Well it's been exactly 2 years and 2 weeks since the night where I investigated (googled) as much about JWs as I could after being born and raised in the cult till my mid 20s. It took just one all nighter to completely demolish all of the doctrines and bullshit of the religion. Basically after that I went to one more convention and have not stepped into a kingdom hall since. I've ignored all the elders calls and they have ignored me, my fade is going well on that front.
Life is strange, the first few months of me leaving were painful but also happy. I made new friends and had such an optimistic outlook on the world, thinking I could accomplish and do things I truly wanted. I have maintained all my family relationships which I am very happy about. I've lost basically all my JW friends which is not surprising and I thought that would happen as it usually does.
Life has become more complicated as of late. I have a bunch of issues with myself that I'm trying to resolve and I should probably see a therapist about. A major thing for me is I still feel like an outcast in this "world" and feel like my social skills are poor due to avoiding contact with "worldly people". I do realize a lot of that is my personality but if I do hang out with a "worldly" group of early to late 20 year olds, they have stories which I just can't relate to at times. Like having multiple partners, wild parties, crazy trips... I spent my teens and early 20s being a good JW and felt like I shouldn't date till ready for marriage. Now I'm finding dating really hard because I just don't have the experience and I'm awkward. I have pretty low self-esteem and I know some of that is the constant guilt and fear I had growing up. I'm trying to improve it, as I see that people will generally walk all over you if they detect weakness, but it's just so damn hard.
I'm not blaming the JWs for all my issues, I realize now I have the ball on these things and I it's up to me to make things better. I will say it was nice to have a hope to lean on, and sometimes, just sometimes I wish I could go back to the comfort of the organization but I obviously never will. Just the feeling of belonging to something wholesome and working towards a greater purpose, not all the little bullshit politics we had to put up with.
I used to frequent the forums and read JW related books a lot when I was first fading, now that has drastically gone down in importance for me.
I'd like to hear from people who have been fading and what positive and negative things they have found or if they can relate to my experience at all.