First, I am not a scientologist and only have info secondhand mostly from reading Tony Ortega's reports in the Village Voice and the series that a FL newspaper did a couple years back (I think St Petersburg?) But I'll give you what I've gotten from those and a few other sources.
1 Awareness - The CoS retains a ton of lawyers and private investigators and they go after any news source that tries to expose them HARD. Just take a look at journalist Paulette Cooper, they tried to railroad her and almost succeeded by planting evidence that
she intended to bomb Kissinger and others! They also sued Time for defamation after they wrote an article in the 90s, they did not succeed but they never intended to do so. They knew that they could cost
Time a ton of money in lawyers and court fees. Other magazines and newspapers got the hint and avoided writing about Scientology after that. What they are doing is something called "Fair Game", one of the Leah Remini episodes is about this.
3 Self Controlling - Definitely. Those who escape still hope to have relationships with family and friends on the inside. They think that if they don't rock the boat too much then they won't be declared a "suppressive person" and cut off from everyone they love, this is called "Disconnection". Leah and others talk about this in the show. Also, those on the inside honestly believe they are not only saving the world, but the entire universe. That makes it okay to lie about and destroy outsiders and especially suppressive people, because these people are disrupting that goal. They also are taught that outsiders are the enemy, even if they hear negative things about the church they don't believe it.
4 Money - this goes back to 1. All the lawyers and private detectives paid to harass those who go against Scientology. I've never heard of them paying anyone to be quiet, just harassment and making people's lives miserable if they cross CoS or Miscavige.
5 Celebrities - T
here have been many who left and some spoken out against the church, but I think Leah has been the biggest and best known, that's made all the difference.
6 Treated Fine - The ones who have been treated the worst are Sea Org members, these are basically the clergy of CoS. The Billion Year Contract people. They work ungodly hours, like 70-80 hrs a week and are paid at most $50 a week, sometimes they get nothing. Live crammed together in cockroach infested rooms sometimes, many sharing a single bathroom etc. And it's the ones at the top that are speaking to Leah, they are leaving because Miscavige is paranoid and thinks they are all trying to topple him. You have to remember that L Ron Hubbard was paranoid too, but of outsiders, he wrote the books and created the religion. No one was going to topple him, on the other hand, Miscavige grabbed the reins. There isn't a particular reason why he should be "pope of the CoS" and he knows it. If I remember correctly there were at least two, and possibly more, that were in line before Miscavige, who were closer and more trusted by Hubbard. So it's these top people who are being imprisoned, and made to sleep on the floor in that makeshift jail, eating from dirty buckets, beaten and tortured because Miscavige doesn't trust them.
Average people aren't fine either though. They are pressured into giving every nickel and all their spare time to the church. They are expected to buy all these books, tapes, coursework, for moving up the bridge. They are pressured to pay in advance for this. If you say you don't have the money, they will bring in people to help you figure out how to mortgage (second, third) your home or have you sign up for credit cards and loans to pay. I wish I could remember which episode, but Leah said she was at the church every day. That is not unusual, it's expected of everyone. Hubbards books are in every library in the country, that's because Scientologists are expected to donate books to libraries, which of course they must pay for. They also have several programs and projects that are CoS based, like the rehab in Oklahoma. You're expected to donate for those things too. They find every way they can to squeeze you for money and time.
8 Church - You really need to look into what they did to the IRS for that church status. They had over 1000 lawsuits against the IRS and it's agents as well as private detectives finding dirt on those agents etc. The IRS basically caved, they agreed to give them church status if they made all the lawsuits go away.