So I hit the 500 post milestone. Wow, a lot has changed for me, mostly for the better, since I joined JWD on 12/13/07. When I joined, I had just mentally 'snapped' the day before, and broke out of the mind control. I knew it wasn't the truth, and proudly I did this with my own discernment. So no influence from any apostates!
I came to the realization I am an Atheist. Wow. How can a strong fundamentalist Christian JW become an Atheist? I wondered if anyone else had done so, so I did a Yahoo search on JWs becoming Atheist. I very quickly found JWD, and found stories very similar to mine. I joined JWD, SO scared of being caught, I made up a fake Yahoo email address, and a fake name "Robert" to mask it all. (Sorry, my real name isn't Robert :) )
This may sound corny but it's true.... For the next many months I spent a lot of time on JWD 'detoxifying' from the mind-control. It was my life-blood. I was able to communicate my doubts openly, and get the answers I needed. I was able to learn the real truth of The Truth. Since Dec 2007 I was willing to go only to Sunday meeting to keep my wife happy. However, that ended quickly.
NO ONE tried to keep me in. I was dumped with the trash. Elders came once, I told them my doubts, which I knew they didn't have answers for. Just 'we need an organization' and 'where else will you go'. Other that that literally NO phone calls, nothing. On one hand I'm glad, because I would have just probably DAd, on the other hand it showed me how shallow and conditional the relationships really are. How they claim to be loving, how the shepherd leaves the flock to rescue the one, but in practice this is false.
I started a masters program this month, studying for my MBA. With all this new free time with no meetings, the timing was right. My mom thinks I'm evil. She will barely talk to me. She has such a persecution complex that she reads into everything that I do as apostate. I know it's really hard on her, but I blame the Society for putting their members in this position. She lives in Chicago (I'm in NC) so we don't talk too often anyway, so it's not too hard on me.
I still think about 'the truth' almost daily. It still bothers me, and hence I still visit JWD almost daily. Surprisingly I am still not DFd.
MY WIFE (New Light For You) http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/member/31182
At first she was very opposed to me leaving. She got on her JW high-horse and started going out in service several days a week, and making all the meetings. Religion for the first time became an arguing point, and it was not good. This time last year I thought there was a strong chance we'd get divorced if she stayed in.
However, she listened, at least a little at first. The points I brought up were starting to make sense to her, and slowly the mind-control was softening. Her biggest thing that changed here was researching the history of the WTS on Wikipedia. She saw what Russel did, and how Rutherford took over and changed everything. The entire history has so many holes in it, it couldn't be the truth, especially since they were the 'true religion' in 1919. So this was a huge advancement.
Then she found my copy of Crisis of Conscience, which I thought I hid well. Curiosity got to her, and she actually read it! At the end, she sat down in my office while I was working and said "so what if this is not the truth". Huge progress!
So now the ramifications start. What about the friends? She had a number of wonderful truely good (although conditional) friends. There was one in particular who was a once-in-a-lifetime friend, that she may never get again. How scary of a thought to lose them! But she couldn't have both, leaving the faith, and the friends, and the dissonance in the faith was SO strong, she knew she was going to leave and lose them.
So for this one incredible friend, she texted her looking for support saying "I think Robert7 may be right", and instead of supporting her, it was the absolute beginning of the end. On a phone call a few weeks later she said that she thinks she doesn't believe in The Truth anymore, and the friend said, "then we cannot be friends" and it was over. A single sentance can kill a friendship!
She is still depressed about all this, and I feel horrible for her. I feel horrible because I have been an aweful husband and have not supported her as well as I should have. She is frightened by not knowing what happens when we die. Part of her wishes she could be back in, just for the comfort of the congregation.
She has made a number of new friends, and slowly is building a new network. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
THE KIDS
Have a 5 year old son and 8 year old daughter. So we celebrate the holidays, and the kids act like they've celebrated them their whole lives. The younger son will very soon have no memories of meetings, and that is good.
Our daughter has one issue, which is the loss of a dear and close friend. This was the daugher of the good friend described above. When everything fell apart, the friend would not allow her daughter to play with ours, and just like that, with no ending it was over.
This was very hard on my daughter. She would and still will cry at bed how she misses her friend. I know at some level she is resentful for us stopping going to meetings because that is what stopped the friendships.
Overall kids are resilient and they will be fine.
So there has been a lot of change in 2008, but overall it has been good. I already had a network of friends outside that really helped with everything. I wasn't alone. They knew what I was going thru, and supported us. This makes a huge difference.
I sound like many people here on JWD, but given the 500 post milestond, I thought I'd give a personal story...
Thanks for listening...