How to Get Rid of Arrogance

And How to Recognize You Are Acting That Way

This post is a continuation in the series of ways to help yourself recover after leaving Scientology.

One of the easiest ways to recognize a person who is newly out of Scientology, or someone who is still in Scientology, is their attitude. Granted there are people who are not Scientologists who are arrogant. But as a whole, Scientologists are all arrogant. It is part and parcel of their belief system

A Scientologist is trained to believe they are a superior human being. The more training and counseling they get, the more superior they are supposed to be. This is not the case, but it is what a Scientologist is told, and it is a very hard habit to break.

Part of what keeps a person in Scientology is the belief that is is helping them. I was there, I understand that feeling. I felt like the training was helping me to do things better and more efficiently that others who had not received that training could ever pretend to do. I believed that. I also received auditing. I got up to OT Level V on Scientology’s Bridge. I discuss one of my first realizations that possibly OT Levels were not all they were cracked up to be in this post.

By the time I left Scientology, I was thoroughly and totally convinced that Scientology was nothing I ever wanted to do again. I had no desire to set foot inside the door of any Scientology organization ever again. But… Even feeling that way, that didn’t mean the indoctrination hadn’t stuck. Even after I knew I was never ever going back, I still felt like I had been turned into a superior being because I was OT V. Even though I always felt like a fraud while doing the auditing. It’s an odd dichotomy, but one that Scientology programs into you.

Therefore, this post has special resonance in my life, because I was the arrogant ex Scientologist I’m talking about. And I sincerely hope no one leaving Scientology has to shake the arrogance the way I was forced to do it. It took me 28 years after I left Scientology before I told a single soul that I had been in Scientology. With full knowledge of what I was doing, I chose to cut myself off from anyone I knew in my prior life. I did not see any other way in my situation. I would not recommend this to anyone.

I had no roadmap of how to act as a human being because I didn’t let anyone know I had been in Scientology, so couldn’t talk to others who had left. I had to observe others who were acting as human beings and copy what they did. I also had to pretend like I knew what I was doing. I was scared and alone. My parents died within the same year as I left, so I didn’t even have them to turn to for advice.

Years later, when I finally got it together, my cousins all scolded me for not reaching out to them. Former childhood friends also did the same, but when I made the decision to cut it all off, I just decided to do it the way I did.

Because of that, I fell back into Scientology programming more often than I am proud to admit. If someone confronted me and started yelling at me, I would go blank and just stare at them. Great TRs I had there, but that meant I didn’t bother to fight back or try to establish my place in this new world. But at the same time, oddly enough, I walked around acting like I knew more than anyone else. Because that’s how Scientology had trained me to act.

But then I had a run in with a person I knew socially. Not the closest friend, but someone I believed liked me. Boy was I wrong! This man agreed to share some paperwork with me. I had to drive 30 miles to pick it up. When I walked in, he took a deep breath and proceeded to tell me he wasn’t going to give it to me. He told me I was the most arrogant, stuck up know it all bitch he had ever met. He then said a lot more nasty stuff, not with repeating.

Yes, he was a jerk. And I did find out later that he did it because he wanted more from our relationship than I realized. But it struck home. I was devastated. I left his house, drove around the corner then sat in my car crying for almost an hour before I could drive home. And it woke me up.

I realized that I still had the Scientology armor on. I couldn’t read social cues because I was basing my cues on how a Scientologist would react in that situation. I was telling myself that I was better, stronger, wiser, more capable than others. I was damaging myself because I wasn’t able to learn. I was too busy making sure I acted the part that I forgot I didn’t have to lie to myself anymore.

I wish I could say I changed overnight, but this isn’t the movies. What did happen, though, is that I started reading the room. I stopped pretending I knew it all. I allowed myself to be vulnerable. And within a few months, I found that I could react (mostly) the right way in situations.

The arrogance is so deeply ingrained in a Scientologist that it is one of the hardest things to recognize when you leave. But if you don’t recognize it, you’re actually stopping yourself from taking the final step you need to take to free yourself of Scientology. Then you can figure out things like empathy, kindness, and most importantly, real joy. Have fun with your journey.

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Later today, you will be getting a special treat, a two page letter written to Hubbard in 1950 from a fellow pulp fiction author. It is quite an amazing look into both their lives.