At the beginning of 1996 I lived in Vienna, was married to Dietrich, had a one year old girl and was part of the staff in Centrum again. Recruiters came from the US who wanted people to go on a study programme in the US in order to improve work in the Vienna organisation. Whenever I saw recruiters, I had this split energy and pain in my stomach, because they so want me to be staff and I thought I didn’t want it but in fact I kind of wanted it. I wanted to study in the Centrum because this was the only way I would study Scientology (that means get courses), cause otherwise I didn’t have money.

In 1996 I already knew that scientology was not what I thought it should be but I still wanted to stay inside, mainly to study. My then husband was a supervisor there, we had a small child, so… I thought that with the help of scientology we will make it.
But I was wrong. My husband in this period stopped talking to me, we already quarrelled in front of our one year old baby… I was not very frightened about that at this time, I was really thinking that scientology would solve all of our problems, since we were staff there.

So, these recruiters start to persuade me, that I should go to the US and study with the other recruiters for Golden Age of Tech of Scientology. It was a good idea to me, since my big wish always was to live in America (at this time I had already been there two times ), but on the other hand…

I asked Dietrich if I should sign up. He said… If you think you need to go, then go.
So, I signed it. If you wanted to study something you had to sign a five year contract. Right after I felt really bad. That was the sign that something is not OK. 
I was in agony the whole night and the whole next few days. But I didn’t have the courage to say “No”. I was in agony the whole week. But then I went. I was talking to my mother in law and to Dietrich and asked them to take care for Iza. I was actually thinking of taking my child to Ljubljana to my mother, since she was born there and my mother was there. But then I didn’t have time to arrange everything. I told my family in Ljubljana, that I am going to America, that I don’t know how long I will be there and that I will contact them from there and that Dietrich and Oma will take care for Iza.
So… on February 22nd I woke up at 4 in the morning. I kissed my baby who slept in her bed. I asked my husband to take care of her and I went by taxi to the airport. There was Thomas, who also went, so we went together. There was also his wife and they were kissing like mad before the flight.
Nobody was there for me…
On the flight I realized that me and Thomas were born on the same day. That was something!
First we flew to New York and then we flew to Florida. It was the end of February and we wore coats in Vienna, but there were people in shorts!
There was lots of turmoil going around me in Florida base, They put us in little houses where we slept and showed us our classrooms. We had to sign the 5 years long contract again and start to study.
But there it was my pain again. I felt bad. I felt bad. I felt bad. I didn’t want to sign a contract again.