I was raised in the so-called truth. If you read my profile, the first thing is that I really thought JW's had the truth. I really bought into it.
But after enough jolts, I finally got the picture you're now getting.
COME HERE TO VENT - whenever you need to. You have our total empathy, sister (if you don't mind me calling you that).
As far as fading vs. DA'ing yourself, it's your choice - just move carefully whatever you do. There's no graceful way to leave Watchtower-world, especially if you're in a high profile position. Some people have switched congregations, then faded out.
They get the 6 and a half million publisher count from either the average number of publishers during the service year (September to August) or from the totalling the peak publishers per country who turned in field service reports.