As of the first week of February I had my one year shunniversary and I'm just now getting around to commemorating it and what better way to do that than share my story here.
Im a fourth generation jdub. My greatgrandparents learned the "truth" on their farm back east somewhere and now here i am with a whole lot of jw indoctrination and a huge jw family.
I first began to wake up in November 2011 when the two part series came out in the watchtower on the discrepancy of the destruction of Jerusalem dates. Was it 587 or 607? My husband, bless him, had said to me a couple months prior that he wanted to start taking a closer look at the 1914 doctrine because some of the dating calculations didn't seem right ( he's a total numbers guy and is extremely good at math) so when these two part articles came out the timing was just amazing and helped us to start seeing the holes in the societies reasoning.
My husband not having been raised jw found it easy to question the organization but I dragged my feet. The conflict going on in my head was torturous and I kept trying to give the society the benefit of the doubt. As a result I had quite a few yelling matches with my hubby but I'm so glad he had the patience and respect to back off whenever I had to shut down. He kept slowly sharing tidbits of his research with me which in the beginning was only things the society had printed (cause you know, I didn't want to see any apostate material ) Lucky for us our kingdom hall actually had old copies of Russell's Studies in the Scriptures in the library and that was a huge eye opener. 1874, whaaaaat??
After a year of looking into things we decided to attend a local churches bible study group to get another perspective and wow it was so freeing to hear a non dogmatic bible discussion. 6 months later I attended an actual church service at the same local nondenominational church. Very ackward for me at first so I only went a handful of time but very informative and proof that there are other Christians.
Despite all the things I was learning and the fact I was convinced the witnesses didn't have the "truth", I was still trying to hang on. I kept thinking that they don't have it perfectly right but that they have a lot of good things going for them and the ability to adjust and change so what's to keep them from eventually getting back on the right track and then I can be a part of them again. It was dear old Ray Franz's book that finally broke this line of thinking and the need to somehow still be connected with the jdubs. Crisis of Conscience was the final freeing tool.
From there I went to less and less meetings and field service was out of the question due to the 1914 doctrine(, I didn't want to defend that crap). We finally had some discussions with our elders telling that we basically didn't want to go in service anymore because we couldn't in good conscience preach anything to do with 1914 doctrine because we saw it completely as false, and Jesus second coming according to math 24 is clearly suppose to be visible. They basically said that's fine, don't talk to anyone about it and just keep coming to meetings. Well it was hard not to talk to my family because my parents were in the same hall as us so my mom especially was in my ear letting me know my relationship with jehovah was at stake when the whole time I was feeling quite the opposite. I felt the more and more I moved away from the jw doctrine the more I felt I could have a real spiritual relationship with god .
Little did I know the nail in my coffin was about to be sealed. I wish I had paid attention to this site a year and a half ago otherwise I might have known to keep my mouth shut and know how to fade properly. Anyways things got real with my parents about September or October, I can't remember exactly which month that the July 15th 2013 watchtower was studied in the kingdom hall but of course the 1914 doctrine got adjusted again and actually justified some of what we had been saying to my parents regarding the visibility of Jesus coming and the timing of things but they didn't want to admit we had been right. I had a discussion with my dad about our church attendance and from there I had the elders wanting to meet with me and telling me I was worshipping with unbelievers which I adamantly didn't agree with them. They formed the judicial committee against my hubby first and Diassociated him the day after Christmas. They formed my JC the next month but I did not want to meet with them unless they granted me an appeal, allowed me witnesses, and a whole bunch of other requests I spelled out in a nice long letter to them (they were very brutal with my husband and I was not going to let the same happen to me with out proof). I never heard back from them, these elders and friends I had known my whole life wrote me off like I was nothing. Officially I think I'm DA'd but maybe they booted me as a no show to my trial. Oh well I'm a thousand percent happier despite loosing a lot of family. I'll be forever grateful to my wonderful husband on helping me escape that cult and helping me get back my critical thinking.