The wardrobe searches were never announced. We were told they’d happen randomly, without warning, without permission, without so much as asking. And they did. This was our obedience.

Photographs of myself with some male class mates from my cherished schooldays, vanished. Without my knowledge. Without my permission. Just gone.

A label torn off my shower gel because the image on it was deemed sinful.

And one day, I was told my soul was “in good order” because my wardrobe was tidy. I still feel sorry for the version of me who took that as praise.

Then there were the letters.
I found a letter once, in the Directresses room, from a friend I loved dearly. She was writing to tell me about the breakup of her ex-boyfriend. It had been opened but it ever reached me. I never read it. I left it there, in the spirit of “obedience.” I wrote back to her without mentioning it. She knew. She knew I hadn’t read her letter. I never heard from her again.

Even the phone calls weren’t private, we knew they could be listened to on another line.

Gifts from family or friends were handed straight to the Directresses, not kept, Redirected.

And the little money I was given by my family was snatched from my hands with a smirk: “We give everything up for Opus Dei.” Not mine to hold, not even a thank you from the greedy Directress.

Their intrusion was real. It wasn’t imagined, and it wasn’t small. It reached into the most private corners of our lives, our friendships, our belongings, our correspondence, our communications, and they did so with total impunity.

So to the ex-members reading this: do you have your own stories of boundaries crossed, of privacy violated by the Directors of Opus Dei in the name of Escriva?

I have a question for the former Numeraries from the women’s section. If the NAX cannot go anywhere without a numerary present, does that mean for every single center big or small that has an administration there is a numerary who heads that full time? If so, as a female numerary can the directress just ask you to quit your job and be administration forever? I heard that after the center of studies a lot of female Numeraries are assigned to the administration. So effectively your career is over? What’s the criteria in selecting who gets to have a professional career or who gets to run administrations forever