I have written another blog about the damage I've suffered from being a JW. It's located at http://blog.myspace.com/improg.
Here is the content if you don't feel like going to myspace.
I didn't realize until this year, how much baggage I'm still carrying around from my many years associated with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
From my experience, I believe that organization is both a cult and destructive. There are a lot of reasons why I say this, but one of the primary ones is related to the view they paint of God. From almost the first day of your Bible study with the Witnesses, you learn that God is going to destroy all those people who aren't following the rules dictated by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society.
If you don't attend meetings regularly, you are showing disrespect for God and He's going to let Christ Jesus kill you at Armageddon. If you don't preach enough, He's likewise going to be mad at you and all you'll have to look forward to is being destroyed by His executioner. What happens with all this negative programming, is that you start to see God, not as a loving, helpful Father, but as a vindictive madmen, ready to exact vengeance for the pettiest of crime.
On the one hand, they exhort you to draw close to God and on the other, they paint a picture of God that is worse than mankind's worst criminals. Adolf Hitler killed millions of Jews in World War 2. But those deaths are not even a percentage point of the billions that would be killed if Armageddon were to happen today.
If questioned, the witnesses will answer that who gets destroyed is left up to Jehovah (what they believe is God's personal name). But in reality, they teach that all other religions are from Satan the Devil and an abomination before God that will be destroyed in the fast-approaching Great Tribulation. So, while they side-step the question of whether they believe that only Jehovah's Witnesses will be saved, that is exactly what is taught in the Kingdom Halls.
They also teach that if you ever stop being a Jehovah's Witness once you have been baptized that you are condemned and are simply killing time until God destroys you. So, between the indoctrinated belief that God now hated me because I couldn't follow their Byzantine collection of rules and regulations – a collection of rules and regulations that more resembles the teachings of the Pharisees than those of Jesus – and the fear of living in a universe run by an emotionally unwell God, I have a mound of worthless baggage that I carry around every day.
I'm making a lot of progress though. I'm recognizing the negative beliefs and thoughts that kept me shackled to that dysfunctional religion and I'm replacing them with ones that are rational, empowering, and based on love.