Clara Salaman’s mother and father raised her within an austere spiritual organisation. The society came first – even before family. She rebelled and the fall-out continues

When I was about eight years old, when things started to go wrong at school, myself to the springs of my mattress with my pyjamas. My mother would untie me, force me into my hideous uniform then send me and my brother out into the early morning, bound for Archway tube station in London. My brother wanted nothing to do with me, clad as I was in my ridiculous outfit; he would whistle nonchalantly, fingers in his ears as I caught up with him on the southbound platform. Our childhoods were riddled with embarrassments.

For legal reasons I am not allowed to go into any detail about the organisation that our parents were members of. But it was a self-styled, extremely strict, truth-seeking, spiritual society that demanded an extraordinary amount from its members. Commitment had to be absolute. The organisation came first in its members’ lives. The then leader ruled with fear. If questions were asked, the challenger was shunned.

My brother, sister and myself hated the leader – and the organisation – with a passion. In our eyes they had stolen our parents from us. They had turned us into weirdos. We saw the way our friends looked at us when our parents paused before lunch, eyes tightly shut, chanting ancient Sanskrit prayers before and after each meal. And the look on our relatives’ faces on holiday as my mother and father disappeared daily at dusk into a dim room where they could be found, palms upturned, eyelids quivering, deep in meditation.

As a child, all I ever wanted was to be normal. Like Mel, my next door neighbour. Her family were properly normal. They were allowed to eat meat and watch television. Mel even did beautiful tap-dancing shows. In their house they had lovely posters of kittens tumbling about in balls of string, instead of the shelves of holy books we had. Mel seemed utterly glamorous to me. She wore tight leotards and short shorts; next door, in my world, trousers and nylon were banned. Women in the organisation were only allowed to wear long ground-brushing skirts.

My mother and father had met through the organisation as young people looking “for something more to this world” in the early 1960s. Ever since then, the organisation has been their life. They go out separately twice a week in the evening for classes and twice at weekends for group activities, which include calligraphy classes, chanting sessions and meditation groups. There are long weekends away, and three times a year they go to the organisation’s house in the country for a whole week. My mother would even leave us as newborns. We three children used to stand at the window watching her drive off before wordlessly retreating to our separate rooms.

In 1975, the organisation opened its own school. I was one of the guinea-pig students, shortly followed by my brother. Break the rules and you were severely punished. Television was strictly prohibited, as was pop music, radio, books (except specific holy ones), magazines, cameras, makeup, meat, cooked food and numerous other aspects of modern life. The organisation was a way of life, so the rules applied both at home and at school. Some parents were more fundamentalist than others, but there was not a lot of difference between them.

My sister, who is almost five years older than me, was initially too old for the school, but when it opened up to older pupils she flatly refused to go. Instead she went to Camden School for Girls, the trendiest school in London. The gulf between us could not have been wider. She tried hard to protect us, not to lose us as well as our parents.

She made my brother and I cut ourselves and rub our blood together swearing that we would never become one of “them”. But it was no use; on her walls hung posters of David Bowie, on mine flapped ancient Sanskrit prayers. While I was being sent off on spiritual retreats full of early rises, meditation, chanting, scrubbing floors and serving teachers, my sister and her gang were out snogging boys, watching Madness at The Dublin Castle and being normal. She seemed indescribably cool to me: her Flip clothing, her cigarette smell, the way she slammed her bedroom door in my face, her friends in their Levi 501s who’d call round, and say “Hiyaaaa”.

At school I did all I could to make my sister proud. I flew the flag of rebellion, creating an enemy of immense proportions: the headmistress. We hated each other. She hated the fact that I was popular, that other teachers liked me, that I asked questions. But above all she seemed to hate my hair: it was too thick, too blond, too curly and too shiny.

When I was 14 things got very bleak. Schoolfriends were not allowed to talk or make contact with me. At the time I felt the only logical choice left to me was suicide. I always think my parents should have intervened then; they should have stood up and left the organisation, taking me with them, but they didn’t. My father had given up his job as a civil servant to work at the school and was a highly respected member. He had risen within the ranks and was one of the leader’s favourites. He believed that what the organisation stood for was greater than the concerns of the individual, even if the individual happened to be your flesh and blood. I hated him for that.

In an establishment of that kind, there is nowhere to turn. Outside friendships are not encouraged; your family is in it, your doctor is in it, your dentist, your builder, even the milkman was in it. The organisation had become pretty much self-sufficient. I felt totally isolated. By that stage, my sister had given up on me; we were like strangers. My brother was going through his own torments. Although we had everything in common, we were miles apart.

Finally, to my great relief, I was expelled. It was a shock to be out and I was too proud to admit that I felt lost; I didn’t belong inside the organisation and I didn’t belong outside of it. I was sent to a boarding school in Oxford where my time passed in a blaze of freedom. I remember feeling I was finally free, as I lounged on a sofa watching Top of the Pops among normal teenagers who knew all the words to the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams. Fortunately I shared a room with a Japanese girl and two Nigerians who, like me, didn’t understand any of the teenage cultural reference points so I was never outed as a weirdo.

It wasn’t until this stage in our family life that we siblings began to establish proper relationships – relationships not founded on a shared loathing. None of us were living at home any more; my brother (who was also asked to leave the school) and I were at boarding schools and my sister was at university – already set on being a social worker. I had decided I wanted to be an actor. The rows and traumas had finally ceased; although there was one subject guaranteed to kick us off – the organisation – so we steered clear of it. Finally, we all felt part of the normal world, and from this vantage point I began to see my parents differently. For the first time I began to appreciate them, despite the fact they were still in the organisation.

Four years ago, my brother was involved in setting up a website for ex-pupils of our generation to share their experiences. It was both fascinating and disturbing to see the contributions. As a result of the website, an independent inquiry took place looking into allegations of abuse and mistreatment. The inquiry concluded that there had been “mental and physical mistreatment of children”.

I am not interested in blame or living a life of anger. It may be surprising, but I still have a good relationship with my parents. Humour has been a strong familial glue and in fact the whole family is holidaying together this summer. My father is a man of utmost loyalty, though his loyalty is, to this day, to the organisation. That is the way it has always been. I struggled against it until I left home but eventually accepted it, as did we all. Besides, we have never known any different. Due to organisation commitments, my father nearly didn’t make it to my wedding. It is perfectly possible for me to love him without respecting all of his choices. In many ways he is an exceptional human being; he is a very loving man, his mind is brilliant, his life’s work has been translating the works of the renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino; his head is long buried in ancient sands. Likewise, my mother has always worked hard to be a good organisation member, but she’s a naturally mischievous person. She always sympathised with my plight, having been in trouble herself at school. Her loyalties were torn, but ultimately she has always put her marriage first.

Because of my parents’ ongoing involvement with the organisation, we have been unable to let things lie. Our pasts are inescapable. I still find it unbearable when one or other of them casually keeps me up to date with the daily antics of some past tormentor, though everything I hear about the school today suggests things have changed for the better. Sometimes I don’t think my parents realise how fundamentally we have all been affected by the organisation. Because of my early experiences, I learnt to build a cocoon around myself. I rarely cry, am fiercely resilient and unsentimental.

I realise now that I have two sons of my own, that it’s not easy bringing up children, and trite as it sounds, I do believe that my parents thought they were doing the right thing. I shall, however, be steering my own children well away from any whiff of organised religion. No doubt, one day one of my boys will end up writing articles in the Guardian criticising my parenting skills from the cloisters of his monastery.

In the last few weeks something extraordinary has happened. The organisation found out that I have written a novel – a thriller – inspired by my childhood experiences and wrote to my publishers checking that the book would be carrying the “all characters are fictitious” disclaimer. They also asked for a pre-publication copy of the book to see whether they would need to take legal advice. My parents were furious; my father felt that no spiritual organisation should ever get litigious; my mother, 48 years later, has left the organisation. When she told me, I felt like I was walking on air, finally her support felt tangible. Twenty-five years on, it seemed at last someone was listening.

• Clara Salaman’s novel Shame on You is published on 6 August by Penguin at £7.99.