Note: DOCS = Department of Community Services, a branch of each State government.
Date: 08 Jun 1997 13:22:11 +1000
From: lbae <lbae@zeta.org.au>
To: David Gerard <fun@thingy.apana.org.au>
Subject: Re: (fwd) Carolynn Jinhee BaeDear David,
You wrote asking if you could use my story about Carolynn--herein read the rest of it. You will see that my Carolynn story is really not so clear cut and simple as my plea that you read sounded. At this point, cult people are really out of the picture mostly, I think, unless they are writing to her. I don't think Carolynn sees much, if any, cult people, but since she hasn't been deprogrammed, her mind remains twisted. Poor kid.
The policeman whom we don't trust says he is keeping cult people away from her, but they play basketball at the same place Carolynn does.
She calls here from time to time (but won't talk to me a bit) because she misses her sisters, but since her parents have been deemed suppressive, she can't bring herself to come home. The last time she called, she told one of her sisters that she dreams about them a lot that she can't save them because she's not with them.
She won't see a counsellor, nor does the policeman want her to, even to help her sisters through their being rejected by the cult and by Carolynn. She said if they are upset with her, it's because of me telling them to be. The policeman said that there's something wrong with me being willing to pay for a psychologist that could cost thousands and not being willing to pay for the girls to get together (I refused to chauffeur Carolynn's sisters around for their get togethers after I did it a few times. I said if I didn't get a thank you from Carolynn for my troubles, I wouldn't. She thought I owed it to her because I was so suppressive.)
David, Carolynn has been VERY MUCH MENTALLY ABUSED. I had hoped that getting her away from the cult would deprogram her by just life activities, but it hasn't worked, especially since the policeman backs what Carolynn says.
You have to imagine a policeman who sees abused kids all the time. He simply believes Carolynn when she says I was psychotic and that she hates me which is what the cult lady said about me when I figured out what she was up to--she got her rocks off from auditing teenagers and helping them with their sex activities.
Carolynn has no idea what the cult leader was up to. She just thought she was her best friend because of the lovebombing. To try to explain this to people who don't know anything about cults is like hopeless.
By the way, Carolynn's dad is ready and willing to do anything to help her; and her sisters love her dearly only her cult behavior is so selfish that they just feel sorry for her because even though she's being selfish, she is losing so much.
The only thing I know about Carolynn for sure is that she is REALLY mixed up, but doing well when it's not related to her parents--like at school and working part time. I spoke to her on the phone for about one paragraph's worth recently in the last 2 years at which she told me she hated me and it was my fault she had been in the cult.
Before that during the DOCs investigation, she hated me because I had made such a fuss that she couldn't be in the cult with her friends (you are right, my fussing got her out!). She's inconsistent, but her mind hasn't been deprogrammed so she only has generalities that the cult gave her to operate off of like "My parents were terrible"--but she has no incidents for examples.
Read my long manuscript. If it sounds too weird to be true, rest assured it is true. One solicitor said to me, "It's one of those stories that are so unbelievable, that it's probably true."
If I had had money for a solicitor when I dealt with DOCs the outcome might have been different. My ex-husband lives in his office and owns his own business and pays upkeep for the kids. We didn't worry so much about allowing Carolynn to stay at the policeman's because he promised to help us and she was nearly 16 so legally she could live anywhere within six months of the ruling.
Our wish was to get her away from the cult without spending so much money that the other 3 kids suffered. I thought that would help deprogram her, but it looks like she's stuck with the cult teachings in her head even with no scientologist around.
Still, there's hope. One never knows what will tip the balance so I keep trying. What I have to be careful of is her using the system against me. So I got her away from the cult, only to have her saved by the policeman. Now, if I get her out of the policeman's hands, she may look for another person to save her so she doesn't have to face up to things. The minute someone hears her talk of terrible parents, they are ready to save her. They don't even wait to hear what the terrible parents did, they just move in to save her! DOCs is set up that way--to take what the kid says while what the parents say isn't important. Still, the DOCs psychiatrist cleared our name of any wrong doing.
My story that follows was written on one of my sad days, but rest assured since I'm the good guy, I expect to succeed in untwisting my daughter's mind somehow.
So here goes--
Have you ever had a teenager go astray into the wrong crowd? Hear my story.
The days go by. Again and again, there is no call from my 15 year old kid. My heart feels so much like breaking into millions of tiny pieces. None of the other kids fill her place. She is one and, as is, is a complete perfect tall and slim package. No one else can take her place.
Yes, the other three of mine are very much like her, only different ages, 14, 12 and 10. They are like four peas in a pod as the saying goes, yet each is becoming more different daily as they more deeply develop their own personalities. Not one of them is a copy of the other so I wouldn't trade any one for the other. B is so full of love and laughter. E is full of opinions and C is full of thinking. All, bring joy to me, but Carolynn brings sadness.
The radio plays, "I just called to say I love you." and I think when will she ever call? I can't call her or mother her. She has to go it alone by her own choice, not knowing how useful a mother can be through the teenage years. But she seems to need to be on her own, to learn from the world at large that she is responsible for herself. God, I'd so like to have her near me to hug and joke with, but should I push too hard, it might only make things worse.
"God, let me cry a bit, then I'll feel better. Give me strength to be patient. Make me be patient!"--So could be the words of thousands of people who have lost someone to a cult, but those words are mine. And that child that I can't touch or cuddle is mine, but now her mind is theirs, not even hers.
How do good, nice people lose their minds as we call it to a cult or a bad peer group? How did a middle-class normal person like me lose my first-born daughter, not to a murderer, but to mind-manipulation? How does a relationship change from one so secure that I didn't worry that being separated from Carolynn for a month would injure our relationship in the least ... to one where Carolynn refuses to talk to me ever?
How do groups of people gain such control over someone to a degree that they forsake their best friends, their parents, their siblings? The answer lies in the needs of the individual. The group plays on the needs of the individual to the point that the individual feels very beholden. Once that is done, the beginning of the demise of the person starts.
I joined the group because my marriage was failing. I was so unhappy and alone in my marriage and I was really raising the four kids as a single parent despite having a husband around in body. The group saw the need: companionship. They got me onside with that by siding with me against my husband. They also got me because they aimed to Clear the world of evil and make it a better place. That meant clear it of all suppressive people like my husband and they knew how to deal with people like him.
They became my support group, my peer group and my buddies in making the world a better place. I thought I had finally found my home. The only problem was I had found a home all right, but not mine! Never mind, at least I finally had a support group. I wasn't on my own with four kids with a non-supportive husband anymore. I had these people who were so special that they were even trying to save the world. And they were going to help me and my children become better human beings. Weren't they kind, I thought?
One lady was counselling people whose marriages were shakey like mine using her magic mind techniques and a meter machine. She offered to help me so I sat at the meter and answered the questions: She asked me the same question over and over--How has your husband suppressed you? Well, I found tons and tons of times he had suppressed me so I answered every one of the times I could think of when he made me sad and therefore suppressed me from my rightful happiness. Nevermind, his side of the story; he was a suppressive and they agreed!
Well, when I finished that session, I just knew who I had to get out of my life. I had realised that the marriage I had wanted to save was so suppressive that no one would want that.
(Little did I know then that cults are not known for saving marriages!)
I got Mr. Wrong out of my life and I was actually happier without the stress of him around. I felt so good that I wanted to help others by learning how to do these processes myself. I studied for nearly two years for about 15 to 20 hours a week at a cost of about $10,000 to learn how to help people know their own mind and not get controlled by other people who suppress them.
While I was studying with the cult people, I changed to homeschooling my kids because it seemed that teachers and schools were so suppressive and I didn't want that for my children. Man, I was busy. And besides doing that, I was trying to keep up with the other two cult ladies, they having two kids, me having four.
They offered to help me handle my kids because they said my kids were a bit too suppressive to their kids. My kids protested too much when the cult leader's kids were too controlling. The cult leaders didn't see it that way. They said my kids were just being suppressive. I said that I'd like to help my kids become Clear and not be suppressive so I was very appreciative of their help.
I noticed one cult mother had a lot of teenagers stay at her house and I thought isn't she kind? When she offered my daughter Carolynn a chance to join her household while she Cleared Carolynn for a month, I jumped at the chance. Here I had this VERY talented ballerina kid, top reader, did many things well and she was going to have a chance to be Clear which I thought meant be more loving and caring than a normal person! Wow, what luck, I thought. The only stipulation by the cult leader was that her sisters and myself didn't contact Carolynn for a month while the Clearing sessions were being done.
One month later when I went to see about my daughter, guess what Carolynn said? She didn't want to see me. The cult lady informed me that Carolynn thought I was suppressive so she hated me and furthermore, she had moved to another cult member's house to live permanently. I protested at the cult leader letting my daughter move somewhere without telling me. She surprised me by saying Carolynn is old enough to live where she likes.
But this lady had been my friend, I thought. I protested more saying counselling a kid and then keeping him/her was not good counselling which made her very angry. She decided she didn't want to see me anymore.
I realised the lady had done the "How has your mother suppressed you?" process on Carolynn and that now all those teenage complaints had combined in her mind with childhood disciplinary actions that had saddened her to produce the deduction that mom was evil and suppressive. Then, the questions had stopped. Nevermind that sometimes a parent has to suppress a child to save its life--like you do when you refuse to let your four year old ride his bike on a busy street.
And what was more, the other cult adults agreed with Carolynn about her bad mother. One guy even went so far as to have his wife call my house and ask my 12 year old daughter to secretly send Carolynn's passport while I was outside his house pleading with Carolynn to come home.
I noticed that Carolynn couldn't look me in the face as we talked that day. She looked slightly above me to one side so I had to move over several times to get in her line of vision. It's the way people act when they can't bear to look at what they're doing.
One group member came to my house the next day, I thought to comfort me about my wayward teenager. She said, "Well, you got what you deserved." The rest of the group members stopped seeing me and my kids when the cult leader got angry with me so my homeschooled kids suddenly became very lonely because their friends were the other homeschooled cult kids. It was very cruel.
After that, Carolynn made very little contact with us, but we did manage to see her once a month or so. We contacted the police, DOCs and a solicitor. They all said when a child turns 12 in Australia, basically, it can live where it likes as long as it's a safe place, so they couldn't help me. (Legally, it's 16, but in most cases after the age of 12, if a kid insists on living somewhere that looks safe, the judge will generally rule in favour of the kid.)
One day my 11 year old child happened to say that when the cult lady had counselled her she had said she should masturbate three times a day and had showed her how to do it. I went to a solicitor who advised me to go to DOCS.
They responded by asking me to file an irretrievable breakdown paper in the Children's Court so they could investigate which I did even though there wasn't really an irretrievable breakdown because her dad and I were still seeing her periodically. They then proceeded to investigate by investigating us, not the cult people. They called my kids' school, visited my house, interviewed me and one of my daughters, but visited the cult leader only once because Carolynn wasn't living there.
They didn't check out the cult member who was supposedly keeping Carolynn for the cult leader even though I told them the cult leader was treating him for sexually abusing his daughter because Carolynn had secretly moved to a policeman's home on the request of the cult lady so the cult family was no longer of interest.
The policeman said he was tricked and was only trying to help. He had kept Carolynn in his home for six months without telling anyone because of what the cult leader had said. Carolynn was supposed to be in school at the age of 14, but was working at McDonald's instead, living with a policeman and playing basketball with the cult lady and family four days a week.
The end result? DOCs recommended Carolynn stay with the policeman because that's where she wanted to stay, not because we had done anything wrong, and despite the fact that the cult people lived nearby and would see and influence Carolynn. During their three month investigation, they never arranged for Carolynn to meet with her father and they had her meet with me once for 20 minutes with a psychiatrist. We didn't get a chance to handle Carolynn's brainwashing despite DOCs knowing she had been intensely involved with a cult!
As well, they allowed her to stay at the policeman's despite his being near the cult people and influenced by them. They kept the policeman's phone and address secret from us because Carolynn requested that. She said I harassed her friends in the past (the cult people) so this was to make sure that didn't happen again.
So while I had asked DOCs to help me because I didn't get much chance to talk with my daughter to straighten out things, they arranged it so I get less chance to talk with her! They must have agreed with Carolynn that cult people shouldn't be harassed even if they're into sexual abuse.
The policeman agreed to help us get Carolynn to rejoin her family by helping her see her sisters at least once every two weeks to start with. He also said he would let us know about any big decisions concerning Carolynn.
Her dad or myself were to take all four kids all out to eat or to a movie or something. What happened was Carolynn called the shots. We dropped the three kids, paid for the movie or whatever and picked them up after, but Carolynn never agreed to talk to us at all. She totally ignored us which would be normal for a cult brainwashed kid.
The policeman treated Carolynn's father so condescendingly the few times he dropped her that the three kids didn't want to see Carolynn while he was there. This treatment would have made Carolynn feel she was definitely right in treating her parents badly since both the policeman and the cult felt this was proper.
DOCs had Carolynn enroll in school. After DOCs finished its investigation, I went into her school and found out Carolynn had been enrolled in the policeman's name and no provision had been made for a counsellor to work with her because they didn't know she had been in a cult.
After being brainwashed by a cult, DOCs made no provision for her to be counselled back to mental health, nor did the policeman, despite their knowing she had been mentally, sexually abused.
I requested that the Principal send me Carolynn's school records and have her see the counsellor regularly. She sent me a one sentence note saying she would do the best she could for my daughter, but I received no school records, nor anything else.
She was on a first name basis with the policeman. So was the DOCs worker who had said she would check out his background, but didn't have time to in the end. I went in to the policeman's head office; they hadn't heard a word about his secretly keeping a kid in his home for six months.
They thought he had been kind to keep a child. And that was the end of that. Nothing said about his not notifying Carolynn's parents or befriending cult members.
So Carolynn lives with the policeman, who incidentally works with youth, near the cult lady to this day. We don't talk to him anymore because every time we've tried to enlist his help with Carolynn, he sides against us saying she can make her own decisions. (He enrolled her in school with his last name; he didn't want to encourage her to see a counsellor with her sisters; he encourages her to work so she can stay away from home forever while living cheaply at his house.)
Carolynn called one day to talk with her sisters and I asked her, "Carolynn, when are we going to talk about things." She answered something like, "Maybe never." Scientologists believe that if you are a suppressive, you're too evil to deal with at all so this is a normal brainwashed reaction. Without any counselling intervention, this may never change.
DOCs told me she said she loves the cult lady like a mother, again a normal part of cult brainwashing. Once the cult helped her break from her family, she needed support from somewhere so that's how the leader gets a grip on the person. You and I know how cruel cult leaders can be from media reports you've read. Carolynn doesn't know this.
For her, the cult leader was her protector against all the suppressive people in the world. The attention she got from the group, you know, the camaraderie that develops when you are all together against the evil world would be hard to beat.
Carolynn has given her soul to the cult people or is it the cult leader took it? Or some of both, maybe?
Some day, like many cult people, she will realise what a mistake she made not spending this time with her family and her heart will break into a million pieces. I just hope she and I can put it back together. She deserves better. Pray with me to a universal God that she finds the real Truth sooner rather than later--the real Truth involves realising love and forgiveness make life worth living. Pray with me that she can forgive herself.
Rest assured, I've already forgiven her. Please help her to walk through that door sooner rather than later ...
After I notified DOCs about the policeman's behavior and they said they were too busy to handle it, I thought I've had enough of their help--no more, thanks. It seems DOCs doesn't know about mental and emotional abuse and manipulation ...or rather since such abuse has not been legislated against, DOCs knows it would be wasting its time on this case.
LeANN Bae, Carolynn's mother.
Note:I don't want to fight against a particular religion. I want to fuss about mental and emotional abuse in ANY religion, but if we use Scientology only it changes to anti-scientology literature. I want to be anti-abuse in ANY religion. Do you understand? There will always be evil groups around as long as there are people. Before we even finish legislating against one religion, another bad one will have begun.
What I'd like, if you could, is that my stuff still stays where you have it which is in with other scientology-related garbage so it's quite clear this is something that happened related to scientology, but keep out the scientology words inside the document itself. I want the readers to condemn the behavior, not the religion.
Look at it this way--try to tell someone Catholicism is evil, especially a person who was raised catholic and tried to be a relatively good person all his life. If you started by talking about evil Catholicism, they wouldn't even read it. Now, if you started by saying how you'd been hurt by being in a religion, they might be shocked, but they might give it a read.
As much as I would like to never have to say or hear the word scientology again, I think the story will get through to more people by it being a cult-religion story that could happen in any cult.
If it's made as only a scientology story, the people who already hate scientology will read it and once again be sickened by what was done and the people who are scientologists will probably not read it. Now the people in between might feel more comfortable hearing a story that doesn't breathe hatred against scientologists and be able to take it in better.