Beyond Belief (46 page)

The church also sent friends to convince me to cooperate, but I warned them to stay out of it; I didn’t want to ruin these friendships when my beef was with the Church, not them. After a few days of one person or another visiting me, I knew I could no longer cooperate. I just wanted out and Dallas was coming with me. And, so, I holed myself up in our room until they decided to give me my leaving security check.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
-O
NE

GONE

I
SPENT SEVERAL DAYS IN ISOLATION IN MY ROOM, WAITING FOR
someone in the Office of Special Affairs to give me the necessary materials and sessions to route out properly. Policy dictated that, before I could leave, I had to undergo the leaving staff security check. In order to do this, I had to first complete the auditing I’d been in the middle of when this whole mess started, but I physically and emotionally could not do any more auditing, and told Dallas as much. He hadn’t told Linda that he was leaving with me yet, as he was waiting for me to start my security check, and hoping to avoid the manual labor that was usually part of the leaving process. That way, he could stay in his post until the very end.

Dallas and I argued about my finishing my auditing for several days. He was frustrated that I was being so difficult. He couldn’t accept how done I was, no matter how hard I tried to explain it. He wanted more than anything for me to route out properly; otherwise, he would have to make the choice between me or the Church and his family. His family meant everything to him. The only way for him to be with me and still have them was if I weren’t an SP. The only way for me to avoid this was to complete my auditing, do my sec-check, and sign a few documents.

I could sense Dallas was growing more withdrawn, so I tried to give him space. It was a stressful time. He was coming home from work later and later, and was not as excited to see me as he had been.

“What’s wrong?” I’d ask.

“Nothing, just working,” he’d say, without much elaboration.

I knew something was going on; Dallas always wanted to talk to me, but he wasn’t responding to even the simplest questions. I called my parents who were certain that somebody in the church was talking to him. This had been my first thought as well. However, when I had asked him, he said no. Based on their own experience, when they had left the Church, their words felt right to me. The next time I saw Dallas, I asked point-blank who he had been talking to. He said nobody, and we left it at that, with unspoken questions. We both were being paranoid and suspicious, unsure of how to move forward. Never in our three-year marriage had we encountered a crossroads like this.

One morning, as he was leaving for work, Dallas told me he would be back at lunchtime to visit, but never showed up. Concerned, I pulled out my forbidden cell phone and called reception. No one there knew where he was, either. I began to panic, that they had him somewhere, all over again. I almost couldn’t stand the anxiety. Not knowing what else I could do to find him, I lay down and drifted off to sleep.

A few hours later, I was awakened by a knock on the door. I opened it to find Linda. I asked her where Dallas was. She said she didn’t know, but I could tell she was hiding something by her forced tone. She opened her briefcase and pulled out a small packet of legal-sized papers that were stapled together.

“Okay, so this is the checklist for leaving staff,” she said.

I squirmed at the sound of the words “leaving staff.” I knew I was at the end of my rope, but hearing the words out loud was another thing. Never in a million years did I think that
I
would ever be the one doing the “leaving staff” checklist. I tried to take comfort in the fact that I had attempted everything I could to make it work.

Linda showed me the various steps on the routing form. The first one, as I well knew, was that I was required to receive a staff security check. This gave me the chills all over again. According to LRH, the only reason people left staff was because they had done bad things that they were hiding from others. He believed that taking a confessional and admitting to their actions before they left would actually help them live with themselves, possibly even convince them to stay. This was why the confessional was a requirement to route out properly. If you refused the confessional, you would be declared a Suppressive Person.

Next, Linda explained that the next step on the checklist called for me to sign a bond. She explained that it was a document I would be required to sign, swearing that I would never speak out against the Church. If I ever violated this bond, I would have to pay $10,000 for each violation. She said if I didn’t sign it, I would be declared an SP. This pissed me off. LRH had never written a policy like this, and I told her as much. One of my main objections to the current management of the Sea Org was just this kind of thing, making up policy that did not originate from the gospel of LRH. Linda got aggravated and told me I was going to sign it.

I didn’t like her tone or her attitude. I told her I would do my confessional, which I had been waiting to receive for several weeks now, but I would not sign anything. She burst out yelling that I was unethical and being a Suppressive Person for refusing to sign the bond. She dropped the checklist and bond on the bed and directed me to read it myself.

“You mean this?” I said mockingly as I picked it up, shredded it into a hundred pieces, and told her to get out of my room. She was not used to people being insubordinate and shot me a look of disgust before she stormed out, all the while screaming that I was not going to get away with this. I slammed the door, flushed with anger and fear over what I had done, and what might happen as a result. I still hadn’t heard from Dallas, and I was getting worried.

Finally, at one-thirty in the morning he walked through the door, looking tired and not particularly happy to see me, which, at this hour, was a concern. To me, this could only mean he’d been in protracted meetings with Church people. I wasn’t in the mood to argue, but I did ask him if he was still going to leave with me.

“I don’t know,” he said.

If it weren’t for all of the awkward silences and mysterious disappearances, I would have been shocked. Still, I couldn’t believe that he was about to turn his back on me, let me go through all this by myself, and not even bother to tell me how he really felt until I pulled it out of him.

“I just don’t know,” he continued. “You aren’t really cooperating and getting through your confessional like you promised.”

When he said that, I knew for sure somebody had been feeding him lies. He knew I had been waiting obediently for them to come to me.

“You know just as well as I do that I have been sitting here for two weeks waiting for them to give me the confessional, and they haven’t.”

“Yes, but that’s only because you won’t agree to finish your auditing first,” he said.

“I don’t want any more auditing. I just want to get my confessional and get out of here!”

“Well, if you would just cooperate, then you could,” he said stubbornly.

“So, does this mean that you won’t leave with me unless I do the auditing?” I asked. I wasn’t prepared for what Dallas said next.

“Well, I don’t want to leave.”

“So, you are saying that you won’t leave with me no matter what?” I asked in total disbelief, trying to get to the heart of the matter.

Dallas looked ashamed. My worst fears were confirmed.

“Who have you been talking to?”

He looked like he had expected this question. “Nobody. I just don’t want to leave.”

“You are lying. Who have you been talking to?”

“Nobody, I swear.”

Looking at him now, I could tell that he was finished with me. He saw me just as Linda did: an uncooperative, rebellious SP.

We spent the next few hours arguing, with neither of us giving any ground. All I wanted was to leave and be done with it, and Dallas, for the life of him, couldn’t accept why I refused to cooperate. He kept saying that he “didn’t understand,” no matter how many times I explained. He was convinced that I cared less about him and his relationship with his family than I did about my own welfare. He said if I really cared about him, I would do what was being asked of me. I just couldn’t bear another auditing session and Church policy was to never audit someone who didn’t want to be audited. From my point of view, if he didn’t leave with me, then I had endured all this hell for nothing.

Finally, at four in the morning, our discussion came to an end. The decision had been made: I was going to leave, and he was going to stay. There was no other solution. We were both devastated and crying, but I knew that I would not be able to keep my sanity if I stayed in the Sea Org any longer. And I couldn’t argue anymore.

I spent the rest of the night packing my bags with his help. As we packed, we both were trying to figure out how we could possibly make this work. We’d said the words that I would leave without him, but neither of our hearts was in it. I wrote a letter to his parents, telling them I loved them and to take good care of Dallas. Dallas gave me a couple of his sweaters to remind me of him.

In the morning, I called my father, told him what we had decided, and asked if I could live with him and Mom in Virginia. He said he was sorry that things didn’t work out, but I could certainly live with them.

Dallas had to leave for work but promised he would be back to drive me to the airport. I felt sick, but determined to carry forward with my plan. I just couldn’t continue to live in a place that had to control my every thought and move. Around eight o’clock that night, Dallas returned home from work. He looked tired and out of it. When we hugged, I saw Linda standing in the door behind him.

“What the hell is she doing here?” I demanded.

Dallas made her wait by the door while he talked to me. He sat down on the bed and took my hands in his. “Okay, so they are going to let you leave without a confessional,” he said. I didn’t get why he had said they were “letting me,” since I was planning on leaving anyway, regardless of whether they were going to “allow” it.

He told me the Church had booked me a flight to Virginia for that very night. “Are you coming?” I asked hopefully, even though I knew the answer.

“No,” he said, looking down to avoid my gaze.

There was nothing else I could do. I had tried everything to convince him, but I simply couldn’t. It was my biggest failure of all. I burst into tears.

I reached for my luggage and asked him if he would at least take me to the airport. He promised me that he would.

“Are you ready?” Linda asked from the doorway. Words couldn’t express how much I hated her.

“Was Dallas with you today?” I asked. When Linda said no, and Dallas rolled his eyes, I was sure they had been together. I was furious and started shouting at her. I totally lost it when she tried to convince Dallas to stick me in a cab and not take me to the airport himself. I was his wife, for God’s sake. This was going to be the last time we would ever see each other. Yet she was so vindictive, she couldn’t even let us have that.

Dallas finally announced that he was taking me, despite Linda’s objections. She was forced to make a few phone calls, but finally permission was granted, on the condition that she accompanied us. I knew the Church didn’t want Dallas and me to be alone, lest I use my power of persuasion on him. The car ride was tense, with Dallas and I trying to savor our last hours together, and Linda invading our space by parking herself in the middle of the backseat and leaning forward to keep us from getting too close or saying too much. We arrived at LAX two hours before my departure. I checked my bags, and still had lots of time to be with Dallas to say goodbye. However, Linda was lurking not far away and crowding us, so I told her to back off. I warned her that if she didn’t, I would make a scene. Knowing that would be bad PR for the Church, she reluctantly walked away.

Dallas and I had been sitting together in the lounge for only twenty minutes when Linda walked up and told Dallas she needed to get back to work and to leave me there to wait for my flight. I felt Dallas’s body tense up. He was visibly frustrated with how little respect this woman was showing for the obvious emotional anguish we were both feeling. Yet somehow he managed to show restraint, a quality I had always admired in him. “Okay,” he told her, “just give us a few more minutes.” I just snapped and started screaming at her. Linda hurried off, probably to phone somebody else, but I didn’t care.

I stood there looking at Dallas, struggling to believe that I would never see him again. I’d wanted out for so long, and yet standing here listening to Linda disrespect us and our relationship, I knew, all at once, that there was no way I could get on that plane without him. I knew his heart wasn’t in this decision, just as mine wasn’t. I couldn’t leave Dallas with a group of people like this. The Church had an endless supply of Lindas and, when all the dust settled, their wrath toward him would likely be harsh and unforgiving. I refused to let that happen. I was leaving the Church and I was leaving with my husband.

I didn’t open my mouth about any of this—at least not yet. I told him I’d be right back and went to phone my father to tell him I wouldn’t be coming home just yet. Dad understood and said he would be there for me if I needed him.

When I got back to the bench, I told Dallas about my change of heart. “I can’t leave you,” I said. “I don’t want to be without you. I will stay and try to fix things.” I really had no intention of surrendering to the Church, but I wasn’t going to tell Dallas that. I just needed the time it would take to convince him to leave with me.

Dallas’s face lit up and he pulled me into an enormous hug. As he held me close, I could feel the tension in his body release. “I will do anything you need to help you get through this,” he said with pure enthusiasm. I smiled at him, relieved to see how quickly things had changed, even though I still didn’t exactly know what I was going to do.