Cicily Baardseth prevailed time and again against the odds, but it was not until she found Scientology that she finally made sense of it all. Her profile is one of 200 “Meet a Scientologist” videos available on the Scientology website at www.scientology.org.

Cicily Baardseth is a survivor.

Born in India and placed in foster care at birth by the mother she never met, she escaped a dead-end life of poverty when adopted at age six by a Swedish family who brought her to their country.

But her new mother, prone to erratic behavior, fought endlessly with Baardseth’s new brother and sister, both also adopted from India. Baardseth learned to avoid these conflicts by navigating around her mother’s moods, but her strife-ridden home raised questions about life in general and her mother’s behavior in particular.

She began working at a nursing home when she was 15—a job she didn’t like but which allowed her to distance herself from the situation at home. Then in 2002, she turned her love of cooking into a career, training as a chef.

The day she completed her training, Baardseth, now 33, called her brother Patrick—who had left Sweden as soon as he could move away from home—to share the good news. Sitting in a restaurant when he received the call, Patrick asked the owner if he needed a cook. He did, and Baardseth promptly moved to Norway to take the job.

Unable to make it to the airport to pick her up, Patrick asked his close friend Neils, a Scientologist, to meet her plane.

“We spent five hours together talking about life,” she says. “In addition to everything else I liked about him, Neils had an astonishing grasp of human behavior and spirituality.”

Here was a new perspective on the problems that had puzzled her since childhood.

The couple began dating and one evening when Baardseth was to meet Neils at the Church of Scientology of Oslo, she decided to walk inside and find out more.

“I was looking for answers,” she says. “I was troubled by what I’d seen and experienced in life. If Scientology could help me make sense of this, I was interested.”

She enrolled on a Scientology course and soon came to understand what caused her mother’s uncontrolled rages. Through Scientology spiritual counseling, she also addressed and overcame her feelings of instability.

“I feel free from past burdens and eager to take on the future. I look at life from a new viewpoint,” says Baardseth.

With a career she loves and a happy marriage to Neils, Baardseth has arrived at a point in her life she had always hoped to reach.

“Scientology has increased my understanding of life, people and how to survive,” she says. “I have fewer and fewer problems because I understand life the way I’d always wanted to.”

View the Cicily Baardseth video at www.scientology.org.

The popular “Meet a Scientologist” profiles on the Church of Scientology International Video Channel at Scientology.org now total 200 broadcast-quality documentary videos featuring Scientologists from diverse locations and walks of life. The personal stories are told by Scientologists who are educators, teenagers, skydivers, a golf instructor, a hip-hop dancer, IT manager, stunt pilot, mothers, fathers, dentists, photographers, actors, musicians, fashion designers, engineers, students, business owners and more.

A digital pioneer and leader in the online religious community, in April 2008 the Church of Scientology became the first major religion to launch its own YouTube Video Channel. The Official Scientology YouTube Channel has now been viewed by millions of visitors.