Haha, treadled your way there. What ever it takes!

“… something that makes you laugh…”

In February, at the end of three physical therapy treatments (all for different reasons while the first one addressed a bicycle fall I had pre-COVID19), I weighed 207 lbs. and didn’t like being slightly overweight. Today, after bicycling nearly 500 miles and dieting, I weigh 178, a weight I’d been meaning to get back to for a few years.

I would call that doing something that makes a 67-year-old man quite happy.

Thanks, Yawn.

Thank you.

Hey Fred,
We all have the experience of our lives. It is hopeful that each and everyone of us puts the negative parts of it in perspective & not let it dominate. Keeping busy, doing things you like & creating a future of some sort is universally accepted as a meaningful buffer against those of us that feel and have been betrayed.
Easier said than done, especially as we get old and the body starts falling to bits.
Hubbard, simply put, was an asshole. He sure could have done things differently, but didn’t and he was fundamentally a dishonest human being. His lies and propaganda produced affects I don’t think even he ever realized the full consequences of as he created them. He went with the flow of vanity and money and believed his own bs. His place in history has been forever cemented into the dark side of the ledger.
Best to you Fred, do something that makes you laugh. Cheers…

Child abuse survivors are more likely to be abused later. Domestic abuse, abuse from a cult and I have even worked for a company for many years who abuses their workers in a way that is so similar to the sea org and moving up the bridge.

Thanks for posting this, Mike.

Was there something that Hubbard got (stole) that was right?

scientologists don’t have friends, only people ho can/will contribute to the cause. As soon as they no longer can/will contribute, they’re dropped like a hot potato. I see this descending from “on high”, Mr Hubbard while he was on them sweet drugs.

Yawn,

I once replied to a post that ended up as a general comment, so thanks for letting me know about yours.

It looks like we have at least one thing in common: an insane mother. Two things actually: we’re also here utilizing Mike Rinder’s blog.

That you drew your fist back at 14 and threatened to return the violence is something I could never bring myself to do. I’m afraid she had just too much control over me.

My brother is close to me in age; my sister by more than a decade. My brother and I were dealt with rather evenly by my mom, yet I always wondered about my sister.

I could never make myself wear a belt because of the leather one that hung in my father’s closet, an instrument used in carrying out mom’s punishment. I finally talked to my sister about this, and found out that my mom had used that belt on her, and that she, too, couldn’t wear one. That just about broke my heart.

Things changed with my parent’s divorce (which had a lot to do when a doctor gave my dad only 25 years to live: he died at about age 54). With my stepdad there soon arrived a half sister, and I worried about her, too. Until one day when out of the blue, the half sister says to me on a long-distance telephone call: “Hey, Freddie! Do you know what I say to mom every time she calls for me (like she would to set the table, or do the dishes, or take out the trash)? I say: YYYYEEEEESSSSS, DEMON?”

At that moment, my heart sunk into my chest and I thought: And mom let you live with a response like that?

I haven’t spoken a single word to nor have I written a letter to my half sister ever since. What she told me and her carefree demeanor in telling me that put it all into perspective. If there ever was a Suppressive on my case (as one would say in scientology), then my mom fit that bill — hook, line and sinker.

L. Ron Hubbard certainly had issues, didn’t he?

Free Minds, Free Hearts,

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts.

Today’s blog is instrumental in that I now know why I fell so easily into scientology’s grip. The key word is CONTROL. I had it at home under my parent’s roof. Scientology later provided mountains of control in policy, in particular in the Green and Red Vols.