At one point, I said I wanted to leave, but David Mayo and Jeff Walker managed to talk me out of it. David said things like, «You're going to break my heart.» and Jeff really got to me when he said, «You'll be forgotten about once you've left the Sea Org.» I finally decided I had to try to stick it out and stay, no matter what happened. As unhappy as I was, I believed that life outside of Scientology would be much worse.
I made one final attempt to assert myself. One day I was standing watch as Quartermaster, logging people on and off the ship. This was a duty that RPFers were often assigned to do. One day I had been on watch all morning and someone was supposed to relieve me so I could have lunch, but no one showed up. Finally, I went below decks to the aft lounge to see what happened to my relief person. Ron Hopkins and some other RPFers were having lunch and he refused to help me. I just exploded. My anger had very little to do with what was actually going on‑I just felt I had to make one last attempt to assert myself. I said I was going to have my lunch and to hell with everything, at which point, Ron said: «That's it! You're assigned to the RPF's RPF.» I'll never forget those words. I knew I had gone too far and tried to apologize, but it was no use. Ron was adamant. He said I could request a comm ev if I wished to challenge the assignment, but if I did, I would probably be thrown out of the Sea Org in disgrace.
And so it came to pass, that on May 26, 1975, I was assigned to the RPF's RPF. I spent very long days down in the engine room, cleaning foul smelling muck out of the bilges and then painting them. Fortunately, Ron Hopkins showed me some mercy and I didn't have to sleep in the chain locker. I was assigned a condition of Enemy and to get out of it, I had to write up the formula, which was «Find out who you really are.» I wrote up the formula and submitted it to Ron Hopkins, but he wouldn't accept what I had written. I didn't know what he wanted me to write. For days, I struggled to find an answer that would satisfy him. Who was I? At that point, I really didn't know. If I had known who I really was, I would have let them throw me out and gotten as far away from the ship and everyone aboard as I could. But leaving Scientology was a possibility that I was not willing to consider. Jeff and David had talked me out of it earlier, and at that time I felt that leaving Scientology would be worse than whatever hell I was going through on the ship.
I spent five days on the RPF's RPF, but it seemed much longer. I wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone except Ron Hopkins. One day, David Mayo broke the rules and spoke to me. I dutifully told him that he was not allowed to speak to me. He told me not to worry about it. I'll never forget what he did for me that day, just by breaking the rules and talking to me. I don't recall exactly what he said, but he encouraged me to hang in there and helped me feel I could make it through this horrendous experience. He showed me compassion when I needed it the most. I determined that I would hang onto what little sanity I had left. The way I did this was to shut off all of my emotions. It was a matter of survival.
I finally wrote up my formula to Ron's satisfaction and got out of the RPF's RPF. I had been broken, after a long hard struggle. When Ron Hopkins said, «That's it. You're assigned to the RPF's RPF» on May 26, 1975 in the aft lounge of the Flagship Apollo, something snapped in me and I no longer had any urge to fight back.
I was no longer angry; I was no longer sad; I was no longer happy; I felt nothing. I simply did as I was told.
At long last, I had learned the lesson of the RPF.
I want to make it clear at this point that I don't blame Ron Hopkins, David Mayo, Jeff Walker, Cathy Cariotaki, Jill Goodman or any other Scientologist or Sea Org member for what I experienced on the ship. They were all under the influence of L. Ron Hubbard and were only doing what they thought was best at the time. We were all trying to survive. I only hope that they are free now and understand what was really going on with all of us on the ship, so they can come to terms with it and go on with their lives.
Up to this point, I have not been at a loss for words in describing my experiences, but now I find myself feeling that I have very little to say about the period that followed my being released from the RPF's RPF. Perhaps this is because there was very little of me present during that time. My cult identity had taken over and I had become a Rondroid, a robot for LRH. I had stopped causing trouble and did as I was told.
During the summer of 1975, LRH started going ashore on photo shoots. He brought people in the RPF along with him and used us as crew and models. I was in several of the pictures, which are mainly photographic essays designed to promote Scientology. I never saw the final product and don't know if these pictures were ever published anywhere. I starred in one of them as a woman who was very sick, got auditing and became the picture of health. In the «before» shot, they made up my face with a pale greyish makeup to make me look awful. Then they showed me getting auditing and in the «after» shot, put rosy-colored make up and red lipstick on me so I looked like I was glowing with good health. I can remember that Hubbard was very particular about how he wanted me to stand. He came over to me and showed me exactly how he wanted me to pose. Unlike the stories I heard about his later venture as a motion picture director, he seemed to be very nice on these photo shoots, which he enjoyed. After all that had gone down between Hubbard and myself on the ship, this was the first time that he actually spoke to me in person without a messenger, other than the times he had nodded hello to me in passing.
Those of us in the RPF began to spend more and more time on the photo shoots and less and less time on the RPF. Hubbard eventually formed an org called the «LRH Photoshoot Org», which consisted of many RPF members. For some reason, other than occasionally modelling for some of his pictures, I was not on the staff of the photo shoot org. The RPF gradually dwindled down until Ron Hopkins and I were the only ones left. Finally, the RPF disbanded entirely, and I was assigned to do Folder Error Summaries («FESes»), which means going through people's auditing folders and noting down auditing errors that were made and the progress of the case, or lack, thereof. I was still not allowed to audit, but I was no longer on the RPF.
In the fall, Hubbard sold the ship and we all moved to a land base at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. The accomodations there were a big improvement over the ship. I shared a hotel room with two of my best friends, Lieke and Karen, both auditors. To anyone else, the room might have seemed crowded, but to us, we had more space than we had in years, as we were used to sleeping in a room with 50 other women on the ship. We even had a television set in our room. I hadn't watched TV in years. I would go up to my room during lunch breaks and after a day's work and watch TV. My favorite shows were «Star Trek» and «Bewitched», both in reruns at the time. Many people in the Sea Org loved Star Trek since we liked to think of ourselves of being on a mission, like the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
In Florida, I continued FESing folders, which wasn't the most exciting job in the world, but it was peaceful. Some of the people who's folders I FESed were celebrities, such as Karen Black and Chick Corea. One day I went to see the intern supervisor at the time, Brian Livingstone, about getting my certificates back as an auditor. I assumed that he knew that LRH had ordered my certificates cancelled, but he didn't remember. Just as he was going to write me out a program, Judy Thiery came over to us and told him that LRH had cancelled my certificates. Brian was furious with me and accused me of trying to trick him. I said that I thought he had known what had happened with me and was just trying to find out how I could Bet my certificates back, but he refused to have anything further to do with me.
In May, the Commanding Officer of AOLA, Gary Epstein, decided that he wanted me to return to Los Angeles and made a request to Flag. I was ordered to return to Los Angeles and assigned the position of Director of Processing at the Advanced Org in Los Angeles (AOLA), where I had originally come from. Before I left, Jeff Walker finally gave me a program that I could follow to regain my certificates as an auditor. As Director of Processing, I would be responsible for the solo auditing of all the people who came to AOLA to do the Clearing Course and OT levels. Even though it was a much better position than I currently had, FESing folders, I was very sorry to leave Florida. I had requested to remain in Florida, but my request was denied and I had no choice but to go to LA.