What you are describing with all those meetings and such is not what I call fading. I called fading going to less and less meetings until you don't go anymore
Yes, fading means gradually disappearing.
To the already good points above, I would only add my two cents:
Once you decide to leave the dubs, the first thing you should do is plan an exit strategy. And by "plan" I mean think it through and write it down. Once you see it in front of you on paper, it all becomes clear. Based on what you have learned about the dynamic of your particular congregation and your own circumstances, an exit plan will emerge from this process. It gives you a place to start. It may change as you go along.
Example: I knew my first step was to resign as an elder. Then I realized I needed to change congregations. I also realized I would need a good excuse for missing a lot of meetings (at the beginning, before I completely disappeared). Once I mapped all this out and made the intellectual decision to leave, everything just fell into place. I'm convinced that was because we had a "plan," that we had visualized the process of no longer being a JW.
Both my wife and I unexpectedly came down with some health problems. Hers were more serious than mine, but neither condition lasted more than a few months. However, both conditions had the advantage of sounding like they could be more serious than they actually were (and we helped that along when we reported our ailments to our dub colleagues, by spinning the prognosis we got from the doctors). Looking after my sick wife became my excuse to "step aside" as an elder. Our respective illnesses then became an excuse to miss about half the meetings for a few months. Then we purposely skipped meetings for three weeks and waited for the call from the secretary asking for our FS report for the month. When it came, we told him we were moving to a hall closer to home which would be "easier for us to get to" given our illnesses. He faciliated the whole process by telling me he would send our cards and a letter to the secretary in that nearby hall immediately. Technically, he was supposed to wait for the other secretary to contact him and tell him we were attending before sending off cards and a letter. When this glitch in "theocratic" protocol occurred, it allowed us to speed up our game plan.
Instead of attending the new hall long enough to get our cards transfered, we decided just not to go and see what happened. About a month later, that new secretary called and asked me why he had received the letter and our cards. "Is this some kind of mistake?" he asked. I assured him we were indeed moving over but that we had been really ill and could not get out of the house. Since the letter he received had mentioned our recent illness, he was comfortable with that and said he would keep in touch with us. He only called one time that I know of, several weeks later, leaving a message to let us know if we needed anything. We never called back, never went to his KH.
With a very few exceptions, no one has called or come over or bothered us for three years. I am convinced it was due in part because we had a plan and worked the plan, and because transferring our cards to another congo confused their system and left them uncertain whose responsibility we were. This is where understanding dub dynamics comes in - elders hate this follow up stuff and if they can find a way to make it someone's else's job, they will.
Anyway, that's my experience. I'll leave you with one thought I got here on this forum years ago: The reason you fade is to buy time to make new friends and develop new interests, until you reach a place where you just don't care what the dubs think about you. You have to actively pursue those goals. We did, and it works.
