[Today’s guest post is by Sunny Pereira.]
“Yes ma’am, your application looks good and we are just about ready to approve it,” the man said over the phone. “We are just trying to understand why, at your age of 32, we are not seeing any type of credit history on your name and social security number. We just need to fill in the blanks, you understand.”
I knew I had to build my credit. I knew it was important, really important, in the many years to come. I was trying to get my first credit card, which was a secured one. I thought I could just give them $1,000 and build my credit with that as my limit. I didn’t have any idea I would have to explain anything.
I tried a few answers, but he kept coming back to me saying the underwriters (Who are those people? I imagined them as people in strange suits and funny looking glasses sitting in dark tunnels slouched over paperwork, sneering) needed a better explanation.
Ugh. I guess I would just have to say it. At least it was over the phone, so he could not see my very red cheeks, flushed with embarrassment. “I was raised in a cult and I just escaped a few months ago.”
Long pause.
I had thought they would judge me. Maybe Scientology was right about the way people are out here. Nobody to help, you are alone and helpless. I was sure he was going to tell me he could not help me and then hang up.
Finally he said, “Oh, we can just write that you dealt in cash only.” Bang. Credit card approved. Phew.
Leaving Scientology after so long leaves incredible marks on its ex-members. The task of rebuilding can be terrifying in itself. Some, actually most, who leave Scientology, leave alone and have to work these things out on their own. It’s awkward and uncomfortable.
I remember having to write my first resume and trying to convert my Sea Org posts into job descriptions. Of course the Sea Org teaches an incredibly high work ethic (we didn’t think anything of working around the clock), but how do you explain what a “Case Supervisor” is? I was some kind of bossy manager.
I did get one hint, which helped, that I only had to put on a resume the last three positions that I had held. So if I could keep a job for a medium-long period and then quit, three times, the Scientology crap could be off my resume entirely. Don’t quit too soon, though, or you look flighty.
Oh, and about quitting jobs. I remember so clearly when I found my second job after leaving Scientology. My first one was making sandwiches at a shop for $6.25 an hour (I could not believe it when I made $11,000 in my first year. I felt so rich!). The second job interview they had showed me a P&L and wanted to see if I could understand it. Easy. So I was hired. But then I had to give notice.
Quit a job?
After having left the Sea Org, the idea of quitting a job has a meaning at an entirely new level. Leaving a job is a failure. It means you could not do it. You failed. You are a degraded being.
I dreaded having to tell my boss. I knew I should give two weeks notice, and that was my plan. But in a sense, I was prepared for interrogations and a boss who would insist, even demand, that I stay. My whole body was tense and I was prepared for a verbal fight. I knew I would need to hold my ground and be prepared with answers to any and all objections. I knew I had to keep my integrity and keep my path. No matter what he said or did, I would be polite, but my plan was to move on, either way. I had braced myself for a Sea Org style “I’m leaving” treatment.
When I did sit down with my boss, fully prepared with whatever he may throw at me to try to get me to stay, I gave him my notice….. he was sad about it, but he told me I had done such a great job and he wanted to give me an extra bonus and I was welcome to come back any time if I changed my mind.
I almost passed out. What the hell?
Over the years, I have moved on from several jobs, but every time this was the response I got. A bonus, a thank you, and a note that I could come back anytime. Hugs. Goodbye parties, tears.
Damn. I want to be human. I don’t want to be immortal. Those immortals in Scientology can be real jerks!
— Sunny Pereira
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Terrific tale of how to build a life of your own as opposed to perpetually failing to build an eternity as envisaged by a cult guru. Oh, and victims of the mind-fuck perpetrated by the criminal organisation known as the “church” of $cientology never live forever. It just seems like the endless busy-work takes forever...
Such an incredibly powerful contrast. A billion years of beratement and threats vs. a normal human lifetime of bonus and hugs. Which one is a church, again?