Path: rambo.bobo.net!xs4all!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!xs4all!newsgate.cistron.nl!het.net!news.belnet.be!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!priori!newsfeed.concentric.net!207.155.183.80.MISMATCH!global-news-master From: informer@informer.org (Rev Dennis Erlich) Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: madness part 2 Date: 08 Aug 1998 08:23:53 PDT Organization: inFormer Ministry [a 501(c)3 non-profit, religious organization] Lines: 147 Message-ID: <35cc6dd9.1220167@news.concentric.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ts030d45.lax-ca.concentric.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451 X-No-Archive: yes Xref: rambo.bobo.net alt.religion.scientology:98748 Faithful Reader, This just arrived: > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > >In my previous letter, I mentioned a few brief highlights of my first missing weeks. I >don't know how long I was in isolation. A relative later told me I was "missing for a couple of >months". > >...cutting a person off from the world without explanation doesn't sound particularly helpful... > >The madness continues. Part two follows. > > ~~~~~~~~~~ > >My cozy home had become an unfamiliar and inescapable trap. > >The lack of communication was spooky. Speechless "zombies" haunted my door. Sometimes >they brought food to me -- sometimes it was edible and sometimes not. > >After a week or two of this silent watch treatment, my dreams began to seem more real. > >I was weak from my bout with the flu, from trying to fight, from trying and failing to >understand what was happening, from going back and forth from anger to terror, from nightmare to >deepest depression. > >When given the opportunity, I was so pleased to be able to leave - to go for a drive. Maybe I was >going to get the counseling I was supposed to get... I'd heard that scie- could even improve poor >vision. > >My destination turned out to be a room with a boarded up window. There was a mattress on the >floor and a pillow, and a small bathroom with toilet and sink. > >I was locked in. > >I tried to keep myself occupied... I could practice my workout routine, I could practice the >lyrics my singing partner had written, I could explore the holes in the walls, play in the >sink... pound on the locked door... > >I had access to water from the sink tap, but I was getting so hungry. No one answered my knocks >on the door. Shouting brought no one. I leaned against the door and slowly sank to the floor. I >wrapped my arms around my knees and rocked back and forth as I made up and softly sang a >little song about potato chips. > >I slept as much as I could, escaped into dreams as much as I could. After a while, my dreams >didn't stop even after waking... which would have been fine if none of my dreams had been >nightmares... > >I had a horrible nightmare that my child had died in blood, in a bathtub, as I helplessly >watched. > >I didn't know how long I slept or how long I was awake. I didn't know what time it was, >what day it was. I don"t know how long I was there. > >I remember talking to some bubble people. I had a foggy notion that they were my cells, >partial personalities - genetic memory? I nick-named one bubble/cell person "Isaac"... > >I appropriated bits and pieces of novels for dream material. > >It was silly to even attempt to pry a board from a window with only my fingernails. Maybe I >could tear a strip from my clothing and hang myself... if there was anything high enough to hang >myself from... > >I could pray, and I did. > >I had dreams that ranged from war, to Santa Claus, to space opera. > >I tried to bathe in the sink, I tried drying off with paper towel, or was it the white stuffing >from the pillow? Maybe I could make a white wig and beard and pretend to be Santa Claus. (Santa >had figured in some of my nicer dreams.) > >I wondered about my best friends, and worried about one who had been ill. > >I could only worry and hope that a relative's cancer was not terminal. > >One young watcher came in and kissed me on the lips. > >I just had guards or watchers. (And room service... gee thanks, but this dry and shriveled hot >dog is beyond my ability to pretend it's ambrosia...) > >I was thoroughly terrified of my two main watchers. One was fair and fat, the other dark and >trim. When one of them escorted a large dark man into the room, I cowered on my mattress, but >they took no action, just looked at me. > >I would be legally blind without corrective lenses, so without glasses, my silent watchers were >blurry and ghost-like... > >I thought I heard a bit of music once. > >Time passed slowly. It was intolerable... hours, days, minutes, weeks... I couldn't tell how much >time was passing. > >No contact with my family, my friends or my life. > >The only one who spoke to me was me. > >Until, at one point, a person showed up, a nice fellow. I actually knew him, he was a scie- staff >member, a counselor. We started to have a counseling session, but I was hungry, scared and tired. >He gave me vitamins. Lots of vitamins. > >Finally, I got to leave with him. Thank God. > >It was lovely outside. It was dark, maybe dusk. I tried to make pleasant conversation... I >wanted to be sure I did nothing wrong. I wanted him to continue to be nice to me. > >He took me to his home; he and his wife had made a shabby old apartment into a unique and lovely >place. I was very apologetic about my appearance. I got to take a shower... there was actually >shampoo, and conditioner. > >I was given a change of clothes. His wife kindly tried combing the tangles out of my hair as I >sat in a chair near a fan. She spoke softly as she worked and accepted my apology for using so >much of her conditioner. She couldn't get out all of the tangles, but brushed my hair back as >best she could. > >At their small kitchen table we had bread and strawberry jam. It was so so good! > >They made up a place for me to sleep, next to their bed. > >I had sweet dreams; I dreamt that they had a lovely baby and that I sang lullabies to it... > >In the morning, the nice couple had to leave for work. Then the main watchers from the room >with the boarded up window showed up unexpectedly. I freaked -- I must have looked like a >gibbering idiot. I probably fell apart... I don't remember leaving... > >...But I wound up in what appeared to have been a large supply closet. No windows. No fan. No >toilet facilities. Big enough for a mattress with a bit of room to spare. There was a >flickering ceiling light with a wall switch that I could turn on and off. I crumpled up a sheet >in a corner to use as a litter box. > >Time collapses and folds when there is nothing to gauge it by. > > ~~~~~~~ > >The story will continue in another letter. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > >Scientology "contains a therapeutic technique with which can be treated all inorganic mental >ills and all organic psychosomatic ills, with assurance of complete cure..." so wrote the >founder of Scie-. (That's a quote from a glossy brochure I have next to my computer.) > > ~ ~ ~ ~ Rev Dennis Erlich * * the inFormer * *