Silence is Golden

Unless it Isn’t

One of the things I had drilled into me as a good little Scientologist was just to keep my mouth shut. That’s one of the oxymorons of a group whose first course when you set foot inside the door is the communications course. One of the things you learn on that course is “Communication is the Universal Solvent.”

Then you spend years learning how not to react to anything. You are taught that there are secrets you can’t divulge. You are told that you can’t share what you discover about yourself in your auditing session with anyone because it would harm them.

The longer a person is in Scientology, the less they are allowed to share. Every course a student takes is structured so each student studies at their own speed. That’s a great concept. However, students can’t talk about what they learned with each other because that is considered verbal tech.

Then there’s emotion. Or lack of it. I’ve discussed the tone scale in detail here, and brought it up again here. This post won’t go into all that again. However, bear in mind, a Scientologist is indoctrinated with the tone scale at the start of their journey. Therefore, they learn to lean heavily on the belief that if they are in the correct narrow band of the tone scale, their life is on track.

A person is taught not to express their pain. Hubbard says that if you make noise as you’re being hurt, it will cause that noise to become part of the engram. That means, according to Hubbard, that if a person says ouch, or other more colorful and appropriate words when slamming their thumb in a door any time they hear those words, their thumb will hurt.

This is basically the concept behind silent birth. The mother is forced to be silent because the birth is so painful for the baby that any words the mother says while it is being born will cause the baby pain for life. Therefore, the mother is supposed to suffer in silence. I did silent birth twice. It sucks. It was not helpful to me, nor do I harbor any belief that my children are smarter, more well adjusted, blah blah blah because of it.

Basically it was torture. I admit I grunted once with my second child was being born. I paid for that. His father hissed “get your fucking TRs in.” Honestly, that’s a lot more noise than I made, but I guess he wasn’t required to be quiet, just make sure I kept my trap shut.

So why, now, when my children are in their 40s am I even discussing this? Because it’s still affecting my life to some degree. That’s how insidious Scientology brainwashing is. If I stub my toe, I certainly won’t say ouch. I don’t know how anymore. I have actually hurt myself pretty bad a couple of times and not even said ouch, much less anything else.

I was brainwashed by that one edict so well that in a situation where it would make sense for me to express distress, I shut down. All these years later, I am still working through what was hammered into my brain for so few years.

This is a plea to anyone considering investigating Scientology. Please don’t. Leaving is only the start. Recovering may never be fully complete. And if you’re reading this after you left, please learn from my experience. Please be willing to look at your brain shrapnel as it arises without feeling like you shouldn’t. Silence is sometimes not golden at all.

This is a bonus post this week. Be sure to look for a new post in the next couple of days on the weekly poll subject, Libs. And in case you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to get your vote in on this week’s poll.