Just thought I would introduce myself, as it seems a bit rude not to. This, in a nut shell, is my story.
I was a third generation witness and I did all the normal stuff we were expected to do. Left school early, pioneered, went to bethel, MS and all that palava. My family was tight-knit and very close, with me and my two sisters all pioneering together back in the mid eighties. I was in the Australian bethel from 1986-1989. I left bethel to get married to a hot pioneer chick and we were married for 10 years.
I had a number of nagging doubts but I was a big-shot in the local cong so i just buried them all at the back of mind, soaking up the adulation of the lesser members (what a knob I must have been!).
During the early nineties, I signed up for one of those book-of-the-month clubs where they send you a new book each month at a discount rate. All was going well for me until one particular month they sent me biography of Charles Darwin. I was going to send it back, but decided to have a quick look at it, maybe read a couple of pages just to see how wrong it all was.
It was the turning point of my life.
I quickly became engrossed in it. Suddenly I understood evolution. It made perfect logical sense. I instantly realised that Darwinian evolution was the sole reason that there is life on earth. I still remember the thrill of realising that I was not beholden to an arbitrary, jealous arsehole of a god.
About this time my wife and I moved way out into the country, ostensibly to where the need was greater. However, I simply dropped out. I was reappointed as an MS but only gave one talk and then I gave up going to meetings altogether. I had already given up on door-knocking. My wife also stopped attending meetings regularly and started just making up her report card so she wouldn't be hassled by the elders. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Why hadn't we always done that?
But then our families got involved. They descended on us like plagues trying to save us. When they realised they couldn't change my mind they started the emotional blackmail and the nastiness. And that's when the pain started. Among much else, I remember my sister telling me that she wished that I had cancer rather then leave the truth. That stung! Still does. It was one of the last things that she said to me before she cut me off. My brother rang me up and said that I was not to come to his wedding. My other sister left my house never to speak to me again.
It was such a shock. These people who I had most loved and valued all my life and who loved and respected me, were now hurting me and abusing me in the most accutely painful manner possible. I took it pretty badly. I suffered a severe depressive illness. I blamed myself for hurting them so badly, for letting them down. I spiralled down into a drug and alchohol problem and ended up in a pretty bad way. I lost everything including my marriage.
It took me about 5 years to get over about 50% of the hurt. And about another 10 years to get over 50% of the remainder. I don't think I will ever get over it entirely. It took me years just to admit to someone that I used to be jw, so embarrassed and ashamed was I of my past. I felt it was a character flaw, evidence of some intrinsic weakness to allow myself to have been so severely and profoundly mislead.
I decided that education was the thing for me. So I went back and completed high school and then went to university. I have now completed two degrees, one in the arts and one in science majoring in evolutionary biology. I have travelled the world extensively. I have a new partner who supports and loves me and even respects me for being true to myself.
15 years on and still hurts a bit, although not every day, and even then, no where as much as it used to.
Thanks for reading my story.