Troublemaker by Leah Remini

On finishing this unflinching memoir, the first thing I thought was that Leah Remini would go back in a heartbeat if they adhered to L Ron Hubbard's philosophy and that if it wasn't for the blatant corruption shown in the hierarchy that she would never have left.  Her pain at leaving seeps off the page but I still left the pages with the feeling that although she now espouses psychoanalysis and therapy as being societally helpful that she is, in some way, only paying lipservice to the ideal and that the indoctrination throughout her life still holds deep within her.  Of course, it is now some years since this book was written and she may have made progress on truly detaching herself from the church but when it was written she clearly still felt a deep love for it's teachings and is still striving to achieve that next OT level in her own heart.

There is always a shock, on some level, when you find out that someone is a scientologist and this book shows exactly why those of us on the outside almost fear these people.  I've always looked at people like Tom Cruise and John Travolta and thought to myself "well, they are quite clearly fruit bats in the first place so it doesn't surprise me".  When you find out that seemingly sane celebrities are involved - Leah was perhaps my biggest shock - you do wonder what hold they have on people.  This book seeks to answer that question and it seems to boil down to they find you at your lowest ebb, tell you they can take the pain and failure from your life and who wouldn't want that?

It interested me that the scientology (can you see how I refuse to capitalise that) definition of Critical thinking is so far removed from that actual meaning of that phrase and that there are very, very few people with college degrees involved in the church (the non-capitalistion here is Leah's); so noticeable was that that it is even referred to in the later chapters after Leah and her family have dissolved their connections.  Just because you don't have a degree doesn't make you stupid, far from it, but it does perhaps make you judge your worth and leave you vulnerable to people who proclaim to be able to give you every success you have ever wanted.  Even worse, if you are second generation you have no hope of a proper, formalised education if your parents are devout adherents as this is strongly frowned on - you have a massive work ethic and can study like no-one else but those multitudinous certificates you receive only massage your ego and mean nothing.

The only thing that irked me was Leah's appraisal of herself.  I can understand why she lists only the "bad" things about her personality and life choices as it takes away the church's weapons but the self-hate she feels made me want to hug her.  She has a family that loves her and friends that are fiercely loyal so she clearly isn't as bad as she makes out and to see her pain at being such an "unworthy" person makes even a tough old boot like me want to weep for her.  This is what scientology did for her - it destroyed her sense of self worth and trust in her own instincts; fortunately she has the people around her to help replenish that.