[00:30:28.183]
(Leah Remini) LR: You know, unlike Aaron, Tayler WAS reaching out. "Please!" --to my church. "Help me. You're saying this is what you do. Help me."
She was doing the right things. And nobody cared!
[Scene: FB post
Tayler TweedWindows Phone
I know EXACTLY what I am doing. Back off or DELETE YOURSELF FROM MY #friends LIST!(Heart emoji)
#CENSORSHIP #teamTayTay #WOLFpack]
(Lauren Haggis) LH: She seemed sad and upset. And she was having all these problems. She tried to go within the normal routes and nothing was working and she wanted it to be fixed. She was posting everything that she possibly could. Because she was done.
[Scene: FB posts
Tayler Tweed
October 25, 2013
THIS is what an angry #SecondGeneration #Scientologist looks like...
Tayler Tweed
October 26, 2013
17 years of torture. I am done! #teamTayTay#WOLFpack]
LH: I was concerned about her. I was worried for her. She was really thin. She was posting pictures of her at like 95 pounds.
[00:31:27.308]
[Scene: FB posts
Tayler Tweed I did not intend to be this weight. I had a 7 month nervous breakdown, most of which happened in May/June/July/August.]
LH: Where she was having these emotional breakdowns. And she was so stressed out. She was just continuing to be offered auditing, essentially, which made her worse.
MR (in studio): Scientology does not recognize depression as a mental illness. In fact, nothing that has ANYTHING to do with psychiatry is acceptable in Scientology.
[Scene: HCO B 29 Nov 1981 DIANETICS AND SCIENTOLOGY COMPARED TO NINETEENTH CENTURY PRACTICES
Highlighted: The two nineteenth century subjects, psychology and psychiatry, do not achieve ANY good results. On the contrary, they are destructive beyond belief. They make crackpots, sexpots and vegetables when they do not outright kill.]
[Scene: Scientology promotional video]
[00:31:54.700]
MR (pointing and gesturing): ANYBODY who has ANY problem WHATSOEVER in Scientology is sent to an auditor to have Scientology counseling. Therefore ANYthing that was troubling Tayler will ONLY be addressed by Scientologists with Scientology.
LH: She had nowhere to go to get real help. So I wanted to, to try and give her support. But I was scared.
LH: I wish I hadn't. (weeping)
LR: Lauren? I hope for not one second you're going to say that you could have prevented it. Okay.
LH: I know, I know I couldn't. But I didn't do what I could, so how--.
LR: But Lauren, in the frame of mind of a Scientologist, you believed that there was nothing you can do.
You know being outside, Mike knowing what he knows now, would never have allowed his children to be in Scientology.
MR: (shakes head)
LH: No, of course.
LR: So we understand. But sitting here? Seeing your pain. I can't allow you now to blame yourself or to think you could have prevented it. Because you couldn't have. You were also in a prison at that time.
LH: Yeah. Still I didn't. I was still fearful. And so I gave her this like, "Really. Like, I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with the church. Keep your head high. Hugs and kisses kind of thing.
[Scene: FB post
Hey Tay Tay! Sorry to hear you're going through such a tough time with the Church and it's employees. Keep your head high. xoxo]
And that's the last time I talked to her.
[Screen: November 30, 2013]
[Scene: FB post from Tayler Tweed]
LH: Around the end of the year, Tayler wrote this giant paragraph saying basically "I'm sorry for being an asshole to my friends, about putting this stuff on your guy's lines.
LR: She apologized to the Scientology community for speaking out?
LH: Essentially. And then she stopped posting on that Facebook page. Made a new Facebook page where she didn't post anything against, negative against the Church, and was posting photos of herself.
[Scene: photo of Tayler Tweed]
And then she applied to like college. So I was like "Okay."
LR: Things got fixed.
LH: Things got good. So, I, I said, like okay good. Um, glad I reached out and everything's good. And then January came around, and we found out that she'd killed herself.
Shocked. I was shocked. Started asking my friends. Cuz we all know each other. We went to a really small school, so everyone knows someone. And so we started reaching out to people. We found out she shot herself. She took her own life.
We can't ever be prepared for anything like that. But I was totally taken out. Like, I thought she was doing better, how things were good for her. But no-one expected it. It was just so sad.
[Scene: photo of Tayler]
[Screen: After Tayler's death, Lauren discovered a mutual friend had been communicating with Tayler via text messaging.]
LH: From what I know now, Tayler has suffered from, had suffered from um suicidal thoughts, like she had tried to commit suicide several times throughout her life.
[Screen: In the text messages, Tayler disclosed how Scientology was trying to cure her mental health issues through vitamins and auditing.]
LH: My friend asked, "And you did all the processing and didn't feel any better." Tayler says, "Worse. Suicidal again and literally diagnosed with Bipolar 1 by naturopathic doctors. The kind that don't medicate. They had me buy supplements and I’m doing lab tests on Tuesday.]
[Scene: photo of Tayler]
She had never gotten to see a regular doctor, but she had gotten to see a homeopathic people, and tried to handle her symptoms with vitamins and those types of regimens.
LR: Yeah, like Scientology.
LH: Scientology versus medication. Because in Scientology, no it's not an answer, it's not an option. You gotta get, do your auditing and take your vitamins and exercise. Because you think psychiatry and psychology, it's, they're all crazy. It's just going over and lobotomizing people and shoving ah Ritalin and stuff down kids' throats.
MR: (nods)
LR: And ultimately you get kicked out of the church if you said you want to go see a real doctor, or I want to go see a psychoanalyst or a therapist or a psychiatrist. I want to be put on medication. They'd say, "You're out." And you would lose everything you'd ever known.
LH: Of course, that's the end of it.
LR: Yes. And you're, and you're evil to the church of Scientology and that's it. And then everybody you have ever known leaves your life.
[Scene: photo of Tayler]
[Scene: FB post
Tayler Tweed
I am 99.99% sure I should be locked in a straight-jacket and padded cell and be studied by mental health therapists.]
LH: And all of this, it gave me a window to understand what was going on with her. But to see her say things like, "I want to die before 2014." That is just awful.
[Scene: more tweets]
She actually wanted to die. She thought it was a solution to stop all her problems that she'd been having her entire life. And she was done with.
[Scene: photo of Tayler]
LR: A second round where she's like, has this new Facebook page, and she seems to be you know, starting again, this poor girl keeps trying to pick herself up and move on. Something happened and I don't know, because I don't know. I am hoping you have some answers.
LH: Scientology part of her family, her mom specifically.
[Scene: photo of Cathy Tweed, Tayler's mother]
LH: For every time that Tayler did something and spoke out, her mom would distance herself from Tayler financially. That was Tayler's only support. She was not self--. She was a musician. She was not on her own. She wasn't working. She was dependent completely on her parents.
LR: So she would withdraw her financial support?
LH: And her emotional support.
[Scene: FB post
Cathy Tweed
You may want to unfriend Tayler Tweed, my daughter. She is posting entheta comm about church members and an org. I've been trying and trying to handle. There is much more going on than this, but this is over the line for our group and she has been warned repeatedly to not be public. Her REAL upsets are not with the church, under it all. But she gets keyed in and does this. Best to distance yourself, is my thought. Please don't comm with her about this or she will only get louder about it. Thanks, Cathy]
LH: Her family was really, really important to her. She loved her mom.
[Scene: photo of Tayler with her mother. Mother in wedding dress]
LH: And she loved her family. So it was very tough on her to be going through what she was going through in her own experiences with the church and then to have to deal with the disconnection back and forth, back and forth with her family.
And what happening is she was living on friends' couches and I had heard her mom was calling her friends and saying "Tayler is in a suppressive person kind of stage.
LR: She's an anti-Scientologist--
LH: She's an enemy of the church. It's not good for her for you to house her." And this happened at the last house that she was staying at. And she just ended her life.
Which makes me feel like she didn't feel like she had anywhere more to go. She's, all roads led to this.
And Tayler's ah, funeral, Tayler's mom said, "I'm at peace with my daughter's decision." It was like a week after she killed herself. "I'm at peace with my daughter's decision."
MR: This is a microcosm of the Scientology prison of belief and mindset that makes it acceptable to destroy someone for the greater good.
We have to do what L. Ron Hubbard says to do, so we're going to disconnect from you, despite your emotional problems.
LH: Yes.
MR: That belief system is toxic. It is dangerous, and ultimately it's deathly.
[Scene: Scientology site WHAT IS DISCONNECTION]
LR: Mother told her friends to publicly disconnect from her.
[Screen: The term disconnection is defined as a self-determined decision made by an individual that he is not going to be connected to another. It is a severing of a communication line.
Scientology Website]
LR: That's what her mother said. The mother was applying Scientology.
LH: Okay, so this is December. This was a month before she passed. So it's, Christmas is coming.
LR (reading): "I'd rather die than feel this. I've felt this [bleep] feeling since 12 years old when I joined the sea org. That's right Sept 1999.]
LH: I just can't.
[Producer: I don't think we need any more, honestly.]
LH: Yeah.
LR: You have to step up. You have to take responsibility for what you're saying to people. The mental health profession should have issue with Scientology promoting itself as the cure for mental illness. It is not a cure. It isn't.
LR: You telling this story, I hope, that even one parent in Scientology or any other cult, wakes up and realizes, "I need to protect my own. I need, we need to protect our children.
LH: They do! They make things go right and to help people's lives that are so many options.
LR: I think that's so beautiful what you're doing for your friend. You're being everything Scientology isn't, by telling Tayler's story you are giving her the defense she needed. So you're doing the right thing. I didn't know her but she would have been you know somebody I would have liked to try to help you know.
LH: Of course.
LR: --going to get a damn tissue.
LH: Okay.
[Screen: Lauren works as a professional artist. After Tayler's death, she began a series of paintings to honor her friend.]
[Scene: LR and MR walk into a room]
LR: It's amazing that you did this.
LH: Thank you. I see her as she's actually, she's here.
MR: Right.
LH: But they remind me completely that she's not, and she could have been. She could have been so easily helped.
I've known five people in my life who have killed themselves. Four of them are Scientologists, including Tayler. And so who are these people and how can we do the same thing with Tayler for them?
LR: I love that.
LH: I'm doing what I could have done then, now.
MR: I understand.
LH: Yeah, Yeah.
LR: Oh my God. You're not alone.
[Screen: Tayler Tweed Debari 1986-2014]
[Scene: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org]
[00:43:46.064]
[Screen: The Church challenges the credibility of the contributors appearing in this program. The Church also states that it does not have a policy that requires church members to disconnect from anyone.
As of the airing of this episode, the Church has not agreed to participate.]
END
[Credits]
[00:42:55.647]
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
LEAH REMINI
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
ELI HOLZMAN
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
AARON SAIDMAN
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
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CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS
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?
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