another rough one. skip it and have a nice week.

I used to be married to a person who is a staff member in a prominent nut cult. This person was responsible for putting me and my infant daughter into a series of battered women's shelters.

Pointing up his true nature, and existing in defiance of his complete denial, (which I expected) there are police reports to substantiate the events which lead to my leaving him. There are photographs of injuries, including a nice series of the FINGERPRINTS AROUND MY NECK. A set exists in the files of Harborview Medical Center and also at each one of the shelters I stayed at. (Not that I went back to his abusive shit after he tried to kill me, but because he stalked me to the first shelter, so they had to shuttle me around the city to keep me hidden. Yeah.) There are reports, photographs and signed affadavits on file with the police department, the Seattle Domestic Violence Project, and the state Welfare Department as well.

This guy is near to being an embodiment of the clinical standard for antisocial psychosis; one on the order of Ted Bundy, folks...handsome, well spoken, all the trappings, and absolutely without any sense of conscience or wrongdoing whatsoever. (And fortunately, not as bright or as brave as Ted Bundy, either, or I'd be in some big shit.)

Despite his assertions to the contrary, he is not only a staff member but an executive in this bullshit organization.
He shouldn't be. Their internal policy states that by all rights he should be barred from holding a staff position. But he does.
Know why?
Because he is an earner.

Never let anyone tell you any differently about S**********...it's all about the money with them. The set of standards they profess is infinitely elastic where the possibility of profit is concerned, and if there is one thing my ex is good at, it's raking in the dough. The fact that he is owned body and soul by them matters not one whit to him because he is psychologically unable to comprehend that anyway. Me, I get a great deal of satisfaction out of knowing damn well that he is merrily embezzling a cut of whatever $$ pass his way, because thats what he's done in every single job he's ever held. Considering the organization, I ain't saying a word. Rock on. My blessings. You all deserve one another. They were idiot enough to let him loose in their computer programs.
Karma's a bitch. So am I.

I was involved at one time too, yes. I won't detail that involvement closely, because a member searching deeply into this issue with a memory of me could easily put the facts together and figure out my identity and whereabouts, and then Church harrassment would begin again. I know for a fact that people who had contact with me back then are still being harrassed all these years later. (Not seriously, but any is too much.) The reason why? I not only left a staff member, I won a lawsuit against a staff member.

Now let me detail exactly what harrassment means. It means phonecalls at all hours of the day and night. Hangups. Breathers. Spurious phone sales and surveys.
It means a constant barrage of crap mailings that amount to, at times, GARBAGE SACKS FULL of promotional propoganda, letters, etc. every month. I know this because I saw it done when I was there. I did it. I had it happen to me. And that's the level some people are still experiencing because of me.

Now thank God, this isn't happening, but it also means following members suspected of anti-curch activities, getting jobs in their organizations, tapping their phones, ABDUCTING THEIR CHILDREN, surveilling their homes, opening their mail...and anything else you can imagine. Oh yes.
I know this because I saw it done when I was there. I did it. At least the undercover secret mole working thing.
Yup.
In my defense I did not know I was being used as a lil' spy at the time; I thought they had gotten me a nice outside job and only twigged when I was hauled into the E***** Office and asked to write a full report on the activities there. Which I did NOT, I might add.

This shit is their policy. It is their published and stated policy. I have read this policy. It amounts to, in the plainest of language, 'Open Season on our enemies'. As someone who has left the organization AND won a lawsuit against a staff member, I fit that definition. They do not care. They make the lower level flunkies do the dirty work, then sell them out to the law if they get busted and continue on their merry way. And guess who was one of their favorite flunkies? My ex.

Sound ridulous? It is. It is also true. Every damn word.

I have been to the anti-you-know-who sites. The one hosted by Finland (yay Finland!) is particularly good, and every damn word is accurate and true. The type of extreme measures they went to in order to recruit Cruise and others is detailed. They describe the types of bizzarre disciplinary practices which went on behind the scenes. Those accounts are true, and if you read nothing else, read them. I know they're true. I read reports issued when they occurred. I spoke with ( uniform-wearing members of the interior police force) who BRAGGED about having taken part.

Own nothing, you are nothing, to them. That's why I wasn't pursued with the same vigor that others have been. That, and I got the fuck out and left very few traces. I took precautions. I got legal help. For years I hid. I had my name on nothing. I had a fake address and identity. I bought a gun. I got a 'Permit to Carry Concealed' and I did, every time I stepped out of the house. For years. Would I have used it? WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT. If I know anything about myself, it's that I can and would kill other human being to protect my daughter, or any of my family. I did not particularly want to know that about myself, but there you have it.

Another reason I have left out a lot of details is because they are disgusting and because my daughter reads this sometime. There simply is shit I have decided will die with me. And after all, isn't this dramatic and retarded enough? Really? Pathetic, disgusting, evidence of poor judgement and even poorer self esteem on my part? Yes, it is.

I am writing about this because it still bothers me and I need to quantify it out of existance, to completely exterminate any power it still has to make me feel enslaved, ashamed and frightened. Too fucking bad if you don't like it, if it makes you cringe and think 'oh god, what a loser'. I am in complete agreement with you, as it so happens. I was a loser.
I am not anymore.
Nonetheless, these things occurred. They're part of the story of my life. So fuck you.
Not you, you. I mean the other yous.

And also because I refuse to be silenced, goddammit. I'm smart, and this shit still happened to me. Be ignorant, and it might happen to you too. You'd be surprised.
Anyway there it is.


with thanks to mj. i refuse to go through the rest of my life paranoid about meeting someone for lunch, goddammit!!!