5:38

working out there on the fields. And

5:40

her mom was at home taking

5:43

care of all the kids. That was

5:45

definitely her job. Yeah. No, she was

5:47

a stay-at-home mom.

5:48

She was there home with us.

5:51

Cat recalled one of the years when

5:53

they celebrated her dad's birthday.

5:55

We celebrated his 42nd birthday.

5:58

We had a spaghetti dinner. Sorry,

6:01

my heart starts to race when I talk about it. We

6:05

had forgotten to buy him presents, so

6:07

we went to the local drug store and

6:09

I bought him a cheese grater because

6:11

that's what every dad wants for their

6:13

42nd birthday, is a cheese grater. Actually,

6:15

funny story, I never thought I'd see that cheese

6:18

grater again. And then one day my brother went to my

6:20

mom's house and brought home a bunch of stuff and he brought

6:22

that cheese grater home and I have it now hanging on my

6:24

wall. So we celebrated

6:26

his birthday as far as I can remember, it was a

6:29

really good time. The

6:31

next day I woke up, went to school, everything

6:34

was normal just like any other day.

6:36

But when I came home, I got off the bus and I

6:38

realized that my dad's car was in the driveway. And

6:41

my dad was never home before we got home. He

6:44

was a

6:45

workaholic, some would probably say.

6:47

He was definitely never home before six

6:50

and his car was in the driveway. So

6:52

like right away, I

6:54

knew something was not right.

6:57

So I get in, open the door, go to the

6:59

front door, open it and my mom's

7:02

friend is there

7:03

and she looks kind of frazzled.

7:07

We make eye contact, I'm like, what are you

7:09

doing here? And she was like, well, your

7:11

dad's in the hospital. He was having trouble breathing.

7:14

Your mom had to take him in. Everything's

7:16

gonna be fine. I'm just gonna be here to take

7:19

care of you guys

7:19

while your dad's in the hospital.

7:22

I was like a very anxious kid and that

7:24

really alarmed me. I was

7:26

very shooken up by that. Even though she was saying

7:28

everything was okay, just the way that she was acting

7:31

was very weird. She

7:33

was like cleaning the house and just kind of erratic.

7:36

She told us that we would just wait for my mom to call and

7:38

give us an update about how my dad was doing. So

7:41

we waited and waited and waited. What felt

7:43

like an eternity and every time the phone rang,

7:45

I would run over to it and pick up and

7:47

I would pick it up shaking just with anticipation

7:50

and hoping it was my mom saying that everything was okay

7:52

and that my dad and her would be coming home. But

7:55

that unfortunately,

7:55

that call did not

7:57

come around.

8:00

And right 8 o'clock that night,

8:02

my mom finally came home. She had another

8:05

friend with her. And

8:07

you could just tell there was something really wrong. And

8:10

my five-year-old brother went

8:11

bounding down

8:13

the hall towards her. And she's like, is he dead? Is

8:15

he dead? And she's like, and

8:18

she laughed at him.

8:19

And so in that moment, I thought like, oh, God, okay,

8:22

he's fine. She wouldn't laugh if he was dead. Like

8:24

everything's fine.

8:26

So she called all six of his kids into

8:28

the living room of our home. She

8:30

sat us down and

8:31

proceeded to

8:33

tell us that she

8:34

had brought my dad in. He's

8:37

having trouble breathing. And

8:39

that his heart had stopped two times and they were able

8:41

to bring him back two times. But the third time

8:43

it

8:44

stopped,

8:45

they weren't able to bring him back and that he had died.

8:49

The room went quiet and my sister

8:51

stood up and screamed, daddy, no.

8:54

And then ran out of the room. And

8:56

then we all just kind of collapsed into

8:58

a heap and just all started crying. How

9:01

does a 10-year-old child handle

9:04

the sudden, unexpected loss

9:06

of her father? I think at first

9:08

it was pretty unbelievable.

9:10

Like I had tears and

9:12

I knew in my head

9:15

what had happened and that he wasn't coming home.

9:18

But every part of my heart really, really

9:20

wished that this was

9:21

just a joke. I thought that they would be

9:23

a really mean and cruel joke. But I was just

9:26

hoping and praying that it was a joke, that he would

9:28

come through the door again and that

9:30

the

9:31

reality wouldn't be that he was dead.

9:34

And it was a wild experience too because

9:36

you

9:37

go from like

9:38

the day before we were celebrating his birthday

9:41

and

9:42

everything was fine. Life was fine.

9:44

And then the next day everything changed

9:48

in a heartbeat. The two

9:50

years prior, my grandparents

9:52

had died and we had gone to go to their funerals and

9:54

I knew that there was going to be a viewing at

9:57

each one. And so I was like mentally preparing myself.

10:00

for his viewing, because I knew it was coming. And

10:02

I was like really nervous about it, that I was

10:04

going to have to see him in his

10:07

casket. And then when the day finally

10:09

came, it was very surreal. Because

10:12

he just looked like he was sleeping. After

10:15

that, life went on for Kat,

10:17

her five siblings, and their now

10:20

single mother.

10:22

After a couple of weeks, she went back

10:24

to school. I milked that

10:26

as long as I could. I probably could have gone

10:28

back sooner.

10:29

But I definitely was going

10:31

to take this opportunity to miss as much school

10:33

as I possibly could. Almost

10:35

immediately too, I tried to just shove the feelings

10:38

down that I was feeling, like

10:39

just having no way to process

10:42

them.

10:43

I remember like laughing at his funeral, I

10:45

didn't cry.

10:47

And that kind of carried

10:48

on the weeks to follow. And so it

10:50

came to a point where my mom's like, you're fine, you can go back to

10:52

school, you need to go back to school.

10:55

And Kat's mom was also navigating

10:57

this new life of being single.

11:00

She definitely has like an undiagnosed personality

11:03

disorder.

11:04

And that definitely played

11:07

into how she handled everything after

11:09

he died.

11:10

She was at first really sad.

11:13

She had just been widowed with six

11:15

kids. And it was a very traumatic

11:17

thing to have happen and a big weight

11:20

to have put on your shoulders.

11:22

And so I think the first couple of weeks, she

11:24

was

11:25

handling it okay. She

11:27

was somewhat present.

11:29

Yeah, it seemed like she was there

11:32

with us. And then after a couple

11:34

of weeks, that's when everything changed. And

11:37

she realized she had some

11:39

newfound freedom from her husband.

11:42

And

11:43

she's got really into the drinking

11:45

scene and going to bars and

11:48

just separating herself from

11:50

us. It was too much for her to handle.

11:53

And so she really just started

11:56

pulling away from us and dating. Kat

12:00

was still missing that big part of her

12:02

life. I

12:05

desperately wanted a dad. And

12:08

so I wanted her to find somebody

12:10

who would be a dad, but the men that she

12:15

would pick, like her

12:17

first boyfriend after he died, she met

12:19

at the bar, which is fine.

12:22

Many people meet at the bar,

12:23

but he would go to jail on the weekends

12:26

because he, I

12:28

think he just had so many DUIs.

12:30

They would date during the week. They would have a Friday

12:32

night

12:33

date night,

12:35

and then she would drop them off at jail and then

12:37

pick them up on Sunday. And so

12:39

he also didn't have a place

12:41

to stay because he kept

12:43

going to jail. So her

12:46

solution to that was that he would

12:48

move in with us and he would be our

12:49

nanny and

12:52

live with us.

12:54

I wanted him to be my dad

12:56

or not to be my dad, but to fill that void.

12:58

But he was not at all interested in that

13:01

and understandably so, but he was really mean. He

13:03

was abusive verbally. He would yell at us a lot.

13:06

He

13:07

was just very, yeah,

13:09

just really mean. And so I would try to hang around

13:11

him, but he would insult me, belittle

13:14

me.

13:15

Yeah. He was just really resentful, even though he was supposed

13:18

to be our quote unquote nanny, um, which

13:20

having kids of my own, I cannot imagine inviting

13:22

a strange man into my home and having him nanny

13:24

my

13:25

children. Like it's, it's wild

13:27

that she would do that. But that

13:29

was pretty soon after he died.

13:32

And then she started to experience

13:34

anxiety. I

13:37

started to have just debilitating panic attacks.

13:39

So I was super worried that

13:41

my mom was going to die or that my mom was

13:43

going to abandon us. It started

13:45

off somewhat small, but very quickly progressed

13:48

to like she would leave the room and like

13:51

the walls would close in. My chest would

13:53

get tight. I'd have to go find her

13:55

to make sure she was coming back. So it

13:57

started to become

13:57

a real big problem in both our lives.

14:00

It's very difficult to have a child who you

14:02

can't leave alone.

14:03

And yeah, it was something I just could not control. It was

14:05

very,

14:06

very upsetting. But

14:08

Kat's concerns were kind of

14:10

confirmed by her mom's behavior.

14:14

Having my dad die and her now having

14:17

no spouse to be accountable to, she

14:20

started really resenting us children.

14:22

We became very quickly a burden to her

14:25

and she would

14:26

tell us that we were a burden

14:28

and that she didn't want us around and she wished she didn't have

14:30

so many kids. And

14:32

she like sat us down and told us that.

14:35

So she was showing signs she

14:37

was not happy with the situation. And so I think

14:39

that further played into my anxiety

14:42

about everything.

14:44

And at the same time, they left

14:46

the Mormon Church.

14:48

So

14:48

my dad was the main driving force

14:50

for us being in Mormonism.

14:52

My parents got into Mormonism together.

14:55

They both converted as adults and then they

14:57

proceeded to have six kids. And

15:00

then about a year before my

15:02

dad died is when my mom started

15:03

questioning the Mormon

15:06

faith. She couldn't find her testimony. The

15:09

church just wasn't true to her. So she actually

15:10

stopped going to church about

15:13

a year before my dad died. So

15:15

we were going to church still because

15:17

of him. And then when he died

15:20

and she was no longer part of the Mormon Church, then we just all

15:23

stopped being Mormon. We stopped going to church completely

15:25

at that point. And

15:27

then you found another religion.

15:30

Yes. How did that happen?

15:33

Because I was having these panic attacks.

15:35

My mom was talking to one of her friends one day

15:38

and

15:38

was explaining

15:41

what was going on with me and her

15:43

friend was a Scientologist.

15:48

And she had had great success in

15:50

Scientology. And so she had told

15:52

my mom that she thinks

15:54

that it could really help us. And

15:56

my mom was like, yeah, OK, maybe we'll give

15:59

them a call.

15:59

I decided to try.

16:02

Churches are called in Scientology

16:04

organizations and they shorten them to orgs. So

16:06

there was no orgs in

16:08

Alberta at the time.

16:11

And so my mom's friend, she was

16:13

actually doing services, Scientology services

16:16

down in LA at the Celebrity

16:18

Center International.

16:19

And so that's where my mom decided

16:21

that we, her and I, so she picked me out

16:23

of all the kids because I was having such a hard

16:26

time, that her and I would go to Celebrity

16:28

Center and we would go check it out. Just her and I,

16:31

which was amazing to have this one-on-one

16:33

time with my mom. I was just

16:35

ecstatic when she told me that I'd be going on a trip

16:37

alone with her.

16:38

I'd been to the States, but never any place

16:41

like LA where there was palm trees and stuff

16:43

like that. So it was just

16:45

so exciting and the Celebrity Center is in Hollywood.

16:48

And so once I found that out, I was like, oh

16:50

my God, this is great. It was

16:52

just a dream

16:53

come true. It was very exciting.

16:55

You're picturing yourself being surrounded by all

16:58

the famous people you see on TV and in the movies

17:00

probably.

17:01

Yes, exactly. Exactly.

17:04

Had you even flown in an airplane

17:06

before this? I had not. No,

17:08

this was my first time flying an airplane and I was

17:10

so terrified.

17:11

I had always had anxiety about it, but

17:14

we survived. And actually funny stories,

17:16

while we were flying, a flight attendant started

17:18

digging in the overhead bin

17:20

above me.

17:21

She was very persistent about it. And then she

17:24

looked at me and was like, don't worry,

17:26

there's a ticking sound. We're just trying to figure out what

17:28

it is. Yeah.

17:31

Sorry, the plane's

17:33

making a funny noise. We have to check it out.

17:36

Yeah. But yeah, it was

17:38

terrifying, but

17:39

we made it. In your

17:41

mind as a child, what did

17:43

you think the purpose was for this

17:45

trip to the US?

17:47

Or did your mom tell you why you were going? Yeah,

17:50

she did. So she very briefly

17:52

explained Scientology to me. And she didn't

17:55

really have a grasp of it herself. So

17:57

just what she knew, just basically

17:59

that there had to be a

17:59

counseling services that

18:02

she thinks could help. And so we were

18:04

going to go down there and try and do that and see if we could

18:06

help with these panic attacks. Can you

18:08

describe what is Celebrity

18:11

Center International? Celebrity

18:13

Center International, it's actually, it was an old

18:16

apartment building that the Church of Scientology

18:19

bought in like the 1950s or 60s

18:21

and renovated it to

18:24

be this beautiful, it's beautifully

18:26

renovated

18:27

org. So there is also

18:29

a hotel attached to it, it's called the Manor

18:31

Hotel. So there are a number of floors that

18:34

are just dedicated to the Manor Hotel.

18:37

And you can only stay there if you're doing

18:39

Scientology services. And then the rest of the

18:41

building is course

18:42

rooms and

18:44

auditing rooms and all the things that you

18:46

need to do Scientology. They have a restaurant,

18:49

you don't have to leave to go anywhere, you don't have to

18:51

leave to go to your room or do your

18:54

courses and stuff like that. And so

18:56

when you're there, you're there at Celebrity Center. The

18:58

grounds are beautifully

19:00

manicured, they are beautiful.

19:02

It's just a beautiful building. It's very beautiful.

19:05

Did you see any celebrities while you were there? So

19:07

the first trip, I don't think I saw any celebrities,

19:10

but over my extended time there,

19:12

I saw John Travolta,

19:15

Kirstie

19:15

Alley, Jenna Elfman,

19:17

Jason Lee. I talked

19:19

to Leah Remini. We

19:21

were both at the reception desk in the lobby.

19:23

She

19:24

was very nice. I remember

19:25

looking at her and I'm like, oh my God, that looks like

19:27

the girl from Saved by the Bell. And I was like, there's no possible

19:29

way that's the girl from Saved by the Bell, like

19:32

no possible way. And there was totally

19:35

a way because it was totally her. So

19:37

you got there and you get

19:39

the sales pitch, so to speak, based on

19:41

a personality test. Yes.

19:44

How did they do all of that? What happened?

19:46

You take a personality test and

19:49

everybody takes it when they come in to do services.

19:51

And basically, the whole point of this

19:53

personality test is it sounds fun and

19:55

like you're gonna find out what your personality is.

19:58

But really what they're doing is they're

19:59

trying to find something called your ruin. So

20:02

the thing in your life that is causing you

20:05

great upset and that is stopping you from moving

20:07

forward and stuff in life. And so you'll

20:09

take this test and then they'll read the results

20:11

and they'll be like, Oh, you're really good in this area. But

20:14

oh my God, this area is really bad. And so

20:16

here is this, you know, course that can help

20:18

you better this so that you can improve

20:21

your life and,

20:22

and so on and so forth.

20:24

How convenient that they have a course for whatever

20:27

problem you might have. It's great. Yes.

20:30

And you don't even have to leave the grounds. The campus has

20:32

a work.

20:34

My mom got a huge life

20:36

insurance

20:37

policy payout from my father dying,

20:40

which was supposed to go to

20:42

raising us kids and keeping a roof

20:44

over her head and Scientology

20:47

got wind of that. So they have people there called

20:49

registers and they shorten that to

20:51

regs.

20:52

And so the regs whole job

20:55

is to sell you

20:56

Scientology courses and auditing. And

21:00

they won't just sell you like, Hey, this is this

21:02

one course that

21:03

you could do now. And then when you finish that

21:06

course, come back and we'll have you purchase another

21:08

course. Their whole job is like there

21:11

is to get as much money out of you as possible.

21:14

So they actually were able to get

21:16

at

21:17

least a hundred grand out of my mom while

21:19

she was there. So she prepaid for multiple

21:22

courses

21:23

for her to train to become an auditor.

21:26

Why don't you go ahead and explain what is auditing?

21:29

Okay. So auditing is basically their

21:31

version of counseling. So

21:33

you have an auditor and then you're yourself

21:36

and you'll go into a room. And this room

21:38

is usually pretty small, very

21:41

plain. They don't want to have any distractions. So there's

21:43

like little pictures on the walls and stuff like

21:46

that. And you sitting across the desk

21:48

from your auditor and they have

21:50

something called an emeter. Now

21:52

emeter is this little device,

21:54

this little machine that will sit in front of the auditor

21:57

and you will not see the interface.

21:59

So the interface is.

21:59

facing the auditor and it has a couple

22:02

dials on it and then it also has a needle

22:04

that goes back and forth and the

22:06

auditor is trained to read

22:09

that needle.

22:10

There are a wire

22:13

connected to the emitter that comes

22:15

out of both sides and it's connected

22:17

to these cans and so you

22:19

as a person being audited will hold these

22:21

cans in each hand and so the idea

22:24

is that the emitter has a

22:26

current lower than a 9 volt

22:28

battery that when you're holding

22:30

the cans you'll complete the circuit and it'll be going

22:33

around and through you. And

22:35

so they believe that

22:38

you have something called a reactive

22:40

mind and so the reactive mind is

22:42

the part of your mind

22:43

that stores all the bad

22:45

things that have ever happened to you, all the painful memories,

22:48

anything bad that's ever happened to you is stored in your reactive

22:50

mind and your reactive mind is actually the thing that

22:52

causes

22:53

all the problems that you have in this

22:55

world and so the goal of

22:58

auditing is to get rid of your reactive mind. So

23:00

as you are holding the cans it's

23:02

sending the volt, the 9 volt

23:05

current through your body you don't feel it

23:07

but supposedly if you have a thought in

23:09

your mind it will create mass

23:12

and that will disrupt the current that is flowing through

23:14

you and so the auditor who

23:16

has the interface facing them on the

23:18

emitter will see the needle start to

23:20

move and so that's when they will

23:24

know that there's a thought that you're having

23:26

that they have to take up in session.

23:27

It just sounds like a rudimentary

23:30

polygraph or a biofeedback

23:33

machine. Exactly what it's been compared to,

23:35

yes, that it's like a lie detector machine.

23:39

So I did do auditing first, I

23:41

think we were there for a week, I

23:44

did do auditing to address the panic attacks

23:46

that I was having and it helped.

23:49

Actually, I don't remember any

23:52

of the questions asked or any of

23:54

the things that I said but

23:57

it ended up actually really helping pretty

23:59

quickly actually. Like when I first

24:02

started, when they

24:04

first called me back to do

24:06

the auditing, my mom had already gone back to

24:09

do her auditing. So I was left alone in

24:11

the waiting room and I just,

24:14

again, had a panic attack. The walls were closing

24:16

in on me. I was just thinking I was going

24:18

to be homeless in LA and like my mom's not

24:20

going to come back and I need to figure out what I'm

24:22

going to do to survive this because she's

24:24

not coming back. So that was my whole thought

24:26

process as I resigned

24:29

myself to being homeless and I was like, okay, I guess

24:31

we're doing this. Then my auditor came

24:33

back and then

24:34

we were able to proceed with the auditing and

24:37

it helped significantly. When

24:39

you got the feeling that it helped,

24:42

do you think... I mean, it seems

24:44

like just talking about

24:47

this problem or explaining this problem

24:49

to another person who's interested

24:52

in hearing it, it

24:54

seems like that in itself would be

24:56

a help. Do

24:57

you think that's what was happening or was it the actual

25:00

whatever these courses were doing? A

25:02

hundred percent.

25:03

A hundred percent. I think it's because I was just addressing

25:06

what needed to be addressed

25:07

and then just talking about it.

25:09

So it was kind of like therapy,

25:12

but

25:13

just really super expensive

25:15

therapy and probably someone

25:17

that wasn't trained in therapy.

25:19

No, no, definitely. Anybody

25:22

who is an auditor,

25:23

they go through lots of training, but

25:26

it's Scientology training to become an auditor. Elrond

25:28

Hubbard wrote How to Do It

25:29

and so it's definitely not accredited

25:32

or supervised or anything

25:35

like that. So you were helped in some

25:37

way by it and you

25:39

guys went back home.

25:41

Was your life different then?

25:44

I mean, it was significantly helped because I wasn't

25:47

having these panic attacks anymore.

25:49

And it was just kind of this cool thing. I was

25:51

part of this cool club. I was a Scientologist.

25:55

Nobody had ever heard of Scientology. Anybody

25:57

had talked to my friends and stuff like that. They had never heard

25:59

of Scientology.

25:59

Scientology and so it's just this kind of this cool

26:02

thing that I was a part of now that nobody

26:04

else was a part of it actuality

26:06

it really since

26:07

there was no orgs and we had knew nobody else

26:10

who was a Scientologist like

26:12

it was just this cool thing that we went to LA

26:14

to do and then we came back home and

26:17

It wasn't a part of our daily life. So

26:20

life just went on as normal. Okay

26:23

so you guys went back a second

26:25

time you and your mom and Then

26:28

you went back a third time

26:31

down to Los Angeles and by this time you

26:33

were 13 years old

26:36

What happened on that third trip? Oh Boy,

26:39

okay. Yes. So yes, we went back

26:42

We had gone down there and I had started a course

26:44

called the key to life course

26:47

It's a huge course that has like 45 pounds

26:49

worth of books and it defines every

26:52

word in The English

26:54

language basically and

26:55

so the whole point of this course is to learn

26:58

every word in the English

26:59

language So I was doing

27:01

that course. I just started so

27:03

you spend almost all of your day

27:05

doing coursework so you're on course from like

27:08

9 to 12 and then

27:10

there's like a hour

27:12

lunch break and then you come back from like 1

27:14

to 6 and then there's a

27:17

Hour dinner break and then you go back from like 7

27:19

to 9 or something like that So your whole day

27:21

is spent

27:22

in the course room. I Remember

27:28

just standing in the shower and saying to myself

27:30

out loud just like keep hearing it. Your

27:33

brother is dead. Your brother is dead This

27:36

is last day a show about the moments

27:38

that change us I'm your

27:40

host Stephanie Whittleswax Join

27:43

me as we laugh and cry and laugh

27:45

cry our way through stories of survival resilience

27:49

and transformation Last

27:52

day is out now wherever you get your podcasts

27:57

What's your legacy Miami-Dade residents

28:00

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of that is plastic and will remain in our environment

28:04

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29:31

First

29:36

couple days, that's what I was doing. I was

29:39

doing this course. I have to say it was really

29:41

boring. I was not enjoying myself. Yeah,

29:43

I was gonna say, for

29:46

a kid who previously wanted to stay

29:48

out of school as much as possible, this

29:51

is like school from morning to night.

29:53

It must've been terrible.

29:55

Yes, yeah, it was

29:57

very demanding.

29:59

I didn't like it too much.

29:59

But again, I like the idea that I was in

30:02

LA and with my mom. So

30:04

it was worth it to get the time

30:06

that I had with my mom. It was worth it

30:08

to sit through

30:09

like 12 hours, of course, time of

30:11

day. Probably around like

30:13

the third or fourth day,

30:15

I was taking a break with my mom.

30:17

We were in the Rose Garden Cafe, which is this little

30:20

cafe that they have there on the grounds of

30:22

Celebrity Center.

30:23

My mom and I were just chatting and they

30:26

had this like sparkling juice. This is my biggest memory

30:28

of that cafe. The sparkling juice that they

30:30

didn't sell up in Canada. So like

30:32

it was, I exclusively got it at

30:34

the Rose Garden Cafe. And so

30:36

we were sitting there discussing

30:38

our day and I was drinking this juice and

30:41

then this woman walks up to me and my mom,

30:44

she herself was pretty young. She was probably about 17

30:46

and she's like, hey, do you guys wanna come

30:48

down downstairs and watch a movie?

30:51

And I was like, sure, yeah, I'll

30:53

watch a movie. And my mom was like, yeah,

30:55

yeah, okay, let's go do it. So we had

30:57

enough time left on our break before

30:59

we had to get back to course to go down and

31:02

watch their movie. So we go downstairs

31:04

to the basement of the Celebrity Center and they have

31:07

this, it was really cool. Again, just

31:10

enchanted by this place at this point. This

31:12

movie theater that had like red velvet all

31:15

over the walls and red velvet

31:17

seats and like this big

31:19

screen, which I do believe even had

31:21

like a red velvet curtain

31:24

that would open when you would start the

31:27

movie. And so we sit

31:29

down and she hits play and

31:32

it starts to talk about the Sea Organization.

31:35

And the Sea Organization,

31:37

and for short, we'll call it the Sea Org. And

31:39

when you say Sea Org, it's, you're saying

31:41

S-E-A, like the big body of water,

31:44

right?

31:44

Yes, correct. So

31:46

the Sea Org is a paramilitary group

31:49

that is mirrored after the Navy. Elrond

31:51

Hubbard was a naval man during World

31:54

War II. And

31:56

so he brought a lot of what

31:59

he learned in the Navy.

31:59

to the sea organization. He founded

32:02

that in 1967. He bought three

32:04

boats and took his most loyal

32:06

followers and headed to the sea.

32:09

He was a big tax evader. And so

32:12

he was trying to get away

32:14

from the law, basically. He

32:16

had made a whole bunch of money with Dianetics at

32:19

this point in time.

32:20

And they had said that,

32:22

you know, you gotta start paying taxes. And so

32:25

Albert Hubbard actually said that, you know, the

32:27

best way to make money is to start

32:29

a religion because it's tax-free. And

32:32

so he

32:34

didn't want to have to pay those taxes that the

32:36

IRS was trying to get him to pay. So he took

32:38

Scientology to the seas.

32:40

So he could be on international waters so that he

32:42

would not have to worry about

32:44

any governments trying to tell him what he needs

32:46

to do and what he needs to pay. And he actually

32:48

did a lot of developing of Scientology

32:51

while he was on those boats. So

32:53

the Sea Org is no longer at sea.

32:55

They were able to eventually bring it to land.

32:58

And so now the Sea Org

33:01

is now the people who keep Scientology

33:03

running. They're the most dedicated workers out

33:06

there. They live and breathe

33:08

Scientology. They live in

33:10

Scientology buildings. They work

33:13

day and night. Scientology feeds

33:15

them, clothes them, and you

33:17

dedicate your whole entire life

33:20

to them.

33:21

When you went to watch this movie, were

33:23

they trying to get you to join the Sea

33:25

Org? First, I didn't think

33:27

so. First, I was like,

33:29

we watched the movie. And I was like, wow. And

33:31

it was like

33:33

a military recruitment video, trying to make

33:35

it sound really appealing. They

33:38

made it seem like it was just this really cool thing to do. And

33:41

I didn't actually, at that time, realize

33:43

why they were showing it to me. I thought that

33:45

it was just something that

33:47

they liked to show people because they had this cool theater. So

33:50

then the lady comes in

33:52

who had originally showed us the video. And

33:54

she's like, can you guys come talk to me about the

33:57

movie you just watched? And I was like, yeah, sure. So

33:59

me and my mom go back.

33:59

back into this office. So this office that she brought us

34:02

into, it's in the basement of the celebrity

34:04

center and it is,

34:07

just has a desk, just white walls.

34:10

There on one side of the desk, the

34:12

Sewer Lady and then me and my mom were on the other

34:14

side of the desk and the door was to our backs.

34:17

So we go into this little room and she closes the

34:19

door and she's like,

34:22

so what'd you think? And I was like, that's really cool.

34:24

Thank you for being a Sewer member. Like that seems

34:26

like a really important job, so cool.

34:29

And she's like, well, would you wanna join?

34:31

And I was like,

34:33

no, no, I don't think so. Thank you. Like

34:36

I'm 13, I don't live here.

34:38

Like, no, thank you.

34:41

And I was a big people pleaser at the time. I

34:43

kind of still am.

34:44

So just trying to be very polite.

34:47

So she was like, okay,

34:49

well, would you be willing to come back

34:51

and talk to me

34:53

after

34:54

course tonight?

34:56

And I was like, yeah, sure, I can

34:58

do that. That sounds fine. I'll come back to this

35:00

room after I get off course.

35:02

And so me and my mom leave and

35:04

we go off to course and then I by

35:07

myself

35:08

go back to that room and start

35:10

talking with her. Why didn't your mom go

35:12

with you? Good

35:15

question. I don't think

35:18

she cared. I think she was in her

35:20

own little world. I don't think, she

35:22

was so disconnected from me. And

35:25

I remember that trip, her just being,

35:28

like she was just there. Her body was in the room, but

35:30

she wasn't there.

35:32

So I go back and she starts asking me,

35:35

you know, why I don't wanna join the C org.

35:38

And at the time, again, I was thinking this was crazy.

35:40

Like I'm 13.

35:43

In Scientology, they believe that

35:46

you are a thing. And

35:48

a thing basically is

35:49

your soul. So you

35:51

have a body and

35:53

you are your thing.

35:55

And so

35:56

this is just your body for this lifetime, but

35:58

your thing can never die.

35:59

So your thetan has been around for billions

36:02

of years.

36:03

Before this, it's going to go on for billions

36:05

of years. After this,

36:07

just this lifetime, this is

36:09

the body that I inhabit. But my thetan

36:12

is very old. So she

36:14

starts asking me, why

36:16

don't you want to join the Sea Org?

36:18

And

36:18

I was like, well, I'm 13. And

36:21

she's like, well, you're not 13. Your

36:23

body's 13. Your thetan's billions

36:26

of years old.

36:27

Your body

36:28

is the only thing that's 13 here. And

36:31

I was like, yeah, I guess.

36:35

And so immediately, every time I would

36:37

use that excuse, quote unquote, that I was 13, she'd

36:40

always be like, you're not 13. Just

36:43

your body. That's just your

36:44

body's age. Just heavy duty recruitment started to try

36:47

to get me to join the Sea Org.

36:49

I'm picturing someone who signs

36:52

up for the three-day, two-night

36:55

stay at a resort. But

36:57

they have to listen to the 90-minute

36:59

sales pitch, high-pressure

37:02

pitch to buy the timeshare.

37:05

But that happens to

37:08

adults. And

37:10

here they are trying to recruit you

37:12

as just a young

37:13

kid. Yes. And

37:16

I was by myself.

37:18

My mom was not there doing anything

37:20

to help me with that.

37:21

And so in Scientology, they

37:24

believe that mankind is in a dwindling

37:26

spiral. And we have this but

37:28

a breath of a moment in time here

37:31

and within Scientology to

37:33

stop

37:34

the dwindling spiral that humanity

37:36

has been in. And we have to

37:38

do everything we can right now

37:41

to save the planet because

37:44

it

37:44

is about to go to shit. And

37:46

we are the only people who can do something

37:48

about it. So that also was

37:50

brought in

37:51

very heavy very quickly that

37:54

not only am I a billion-year-old thing, but

37:57

also the fate of the world depends

37:59

on me.

37:59

join in the C-org. Like, how

38:02

could I know this, have this knowledge of

38:04

Scientology and how much good

38:07

it can do for the world, and then turn

38:09

my back and walk away. And that

38:11

was very heavily,

38:14

heavily pushed on me that I would just be a piece

38:16

of shit, basically, if I didn't do this. If I

38:18

didn't

38:19

give of myself to save mankind

38:22

right now,

38:23

what kind of person am I if I do that?

38:26

Standard part of a high pressure

38:28

sales pitch is the urgency. Gotta

38:31

act now. Yes. Yes, yes,

38:33

exactly. And so the whole recruitment cycle

38:36

took two days. So it was me

38:38

going to course and then me

38:40

going back to

38:43

that room. Anytime I had a free

38:45

moment.

38:46

You must have just dreaded walking

38:48

in that room knowing what was going to

38:50

happen. Yeah. Yeah,

38:52

I definitely I did dread it. It was

38:54

yes, this had turned like this,

38:56

the Scientology experience that I had that I

38:58

loved being with my mom being in

39:01

Hollywood, all this stuff, suddenly

39:03

became this

39:04

just torturous situation that I was in

39:07

and I didn't have a voice to say no. Like,

39:10

I wish I

39:11

could have been strong enough in that moment to

39:13

just be like, no, I'm not coming back.

39:16

But

39:17

he didn't because

39:18

I'm a people pleaser. And

39:20

I was 13. I was 13 year I was in the eighth

39:22

grade,

39:23

when all this went down.

39:25

And so it started off with just the one

39:27

woman giving me the whole spiel

39:29

and how I need to do this. I need to do

39:32

it right now. I need to save the planet.

39:34

Nothing else is as important as this. And

39:36

then she brought in a second,

39:39

an older gentleman to

39:40

come help in the recruiting

39:42

fund. I don't know if they were doing like a good cop

39:45

bag cop kind of thing. Like

39:47

she was very pushy, but he was more like, I

39:50

just can't believe you wouldn't want to do this. I just can't

39:52

believe you wouldn't want to save the world. And like,

39:54

I remember one time, like I was like,

39:56

just like, no, no, I don't want to do this. I don't

39:58

want to do it. I was like, let me go. home and

40:00

think about it. I'll just go home and think about it. How does that sound?

40:02

I'll go home and think about it. No salesman wants to

40:04

hear that response. Nope.

40:06

He sure did not. Yeah. No.

40:08

And he's like,

40:09

I just picture you going home. I just picture you

40:11

going home and going and sit in the corner and putting your

40:13

head in your hands and just thinking about

40:16

it. Like how stupid is that? How stupid

40:18

is that? And I was like, I guess that's

40:20

kind of stupid. But again, as a grown up now,

40:22

I'm like, yeah, I should have definitely gone home and sat

40:24

in a corner with my head in my hand and thought about it for

40:26

a fucking second. But again,

40:28

that wasn't their goal. Their goal was not

40:30

to send me home. Their goal was to

40:34

get me to sign their contract and get me to stay

40:36

and join the C-ORG. And so after

40:39

two days of that, where

40:40

I just felt very beaten down and

40:44

I just wanted it to stop, I just wanted them

40:46

to stop hounding me. And

40:48

so I looked at them and I said, okay, I'll

40:51

do it. And of course they were very,

40:53

very excited. Like, yes, great. Okay.

40:56

And then like in my heart of hearts, I was

40:58

like, oh my

40:58

God, I hope my mom stops this. And so I told them,

41:00

I was like, I

41:02

don't know. We'll just have to see what my mom says. We'll have

41:04

to see if she's okay with it. And

41:06

they look at me and they go, your mom's not gonna be

41:08

a problem. Don't worry about your mom. We're gonna handle your mom. Don't

41:10

worry about her. I was like, oh,

41:12

good. But again, I was

41:15

like, that answer devastated me. I

41:17

just, the feeling that I felt

41:19

in that moment of like utter just

41:22

giving myself over to it after

41:25

having just everything, all of my

41:28

autonomy taken from me, like

41:30

I'll never forget that feeling. I don't think I could ever

41:32

accurately describe it, but I'll never

41:34

forget how that felt in that moment.

41:37

That night I went to C-ORG. And

41:40

I remember not being able to focus at all on

41:42

C-ORG. Cause

41:43

I had just made this lifelong commitment

41:45

to them. And

41:46

they said that we'll call your mom down at that

41:49

point and then we'll talk to her. So

41:52

that night called my mom down. And

41:54

again, I can remember this so clearly her sitting next

41:56

to me and

41:57

me just telling her that, you know, I, I

41:59

really.

41:59

really want to join.

42:02

And she looked at me, she

42:04

looked at the recruiters and she said, okay,

42:07

you can join. I was

42:09

heartbroken. It was very,

42:12

very heartbroken that

42:13

she didn't do anything about

42:15

it. Did you understand

42:17

that this meant that your mom

42:20

would be going back home and you

42:22

would be staying?

42:23

Yeah. So I did understand that what

42:27

this entailed is that, yes, my mom

42:29

would go home. I would stay, I

42:32

would never see my friends again, or

42:34

I would see them just when I came back to visit,

42:36

if I could ever come visit. I wouldn't see my

42:38

family again. This would be it.

42:41

This was my new life now that I

42:43

am now going to be joining

42:46

the Sea Org. And this is what I'd

42:48

be doing.

42:49

So this seems like the

42:51

actual playing out of what

42:53

you had been fearing, your mom leaving

42:56

you.

42:56

Yeah. She

42:59

had to sign over guardianship of me. So

43:01

they found somebody who, a Sea Org member who didn't

43:04

have anybody who they were the guardian of yet.

43:07

She signed over guardianship

43:08

of me as a technicality so that

43:11

she could legally leave me in a different

43:13

country. So she could leave me there.

43:16

So not only is she saying verbally,

43:19

it's okay, I'm going to leave. She

43:22

took the legal action to

43:24

give you to someone else.

43:27

Yeah.

43:29

Yep, she did.

43:31

Without hesitating.

43:33

She signed the paperwork.

43:35

So what exactly is

43:37

this contract that you signed?

43:41

So it's the Sea Org contract.

43:43

They, again, believe you're a Thein. And

43:46

so you sign a contract committing yourself

43:49

to the Sea Org organization for

43:51

your next

43:52

billion years

43:53

because they believe that you're going to fulfill

43:56

this term. You're going to be in the Sea Org this

43:59

lifetime. You're going to

44:00

die and then you're going

44:02

to come back

44:03

to a different body and you have 21 years

44:05

to

44:06

get your shit figured out and realize that you're a

44:08

Scientologist and that you were a Sea Org member and

44:11

then you get yourself back into an org and then you

44:13

sign another contract and so you're committing yourself

44:16

to the next billion years

44:18

to the Sea Org. They have you

44:20

sign that. So I as a 13 year old

44:23

signed my

44:25

soul over basically for a billion years

44:27

to the Church of Scientology.

44:30

So we did a whole bunch of paperwork and all that

44:32

stuff and my mom

44:34

yep she signed over guardianship and she

44:37

got on a plane and she went back home and

44:39

she left me in LA.

44:41

So what was the next day like? How

44:44

did that how did you start this period?

44:47

Before you become a Sea Org member you have

44:50

to do a program called the Estates Project

44:52

Force or EPF for

44:54

short. So it's basically their boot camp.

44:57

So you have to do five courses and

45:01

when you're not on course you have five hours a day

45:03

where you do course and then you do ten hours

45:05

a day of hard manual labor. Hubbard

45:07

had said that the

45:09

EPF should have yet maximum amount

45:12

of course study, maximum amount of work,

45:14

manual labor and then minimal amount

45:16

of downtime. So that equated to 15 hour

45:19

days, seven days a week until

45:22

you're able to finish the

45:24

program, the EPF.

45:26

And you have to run everywhere so if you're caught

45:28

walking you'll get in big trouble.

45:30

Like it's really meant to be

45:32

just complete control.

45:34

Yes, yes exactly. So

45:37

the day after my mom left we had

45:39

to do all the paperwork to get me

45:41

routed on to the EPF.

45:44

As I'm doing that they're asking me all these questions

45:46

because they're filling out all their paperwork and they

45:49

look at me and they go, hey Catherine what's

45:51

your social security number? And

45:54

I was like I don't actually have

45:56

one because I'm Canadian. I don't

45:58

have a social security number.

46:00

So the whole room goes quiet. They

46:03

all kind of look at each other.

46:05

They're like, uh,

46:07

what do we do? And they look

46:09

at me and they go, you know what? That's okay, actually.

46:11

You know what? That's fine. Your mom will just have

46:13

to get you a social security number and

46:16

you'll just work for free until you get a social security

46:18

number. Now, mind you, C-ORG

46:20

members do not make a lot of money. So they make $50

46:24

a week and then that's taxed. So it comes out to be like $48.

46:27

So you don't make a lot of money.

46:29

At all. But I

46:32

had absolutely no income and no money

46:35

because I did not have a social security number. But

46:38

they were still kind enough to let me work for them for free.

46:40

This sounds a lot like prison.

46:44

Yeah.

46:45

Felt like that too.

46:46

They actually have security guards. Like

46:48

they, they keep track of you.

46:51

Like if you leave the grounds, people

46:53

will come find you.

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49:05

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49:06

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49:09

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49:10

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49:12

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49:14

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49:17

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49:19

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49:21

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49:24

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49:32

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49:35

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49:40

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49:42

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50:30

The first night there, I was assigned to the unit

50:32

that the church had just bought the

50:35

building across the street from the Celebrity Center. And

50:37

so it was an old apartment building,

50:40

and they were renovating it for Seahawk

50:43

members to live there eventually. So it was super run

50:45

down. And so we would spend 10

50:48

hours a day doing demo work. So

50:51

the first night when I was delivered to my

50:53

unit, they were actually tearing carpet

50:56

off of the stairs.

50:58

That was my first

50:59

night of really getting to it was

51:01

tearing carpet off of stairs.

51:04

So that was kind of your days now, 10

51:06

hours of hard labor, five hours of

51:08

studying. Yeah, that's just it. Whole

51:11

existence, seven days a week. So it turns out to be 105

51:13

hours a week that you're working for free as

51:16

a 13 year old for the

51:21

church.

51:21

Were you able to talk to your mom at all

51:24

during this time?

51:26

One of the advantages of being a young

51:28

body was that I got to call

51:30

my mom a little bit more than everybody else. I

51:33

think it was like one or two times a week or something like

51:35

that. The first time

51:37

I went to go call my mom, the EPF

51:40

I see, so that's the Estates Project Force in

51:42

charge, the person who is in charge of just everybody

51:44

on the EPF, brought me down to

51:47

the phone booths that they have in the basement

51:49

of the Celebrity Center. And

51:51

he's like, okay, here, you can go call your mom. But

51:53

before you do, I want to let you know that

51:56

we record every call coming in and

51:58

out of here.

51:59

So anything.

51:59

Anything you say or

52:01

tell your mom, we're going to know. So

52:03

if you let her know anything that's

52:05

upsetting or anything that is going

52:07

on here that could potentially quote unquote

52:10

upset her, we're going to know and

52:12

that's going to be a big problem. So

52:15

don't tell her anything, basically.

52:17

And I remember that first call, I was

52:19

shaking actually, I was so terrified

52:21

that I would say something to her that

52:24

would trigger whoever was listening

52:26

to me to

52:27

get mad at me and then I would get in trouble.

52:29

I just remember using, I was really at tone,

52:32

I was really chipper, I was

52:34

just trying to sound great,

52:36

just using kind of like one word answers

52:39

because I was just terrified that I was going to get in

52:41

trouble for something I said to her. And so

52:43

every conversation after that

52:45

was very limited in what I could say to her because

52:48

I knew that they were listening. Can

52:50

you talk about the one day when you were

52:53

emptying the garbage?

52:56

I was

52:57

emptying the garbage, I was on the unit

53:00

that

53:00

worked on the grounds at CC, Celebrity Center

53:04

and I was emptying the garbage and

53:06

I had

53:08

been having so much turmoil the whole time

53:11

I was there. I was not having a good time. I really

53:13

missed home. I really had just

53:15

not

53:16

felt good. I did not feel good in my

53:18

body. I was not having a good time.

53:21

So in this particular morning,

53:23

I was emptying the garbage

53:25

and this like breeze had like

53:28

blown across the courtyard and

53:30

the smell that I smelled,

53:33

I don't know, in that moment I felt

53:37

good. I felt like in this moment I was like, okay, I'm

53:39

going to be okay. Things are going to be okay.

53:41

You can do this. You can become a Sea

53:43

Org member. You've got this. So

53:46

also part of that job was cleaning the

53:48

bathrooms. They had these

53:50

bathrooms outside on the grounds.

53:53

And so I was in

53:55

the bathroom cleaning. I was in the back

53:57

stall.

53:58

It was just me. And the bathroom.

53:59

weren't open so nobody should have

54:02

been in there. There was a sign on there saying that the bathrooms

54:04

weren't open. And I hear

54:06

the big heavy door, the

54:08

outside door open, and

54:10

then I hear somebody walk in and I hear the door

54:12

shut.

54:13

And immediately, just intuitively,

54:15

I

54:16

knew that something

54:18

was not right. So

54:20

I stop what I'm doing. I

54:22

go and I look around the stall

54:24

door and I see it's one of my

54:27

fellow EPFers. He is a giant man,

54:30

Lee 6'4", in his 40s. And I look at him

54:31

and I'm like, hey,

54:34

what's

54:37

up? And he's just looking at me really weird.

54:40

And he is slowly walking

54:42

back towards me. I've got

54:44

my back to the back of the bathroom.

54:47

He's like, Catherine, because I went by Catherine at the

54:49

time.

54:51

I'm in love with you and I want to have sex with you.

54:53

And

54:53

I was like, what? What? He's like, I'm

54:55

in love with you and I want to have sex with you.

54:58

And as he's saying this to me, he's coming

55:00

in closer and closer and closer. And I'm backing

55:03

back as far as I can and my back

55:05

hits the bathroom wall. And

55:08

as his big arms come in to grab me,

55:11

I thank God, I'm

55:13

so grateful. I was able to duck down

55:15

underneath his arm and then run past him

55:17

and run out of the bathroom

55:19

to get away from him.

55:21

So in Scientology and

55:23

in the Sea Org specifically, you're not allowed to have

55:26

sex before you're married.

55:27

And also, if

55:29

you get caught,

55:31

even like if somebody even perceives that you're

55:33

like into somebody or you like somebody, you

55:35

can get into big trouble.

55:38

So I was

55:40

super worried that

55:42

I was going to get in trouble for him

55:45

coming on to me. So as

55:47

I'm running, I run to the lobby

55:49

of Celebrity Center and they had

55:51

a paging system to get a hold of the EPF

55:54

IC. So I'm

55:56

shaking and telling the receptionist, like, please, please,

55:58

it's an emergency, please.

55:59

page, the EPFIC. She's like, okay, okay,

56:02

I am. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. I didn't

56:04

know what to do. So you're

56:06

supposed to be running everywhere and you were supposed

56:08

to be working. There is no downtime.

56:11

And idleness is seen as one

56:13

of the worst things you could do. You're going to

56:15

get yelled at. You're going to get in trouble, belittled. And

56:17

here I am in this lobby sitting

56:20

down. I'm also amongst the public Scientologists,

56:22

which they're not supposed to see you

56:25

sitting. And I'm just trembling, just

56:27

waiting for the EPFIC. And I'm worried

56:29

that I'm going to get in trouble because I'm not working.

56:31

And I'm worried that I'm going to be in trouble that I

56:34

pulled in this guy's sexual

56:36

advances and that I'm going to get in trouble for it. And that

56:38

if I don't tell that I will also

56:40

get in trouble for it. Finally,

56:43

after 15 or 20 minutes, he shows up and

56:45

he comes in and he's like not happy with me. He looks

56:48

so fucking annoyed that I interrupted

56:49

whatever the fuck he was doing. He's like,

56:53

what? What's wrong? And so I told

56:55

him exactly what had happened. He's like, oh,

56:58

that's it.

56:59

Okay, well, I'll handle it. Go back to work.

57:02

And I was like, uh,

57:03

okay.

57:06

So he,

57:07

he did nothing. And I had to go back to work with

57:10

the guy.

57:11

They did switch him into another

57:13

unit. So he was not in the same

57:15

unit as me, but we were still both on the EPF

57:18

together. And I avoided him like the plague.

57:20

He scared the crap out of me.

57:22

Like I was not interested in having

57:24

another encounter with him again.

57:26

I

57:29

was really stressed out

57:30

and I had a lot

57:32

of

57:33

troubles eating. So my anxiety was just

57:36

through the roof all the time. So much

57:38

pressure. And so I was having a really hard time eating

57:40

and I couldn't

57:42

keep my weight up. And again, I was really

57:44

stressed out. And so I actually stopped getting my

57:47

period almost right off the bat. Like

57:49

I was just very unhealthy and very

57:51

much struggling.

57:52

There was a fellow EPF or who, who noticed

57:54

that I was not eating and had talked to

57:57

me about it. And he's like, well, if you don't start eating,

57:59

then I'm going to have to write a knowledge report on you,

58:01

which is they have a reporting system. So

58:03

everybody you work with

58:05

is watching what you're doing. And if you

58:07

do anything that is not what

58:09

you're supposed to be doing, they have to report you

58:12

to ethics. And if they don't report

58:14

you, then they will get in trouble

58:16

along with you because they knew about you doing

58:18

something that wasn't right and they didn't

58:21

do anything about it. So that is

58:23

also a whole new level of stress

58:25

because anything I did that

58:28

if it wasn't per day

58:30

would be reported.

58:31

And there was eyes and ears everywhere

58:34

looking to report you if you

58:36

were

58:36

doing something wrong. So

58:39

I was having such a hard time eating this

58:41

one guy. He's like, okay, well, I'm going to write a knowledge report

58:44

on you. And I was like, okay, you know, actually, I'd appreciate

58:46

that because I need some help. I

58:48

would really love some help. You know, I'm

58:50

really having a hard time.

58:52

So he writes a knowledge report on me. I

58:54

believe it was the next day I get called back by

58:56

the ethics officer.

58:58

He has me sit down in this chair and he

59:00

sits on the desk in front of me and

59:03

he goes, so you're not eating?

59:05

I was like, no, I'm having it.

59:07

And then he cuts me off and he goes,

59:09

well, let me just tell you that if you're not going

59:11

to eat, then we're going to have to have somebody sit with you

59:13

and they're going to have to force feed you like a baby. Is

59:15

that what you want? I was

59:17

like, no,

59:18

no, I guess I don't want that. He's

59:20

like, good. Well, if you don't eat, then that's

59:23

what's going to happen. And so then

59:25

he sent me on my merry way. He didn't help

59:27

me.

59:28

I still couldn't eat. I was still struggling.

59:30

But then there was this extra level

59:32

of fear that if I was perceived to not

59:34

be getting better that someone

59:37

else would write a knowledge report on me and then I would have somebody

59:40

follow me around and make him eat like a baby. The

59:43

stress was just

59:45

like I can feel it as I'm talking about it now.

59:48

It was just so much

59:50

stress and so much pressure

59:52

to perform. And

59:55

again, I was just a child. So

59:57

it took me seven months.

1:00:00

to complete the EPF.

1:00:02

Supposedly it's supposed to take you about two

1:00:04

weeks, but I was such a brand new

1:00:06

Scientologist when I joined the Sea

1:00:08

Org. Elmer and Hubbard made up a whole

1:00:11

language for Scientology.

1:00:13

So they have hundreds of hundreds of

1:00:15

words that I had to learn that I had never learned

1:00:17

before. I'm already just

1:00:19

a 13 year old with a 13 year old education,

1:00:22

doing these courses made by a

1:00:25

well-established science fiction author who

1:00:27

has a wide vocabulary, much

1:00:29

bigger than mine,

1:00:31

plus

1:00:32

made up all these Scientology words. So

1:00:35

it took me a very long time to

1:00:38

learn all the words and

1:00:40

get through these courses. So something that should

1:00:42

have taken me two weeks took me seven months

1:00:45

to complete,

1:00:46

but I did finally complete the

1:00:49

courses and I did graduate from

1:00:51

the EPF and become a Sea Org member. That

1:00:54

must've been a really happy day for you.

1:00:57

It was, but it was also

1:00:59

like, so you worked so

1:01:01

hard to get to this point. And

1:01:04

it

1:01:05

basically, I just

1:01:07

finished a course and then they're like, okay,

1:01:09

Kat graduated. And then it was

1:01:11

off to

1:01:12

the next thing. So there was no like celebration

1:01:15

or anything like that. It

1:01:17

was just like, now you're a Sea Org member, so now we have to get

1:01:20

you doing that.

1:01:21

I wish it had been a little bit more fun.

1:01:24

How does your life change now that you've

1:01:26

become a Sea Org member? Now

1:01:29

I don't have to do manual labor all the time. So

1:01:32

the jobs in the Sea Org are called posts.

1:01:36

And so I was not put on a post,

1:01:38

I was an expediter. The

1:01:41

division that I was in, that I was under, I

1:01:44

would just run around and do whatever

1:01:46

they needed me to do, any extra expediting

1:01:49

jobs that they needed me to do.

1:01:51

I did that for two months.

1:01:53

And during this whole time that I'm

1:01:55

there,

1:01:57

I'm still not having a good

1:01:59

time.

1:01:59

I'm still really missing my mom, really

1:02:02

missing home, and

1:02:04

really caving

1:02:06

under the pressure that it

1:02:09

is to be a Sea Org member and a Scientologist.

1:02:12

And so my mind starts going to, like,

1:02:14

I want to go home. I don't want to do this anymore.

1:02:17

The lady who was my in charge while I was

1:02:19

an expediter, I

1:02:21

was starting to express to her that

1:02:23

I was not

1:02:24

enjoying this, that I wanted to go

1:02:26

home, that I really missed my mom. The big

1:02:28

thing is I really missed my mom, and

1:02:31

I really badly wanted to get home to her.

1:02:34

She was very nice. Like, she was just really receptive

1:02:36

to me. She was new to

1:02:38

the Sea Org, and I think she herself

1:02:40

was trying to escape a bad situation. And

1:02:43

so she joined an even worse one, I guess.

1:02:46

So the day I told her, you know, I really don't

1:02:48

want to do this anymore.

1:02:49

I want to go home. She

1:02:53

said, yeah, I think that's a good idea. I think you should

1:02:55

go.

1:02:56

And I'm so grateful for her. Like, I'm

1:02:59

so grateful that she didn't give any pushback,

1:03:01

because I probably would have stayed. I

1:03:03

would have,

1:03:05

I would have stayed

1:03:06

if she had put any effort into

1:03:08

trying to keep me there. And so I'm super

1:03:10

grateful that she was like, yeah, you should

1:03:12

probably go home.

1:03:15

I had to go through the,

1:03:17

the routing out check sheet. And

1:03:19

they actually have something that you do. It's called

1:03:21

a security check,

1:03:23

or a SEC check.

1:03:25

It's an interrogation,

1:03:27

and they ask you all these probing questions, and

1:03:29

they are trying to get dirt on you just in case

1:03:32

you speak out later about Scientology.

1:03:34

Then they have blackmail on you.

1:03:37

So as a 14 year old kid,

1:03:39

like,

1:03:40

there was barely anything I had done in my life. I hadn't experienced

1:03:42

much of anything. So they started

1:03:44

asking questions like, you know, have you ever kissed

1:03:46

somebody? At

1:03:47

that point, I hadn't.

1:03:49

Have you ever drank?

1:03:51

Which I had at that point.

1:03:53

It's all these questions. And then they started

1:03:55

to get more and more invasive. They started asking

1:03:58

me like if I had ever fucked a dog.

1:04:00

if I was going back to my room and

1:04:02

pleasuring my roommates with dildos

1:04:05

and just all these like

1:04:07

sexual questions and I was so

1:04:09

uncomfortable. It was like

1:04:12

very upsetting. It

1:04:13

was just another way of like I felt super

1:04:15

controlled, super dirty. And

1:04:17

again, I was just this young kid and I'd never done

1:04:19

any of these things and I'm stuck in another room

1:04:21

with somebody else just hounding

1:04:24

me with all these questions.

1:04:26

Eventually I did get through it. I

1:04:28

have not fucked a dog. I just want everybody to know that.

1:04:31

Then I was able to go home after I finished that, the

1:04:33

security check.

1:04:35

What was the reception like from

1:04:38

your mom when you got home? She

1:04:41

was pretty indifferent,

1:04:43

maybe even a little

1:04:45

upset that I came home.

1:04:48

I

1:04:48

think she felt like she didn't have any choice but

1:04:50

to take me back.

1:04:52

But she was definitely, I was

1:04:54

just a problem for her. So

1:04:56

I think it was just another kid coming back into her life

1:04:59

that she didn't want and she was not very happy

1:05:01

about that.

1:05:02

So at this point she had found

1:05:05

herself another boyfriend and he was

1:05:07

actually really anti-scientific.

1:05:10

And so at that point she

1:05:12

was actually thinking

1:05:14

that she wasn't going to be in Scientology anymore,

1:05:16

that it was not a good organization.

1:05:18

And

1:05:19

it's so like my mom

1:05:22

to give me up to

1:05:25

Scientology and then

1:05:27

at

1:05:27

some point in that nine months I was there,

1:05:30

she realized that she didn't want to be a Scientologist

1:05:33

anymore but she didn't come back for me.

1:05:35

She didn't try to get me out.

1:05:37

She didn't do any of that. She just let me

1:05:39

stay. And so I think it was a problem that

1:05:41

I came back and I was talking about Scientology

1:05:43

and I was talking about it with her

1:05:45

boyfriend

1:05:46

and she did not like that.

1:05:49

And you had missed school. Did

1:05:52

you just pick up where you left off or did you skip

1:05:54

a year or how did that work? I

1:05:56

came back and they let me. I didn't complete

1:05:59

eighth grade.

1:05:59

but they moved me on to ninth grade.

1:06:02

And so I just kinda went back into

1:06:05

life as

1:06:06

I had known it before, but everything

1:06:08

was different. It was, I was different.

1:06:11

And it was really, really difficult to

1:06:13

go back from what I had just

1:06:15

been a part of and then join my peers

1:06:18

who,

1:06:18

you know, they had

1:06:20

just been dealing with regular adolescent stuff,

1:06:23

you know, and I had just spent last nine months

1:06:26

going through what I had. And so it was really difficult

1:06:28

to integrate back into that.

1:06:30

And I was told, you know, by the church

1:06:32

that I can't talk about it. I can't

1:06:35

tell anybody about what happened, you know, because,

1:06:37

you

1:06:38

know, it was gonna be trouble for me, which, I

1:06:40

mean, they couldn't have done anything really, but

1:06:43

I didn't know that. Like I had just been so

1:06:45

heavily

1:06:46

brainwashed by them that

1:06:48

I was scared, I was very scared.

1:06:50

I was scared for a number of years to say

1:06:52

anything negative about the church.

1:06:54

Hopefully they don't hear this podcast. Oh,

1:06:57

I want them to hear it. I want them

1:07:00

to hear it. You're not worried anymore, huh?

1:07:02

I'm not, no, I'm not at all worried.

1:07:04

I want them to hear it.

1:07:06

So at that time you were

1:07:08

experiencing depression, anxiety. Were you ever

1:07:10

suicidal? Yes, yes

1:07:13

I was. Yes, I definitely came down

1:07:16

with anxiety, depression,

1:07:17

and I had no words for it because

1:07:20

in Scientology,

1:07:21

anxiety and depression don't exist. They're

1:07:24

very against that kind of stuff about, they're

1:07:26

against psychiatry and psychology. They believe that

1:07:29

that is the root of all evil. And

1:07:31

so Elmer and Hubbard said that, you know,

1:07:33

anything to do with psychology and psychiatry is

1:07:36

basically evil. So I had these

1:07:39

PTSD,

1:07:40

big feelings of depression, anxiety, and

1:07:42

a very strong desire to die. I

1:07:45

definitely wanted to not

1:07:47

be around anymore.

1:07:49

And then I would like creep into my mind, like, is this what they're

1:07:51

talking about? That they said that, you know, I would

1:07:53

want to die. If I left, you know, the Sjorg,

1:07:56

that I would be a nobody and I'd want to die.

1:07:59

talk to my mom about it. So eventually

1:08:01

my mom did

1:08:03

leave that boyfriend and

1:08:05

immediately fell right back into Scientology. And

1:08:08

so she was of the mind

1:08:11

that anxiety and depression didn't exist. And

1:08:13

so I couldn't talk to her about it.

1:08:15

And so I would just be stuck in these moments of

1:08:17

just

1:08:19

losing the will to live and then having

1:08:21

to fight myself to not do anything about

1:08:23

it. Yeah. And I just

1:08:25

couldn't talk to my mom about it. And she would get mad at me. So

1:08:27

I would start showing like I would like be

1:08:29

sleeping in longer. I would stay in my bedroom

1:08:32

with the lights out and she would come in and turn

1:08:34

the lights on and be like, you're just sad because you're

1:08:37

listening to sad music and you

1:08:39

need to get up and do something. And just, you

1:08:41

know, it was just really upset with me a lot of the time. So

1:08:43

I just had no place to go with it.

1:08:46

And eventually you guys moved back

1:08:49

to the United States, just not

1:08:51

to LA. Yeah. When I was 15

1:08:54

years old, we moved to Colorado,

1:08:56

to Denver, where I am today. And so

1:08:58

that's when she got

1:08:59

super back into Scientology because there

1:09:02

is an org here in Denver.

1:09:04

And so she immediately hooked

1:09:06

up with the org here and started

1:09:09

working for them actually. But you

1:09:11

did not get back into Scientology. I

1:09:14

didn't. So

1:09:15

they have something called a freeloaders debt.

1:09:18

So if you are in the C-org or you're

1:09:20

on staff and you ever leave before

1:09:22

your contract's up,

1:09:24

any course that I did, I did

1:09:26

the five required courses plus an additional

1:09:29

course, they charged me

1:09:31

full price for those. So it

1:09:34

was like $15,000 or something that I owed them. So

1:09:37

I could not get back on lines or do any

1:09:39

Scientology while I still

1:09:41

had that freeloaders debt.

1:09:42

Looking back now, I'm so grateful I had it because

1:09:45

I mean, I did not do any Scientology

1:09:48

after that.

1:09:49

Eventually you recovered,

1:09:51

so to speak. What was it that enabled

1:09:54

you to do that?

1:09:55

To finally kind of get your life on track.

1:10:00

process for sure. A big

1:10:02

thing that

1:10:03

really helped me, so I got married and

1:10:05

pregnant when I was 21

1:10:07

and so that in and of

1:10:09

itself was just a big change. You

1:10:11

know I had this baby boy that

1:10:14

like I knew I was struggling

1:10:16

so hard. I was drinking

1:10:18

a lot,

1:10:19

I was suicidal,

1:10:21

I was

1:10:23

doing drugs, I was doing anything I could to

1:10:25

try to make myself feel better. Just running

1:10:27

headfirst into that abyss and

1:10:30

when I became pregnant

1:10:32

I knew that I had to change because

1:10:34

I did not want to do this to my kid.

1:10:36

Every part of me wanted to save him

1:10:39

from the pain that I was feeling

1:10:41

and so I knew I had to start

1:10:43

working on myself. Now it took a

1:10:45

while. It definitely did. I got

1:10:47

into counseling around the age of 26, my

1:10:50

first round with that and that's actually when I was diagnosed

1:10:53

with PTSD,

1:10:55

anxiety, and depression and I was

1:10:57

so scared to get help. I was so

1:10:59

scared because of all the things that Scientology

1:11:02

says about psychiatry and

1:11:04

psychology.

1:11:05

They say that if you walk into

1:11:07

a counseling session that they're gonna

1:11:09

lobotomize you and do electroshock

1:11:12

like right away and so I was

1:11:14

so scared of that but I also knew

1:11:16

that I

1:11:17

had to get help.

1:11:19

I needed to do something. I also

1:11:21

knew at that point it was like learning a lot

1:11:23

about Scientology. Education was actually a big

1:11:25

thing so hearing other people's

1:11:27

stories and

1:11:29

reading books and realizing

1:11:31

that L. Ron Hubbard was just so full of shit

1:11:34

and that he was a con man and that he and

1:11:37

Scientology just leaves destruction

1:11:40

everywhere that they go. That

1:11:42

really helped and so that made

1:11:44

me brave enough to be like okay so if

1:11:47

all that stuff isn't true then

1:11:49

maybe it's not true about psychology.

1:11:52

So I was finally able to start

1:11:54

digging into that and that really

1:11:56

helped actually. That was the first

1:11:58

time I'd ever talked about.

1:11:59

my experience in Scientology

1:12:02

and

1:12:03

experience with my dad and all

1:12:06

the stuff that happened in between. Things were not good at

1:12:08

home

1:12:09

when I got back with my mom. Just

1:12:12

slowly starting to delve into that.

1:12:15

What about medication? Does

1:12:17

Scientology allow that at

1:12:20

all? God, no.

1:12:21

No. No. So,

1:12:23

also another thing that was taught was that psychiatric

1:12:26

drugs will cause you to be homicidal

1:12:29

or suicidal. And that all

1:12:31

mass shooters have been on antidepressants

1:12:34

and anybody who's killed themselves has antidepressants

1:12:36

in their system. And so, I was

1:12:39

terrified of that.

1:12:40

But I knew that without them,

1:12:43

I might

1:12:44

do something to myself if I

1:12:47

don't do something different. And so,

1:12:49

I ended up actually taking an

1:12:51

antidepressant and it really helped. It

1:12:53

actually, it

1:12:54

helped with the suicidal thoughts. They started to

1:12:56

subside.

1:12:57

Yeah, it does help when prescribed by a

1:13:01

medical professional. And it's

1:13:03

amazing to me that childhood

1:13:06

indoctrination is so effective.

1:13:08

But in this case, they only had you for

1:13:10

less than a year.

1:13:12

And yet, they had you believing

1:13:14

these things and scared

1:13:17

to go against them. Yeah.

1:13:20

And then I also had my mother reinforcing all

1:13:22

that rhetoric in our house. True. Yeah.

1:13:24

She was believing it. Did you ever talk

1:13:26

to your mom and tell her what happened

1:13:29

to you while you were there? I tried

1:13:31

to a couple of times. When

1:13:33

I got back initially,

1:13:36

she didn't want to hear it. She

1:13:38

just was not interested in what I had to say.

1:13:41

She was not interested in being a mom anymore. She

1:13:44

was very resentful of us kids, very

1:13:46

vocal about it. She was just

1:13:48

definitely

1:13:50

just mad at us all the time. And she

1:13:52

was never around.

1:13:53

She would go out drinking.

1:13:55

She would work Melaleuca, which

1:13:57

is a

1:13:58

multi-level,

1:13:59

marketing scheme. And so she

1:14:02

would work that during the day, and then

1:14:04

her boyfriend would come over at night or

1:14:06

she would go out.

1:14:07

So like I

1:14:08

rarely ever saw her.

1:14:10

So I wasn't able to tell her. As

1:14:13

I got older, and

1:14:15

as just more things were creeping up

1:14:17

and more memories were coming back up, I

1:14:19

was getting to a point

1:14:22

where I was starting to be more vocal with her. And

1:14:24

so I was actually

1:14:24

well into my 20s at this point.

1:14:27

I remember she she was over and

1:14:29

I

1:14:30

told her I asked

1:14:31

her like, how

1:14:32

does Scientology get away with breaking

1:14:35

child labor laws? Like I was 13. How did

1:14:37

they how did they do that?

1:14:39

They didn't even pay me like how did they do that?

1:14:41

Her response to me was,

1:14:44

well, some would say

1:14:47

that

1:14:47

getting your room and board paid for

1:14:49

is

1:14:49

payment enough.

1:14:51

So the fact that they

1:14:53

fed me and

1:14:56

gave me a bed

1:14:58

was payment enough for everything

1:15:00

that I went through. And at that point, I was just like,

1:15:03

she's not

1:15:03

gonna fucking listen to me. There's no point

1:15:05

in trying to talk to her about this. And then

1:15:07

there was actually one time prior to that, too,

1:15:09

where

1:15:11

we were actually drinking together. And

1:15:13

I was feeling a little bold. And I told

1:15:15

her about the guy in the bathroom. I was

1:15:18

just telling her because I wanted her to know like just wanted

1:15:20

her to be, you know, there was something

1:15:22

that, you know, had happened to me that was traumatic.

1:15:25

And she just stops what she's doing. And she's like, well,

1:15:28

once a priest kissed me,

1:15:30

like, and

1:15:32

then that was it, like, and

1:15:34

it was because I was a Christian at that time. So

1:15:37

I was saying something bad about her religion. And

1:15:39

so she was going to say something bad about

1:15:41

my religion. She didn't care about

1:15:43

what had happened to me.

1:15:45

She just had to

1:15:47

one up me with her experience because my

1:15:49

religion also did bad things.

1:15:51

Did any of your siblings ever

1:15:54

get into Scientology? Did she try to

1:15:56

recruit them at all? Each of

1:15:58

my siblings has

1:15:59

some experience to varying

1:16:02

degrees in Scientology.

1:16:04

Most of them just did some courses

1:16:06

and didn't like it.

1:16:09

The thing that soured

1:16:10

almost all of my siblings on Scientology,

1:16:12

actually all of them, is what Scientology

1:16:15

did to my mother and what it did to our family.

1:16:18

It took all of our money. By the time we

1:16:21

moved to the States when I was 15, all the

1:16:23

money that she got from my dad was gone. She

1:16:25

donated

1:16:26

so much of it to them.

1:16:28

And then she was never good at making money

1:16:30

herself. So I had to work two jobs

1:16:32

through high school

1:16:33

to help support her and

1:16:36

the family. And my brothers had to do that. And

1:16:38

all while

1:16:40

we were doing this, she was still working for

1:16:42

the Ork here in Denver, making $50 a week. So

1:16:45

she still did 40 hours, basically

1:16:48

for free for the church here.

1:16:51

When's the last time you spoke with your mom? About

1:16:54

seven years ago, as I

1:16:56

was,

1:16:57

seven years ago, I knew that I had to

1:16:59

start talking about what happened

1:17:02

to me in Scientology.

1:17:05

I knew that this is an evil organization.

1:17:07

They traffic children.

1:17:10

They

1:17:11

ring widows for all their worth, all their

1:17:13

money. They do bad things.

1:17:16

And I had this festering wound

1:17:18

inside of me that I needed

1:17:20

to start

1:17:21

opening. So I knew I had to

1:17:24

start talking about my experience in Scientology.

1:17:26

And I knew that that would cost my relationship with my

1:17:28

mom. Another way Scientology

1:17:30

controls you is that if you are connected to

1:17:33

anybody who speaks negatively at all

1:17:35

in any way about the church, you have to disconnect

1:17:37

from them. You have to stop talking to them. So

1:17:39

I knew that that was gonna happen.

1:17:41

But I knew that I had to make a choice.

1:17:44

I had to tell my story and what happened.

1:17:47

I actually wrote a letter after lots

1:17:49

of consideration.

1:17:51

And I told her that I

1:17:52

needed a break from her and that

1:17:55

basically everybody who, people

1:17:57

who have had

1:17:58

hard childhoods.

1:18:00

get to they need time away from their moms and

1:18:02

their parents their abuser basically and I

1:18:04

told her that we couldn't talk anymore and

1:18:07

so she

1:18:08

She had wrote me a letter back

1:18:10

and she said that you know She understood

1:18:12

and that's what she wants for me and I was

1:18:14

like, okay cool and Then

1:18:16

a week later. She was actually in

1:18:18

Clearwater at the time doing Scientology

1:18:21

training when I sent her that letter

1:18:24

and so she

1:18:25

Started texting me saying like we have to fix this we

1:18:27

have to do something about this I need to call you and

1:18:30

so I just told her no

1:18:32

We can't fix this

1:18:34

This is it. We can't do it And then

1:18:36

I told her that I've been seeing a counselor

1:18:38

and that site Psychiatry and psychology

1:18:41

is way better than Scientology Ever

1:18:43

was and

1:18:44

I sent that and then I blocked her number and

1:18:46

I haven't spoken to her since

1:18:49

That is so sad

1:18:51

Yeah, but you and your mom

1:18:54

Live in the same town now. Yeah,

1:18:57

what if you happen to run into her? How

1:18:59

would you picture that playing out?

1:19:02

I have pictured that playing out many

1:19:04

times. I

1:19:06

First of all think she would look at me and run. I

1:19:08

don't think she talked to me I

1:19:09

think she would be the one who would run away

1:19:12

because she's not really allowed to talk to you exactly

1:19:15

Exactly, and I know that they know that I've been

1:19:17

telling my story

1:19:19

So she would not be allowed to talk to me So I think

1:19:21

that that would take care of that that she would run away for

1:19:23

me if I ever ran into her But

1:19:26

if that didn't happen, you know,

1:19:28

I don't know a part

1:19:30

of me wants to tell her off as I've

1:19:33

Gotten older and just more angry

1:19:35

about everything

1:19:37

part of me would really just want to yell at her I

1:19:39

don't think I would though. I think I would probably

1:19:41

just walk away to and

1:19:43

not engage her Because

1:19:45

it's it's gone. The relationship's gone.

1:19:47

It's

1:19:47

broken and it's not coming back

1:19:50

too much has happened Yeah, but

1:19:53

you have kids now I do. Yeah,

1:19:55

I've got two kids. She has grandkids.

1:19:58

Has she ever seen them? Yeah,

1:20:01

she's seen them when they were younger. I mean,

1:20:03

that's kind of pretty heartbreaking about the whole thing

1:20:05

is like

1:20:06

she was an okay grandma. So

1:20:08

obviously the relationship of my kids

1:20:11

with her has gone away.

1:20:14

In the last seven years when I haven't talked to her,

1:20:16

I did allow my brother to take

1:20:18

my kids to go see her from

1:20:20

time to time.

1:20:22

But actually,

1:20:24

my sister, she was in Scientology.

1:20:26

She was in the Siorga actually, but she was much

1:20:28

older.

1:20:31

My sister still talks to me, right? I

1:20:33

am a suppressive person in the

1:20:35

eyes of Scientology. So my mom

1:20:37

actually called up my sister one night

1:20:39

and told her that if she didn't

1:20:42

stop talking to me,

1:20:43

then my mom

1:20:45

was going to disconnect from her and never talk

1:20:47

to her again.

1:20:48

And so my sister said, well, I'm not going to stop

1:20:51

talking to Kat. I'm not going to do that.

1:20:53

And at this point, my mom knew I had actually written

1:20:55

out my Scientology experience and I posted

1:20:57

it to Facebook. So she had asked

1:21:00

my sister, like, have you read it? Did you read what

1:21:02

Kat said? And my sister was like, no, I didn't

1:21:05

want to be caught in the middle.

1:21:06

That's when my mom said, like, you have to disconnect from, you

1:21:08

have to stop talking to Kat or I have to disconnect from you.

1:21:11

My sister said,

1:21:12

well, everything that she said was true. What

1:21:15

she said was true. And then my mom laughed

1:21:18

and said, what does truth have to do with it?

1:21:20

She disconnected from my sister.

1:21:22

And so

1:21:24

in that, I realized how unsafe

1:21:26

a person my mom could be to my kids,

1:21:28

that if she's willing to disconnect from her own daughter

1:21:31

because of me, then

1:21:32

how could I let them keep having a relationship

1:21:35

with her? However mild

1:21:37

it was, it was really infrequent that she

1:21:39

saw them, but that she would

1:21:42

break their hearts if she, if the church

1:21:44

told her to, she would.

1:21:46

And so they no longer see her or

1:21:48

talk to her. It sounds like

1:21:50

you've made a whole lot of progress.

1:21:53

Yeah. Do you think Scientology

1:21:56

does any good for anyone

1:21:58

or is it just strictly? about the

1:22:00

money? I

1:22:03

think that any good Scientology

1:22:05

has ever done is far outweighed

1:22:07

by all the bad Scientology does. I

1:22:10

think it has little bits that

1:22:12

get you hooked

1:22:13

like the success I had with auditing when

1:22:15

I first went there for the panic attacks. They

1:22:18

really help people with communication and

1:22:21

I think that if anybody

1:22:22

learns to communicate better they're gonna do

1:22:25

better in life. It's just a really helpful skill to have.

1:22:27

Beyond that

1:22:29

their focus is money. Their focus

1:22:31

and anybody who's been and worked for them

1:22:33

will tell you it's

1:22:36

money. It's not about helping

1:22:38

people and

1:22:39

there are people in Scientology who really want to help

1:22:41

people. I want to definitely get that across but

1:22:43

any good that that church does is

1:22:45

far outweighed by

1:22:47

this destruction that it causes

1:22:49

in people's lives. You

1:22:53

heard Kat mention that on one of her trips

1:22:55

to the Celebrity Center in Los Angeles

1:22:58

she met Leah Remini who at the

1:23:00

time was also a Scientologist. Just

1:23:03

recently Leah Remini has filed

1:23:05

a lawsuit against the church. She

1:23:08

was a member for 17 years and

1:23:10

her lawsuit claims that she was the victim of harassment,

1:23:13

intimidation, surveillance and

1:23:16

defamation. If

1:23:18

you want to ask Kat something about her experience

1:23:21

her email address is in the episode notes

1:23:24

and she's also in our Facebook group

1:23:26

just like a lot of the other podcast guests. You

1:23:29

can join more than 5,000 other listeners there at whatwasthatlike.com

1:23:34

slash Facebook. You

1:23:36

can see pictures of Kat and you can get the full

1:23:39

transcript for this episode at whatwasthatlike.com

1:23:42

slash 148.

1:23:46

And we have a voicemail from Sally. Hi

1:23:49

Scott, this is Sally. I felt compelled

1:23:52

to reach out. First of all

1:23:54

I'm so glad I happened upon your podcast.

1:23:57

I listen at work, in the car and at

1:23:59

home too. I love it and

1:24:01

I love your voice. The compassion

1:24:03

and respect toward your guests can be heard.

1:24:06

I also want to say that when I listened

1:24:08

to the bonus episode that included the

1:24:10

Mannheim, Pennsylvania couple, the

1:24:13

Eberle's, victims of the senseless

1:24:15

road rage, I was reminded

1:24:17

of when this happened. But listening

1:24:19

to Mr. Eberle just tore my heart

1:24:22

out. I sobbed while listening

1:24:24

at work, just so heart-wrenching. Plus,

1:24:28

I live in Marietta, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes

1:24:31

from Mannheim. I go through there twice

1:24:33

a day to and from work. Thank

1:24:36

you, Scott, for my favorite podcast. I

1:24:38

appreciate you.

1:24:40

Thank you, Sally, and I appreciate you.

1:24:43

Sally's one of the supporters of the podcast, and the story

1:24:46

that she was talking about is an episode

1:24:48

of Raw Audio, where you hear actual 911

1:24:51

audio and stories that go with it. If

1:24:54

you'd like to join Sally and the other supporters,

1:24:57

you can try it out for free at whatwassatlike.com

1:25:00

support.

1:25:03

Graphics for this episode were created by Bob

1:25:06

Bretz. Full episode transcription

1:25:09

was created by James Lai. And

1:25:12

now we're about to hear this week's listener

1:25:15

story, which is how we end every

1:25:17

episode. If you have a story that you

1:25:19

can tell in like 5 to 10 minutes, record

1:25:22

it on your phone and email it to me at

1:25:24

scottatwhatwassatlike.com. And

1:25:27

as you listen to this story from Jeremy,

1:25:30

you might notice the audio quality and

1:25:32

think, wow, this guy should be a podcaster.

1:25:35

And he actually is. He hosts a podcast

1:25:38

called The Teeth, which is

1:25:40

about wild animal attacks.

1:25:42

You can check it out at theteethpod.com.

1:25:47

In this story, Jeremy tells us about the first

1:25:49

time he saw a bear in the wild.

1:25:54

Stay safe, and I'll see you in two

1:25:56

weeks.

1:25:59

Seeing a mule packer in

1:26:01

Yosemite National Park, one of

1:26:03

the most special places on earth. Spending

1:26:06

a lot of time visiting her outdoor office

1:26:08

over the summer, it's been an

1:26:11

absolutely amazing year. But

1:26:14

one thing that I'm a little disappointed

1:26:16

about is that it's October

1:26:19

and I haven't seen a bear yet. Someone

1:26:22

always sees one the day before I arrive

1:26:25

or the day after I leave. I

1:26:27

feel like I'm always just missing

1:26:29

them.

1:26:30

One evening in October around

1:26:32

sunset, someone in the distance

1:26:35

yells, get out of here. And

1:26:37

my girlfriend comes over to me all out of breath

1:26:39

and says, Jeremy, there is a bear

1:26:42

in the corral trying to eat the

1:26:44

grain for the mules.

1:26:46

I run over and

1:26:48

the other packers said that they

1:26:50

just scared it away and

1:26:52

pointed me in the direction that

1:26:54

it went. I stop running and

1:26:57

cautiously take a trail in

1:26:59

the direction of where they said the

1:27:01

bear went. Still light

1:27:04

enough to clearly see my surroundings

1:27:06

and there's a large field beside the trail

1:27:09

with a good vantage point. I

1:27:11

walk about an eighth of a mile with low

1:27:14

expectations. And

1:27:16

what do you know on the edge of the field

1:27:18

beside some trees is

1:27:21

a black bear. I'm so happy

1:27:23

and excited to finally see a bear in

1:27:25

Yosemite. Black bears are naturally

1:27:28

active during the day, but in areas with

1:27:30

a lot of human activity, they become nocturnal

1:27:33

or curpuscular, meaning they

1:27:35

are most active in the evenings and early mornings

1:27:38

in an attempt to avoid humans.

1:27:40

I'm on a trail a good two or 300

1:27:42

yards from the bear. She

1:27:45

is not reacting to me at all, which

1:27:47

is a good sign. While the animal

1:27:49

is reacting to my presence at all,

1:27:51

that means I need to get back and respect their space.

1:27:55

Could this moment get any better? Turns

1:27:57

out it could and does.

1:27:59

the bear has two cubs with her. The

1:28:02

cutest little boogers ever.

1:28:05

They're playing clumsily pretty close

1:28:07

to her as she scavenges a crab apple

1:28:09

tree. I'm speechless with

1:28:11

just a huge smile on my face.

1:28:14

A few hikers pass me and I don't

1:28:16

even point out the bears, they just keep moving

1:28:18

along the trail completely oblivious. How

1:28:21

many bears have I passed in my life without even

1:28:23

noticing them myself? After

1:28:26

about half an hour of observing

1:28:28

the bears from the trail, I noticed for

1:28:30

the first time the mother was looking at me.

1:28:33

More than looking at me, she was glaring

1:28:36

at me and not moving at all.

1:28:38

This was new. Even

1:28:40

though she was a few hundred yards away,

1:28:43

her body was squared off in my direction

1:28:46

and glaring.

1:28:48

It's interesting with animals, they

1:28:50

don't speak English, but they can

1:28:52

send a message crystal clear

1:28:55

when they need to. And this message

1:28:57

was that she wanted to kill me.

1:29:00

As I was asking myself, why

1:29:02

would she all of a sudden I heard

1:29:05

a branch break

1:29:06

behind me? I quickly looked

1:29:09

for the cubs. One of the cubs was right

1:29:11

next to the mother.

1:29:12

I didn't have to look behind me to know that

1:29:14

the second cub

1:29:16

was what made that branch break. And

1:29:19

I didn't want the mama to see me looking

1:29:21

at the cub, so I didn't even turn

1:29:23

around.

1:29:25

This was it. This is the thing

1:29:27

you're not supposed to do. It's literally in

1:29:29

the Bible. Don't get between a mother

1:29:31

bear and her cubs.

1:29:32

Ever or you will die. She

1:29:36

rears up onto her hind legs and

1:29:38

came down onto her front legs and grunted

1:29:41

as she hit the ground. I literally

1:29:44

felt the ground shake. Seriously like

1:29:46

an earthquake. The instant her front

1:29:49

paws hit the ground, I could

1:29:51

see the cub next to her scramble up

1:29:53

a tree. I could also hear the cub

1:29:55

behind me scrambling up a tree.

1:29:58

Things were getting real.

1:30:00

She was still holding that death stare

1:30:03

towards me, but was not running

1:30:05

towards me, which was good.

1:30:09

I started walking slowly

1:30:11

sideways in the direction that was going

1:30:14

away from the mother and the cub

1:30:16

in the tree behind me. I was kind of

1:30:18

walking sideways away from both of them.

1:30:21

It's bad to run or turn your

1:30:23

back on a predator. I kept facing the mother

1:30:26

and slowly picked up my speed

1:30:28

while walking kind of sideways backwards,

1:30:31

but in a way that was not trying

1:30:34

to look panicked.

1:30:36

But in my mind, I'm saying, please don't kill

1:30:38

me, Mama Bear. Please don't kill me, Mama

1:30:40

Bear. She didn't react to me

1:30:42

moving away, which I think is a

1:30:44

good thing.

1:30:45

I kept going, but never turned

1:30:48

my back to her. It was getting

1:30:50

darker now, and after a few hundred

1:30:52

yards, I told myself that if she hasn't started

1:30:54

chasing me, she probably won't.

1:30:58

Unless she was giving me a head start,

1:31:00

doesn't matter.

1:31:01

I just kept going and kept

1:31:03

breathing and kept facing her

1:31:06

direction until eventually I couldn't

1:31:09

really see her.

1:31:10

I got back to camp, but the

1:31:12

adrenaline pulsing through my body didn't

1:31:14

calm down for hours. After

1:31:17

never seeing a bearing Yosemite, I then

1:31:19

went on to see a dozen more the

1:31:21

next morning along that same trail

1:31:24

in the valley. Since this close

1:31:26

call, I've become fascinated

1:31:29

with bears and other wild predators

1:31:32

and started interviewing survivors of wild animal

1:31:34

attacks in an attempt to understand

1:31:36

and educate others on how

1:31:39

to peacefully coexist in

1:31:41

the wilderness.

1:31:42

My name is Jeremy Carberry, and it's an honor

1:31:44

to be a small part of the

1:31:46

What Was That Like podcast.

1:31:50

Thank you.

1:31:56

Ooh,

1:32:01

sorry, one more time. Dunkin'

1:32:04

Iced! Ooh, Kelly,

1:32:06

we're trying to record a timely summer-focused radio

1:32:09

spot for Dunkin' Iced. Can you stop

1:32:11

with the shaking? But like, this is the sound

1:32:13

a Dunkin' Ice makes. Maybe you

1:32:15

should keep it in? Well, yeah,

1:32:17

that's actually a pretty good idea. Try

1:32:20

all the Dunkin' Refreshers, iced coffees, cold

1:32:22

brews and lattes. Dunkin' Iced. America

1:32:24

runs on Dunkin'. Hey,

1:32:27

this is Scott.

1:32:28

Did you know we offer a premium

1:32:30

feed of this show that is completely

1:32:32

ad-free and there are bonus episodes?

1:32:36

Go to whatwasthatlike.com slash

1:32:38

plus or just click the link in the show

1:32:40

notes of any episode to learn more and

1:32:42

to sign up.

1:32:43

If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, you can

1:32:46

sign up right there in the app by clicking

1:32:48

try free at the top of the episode

1:32:50

list.

1:32:51

And I hope to see you in the premium

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feed

1:32:54

soon. This is a Glassbox

1:32:56

Media Podcast.