Well heres my story and I'm sticking to it :)
My grandmother became a witness when my mom was a teenager. My mom became one when I was 4. That would be in 1954. I remember going to the international convention in NY at the Yankee Stadium and Polo grounds. I have pictures of my grandmother and grandfather sitting at contribution boxes. My dad did Lithuanian translation for the talks. I have a million slides of it if anyone is interested. I was baptized the first time when I was about 10. (I can't remeber the exact age) I still remember portraying being in the New World in a skit with a stuffed lion on the stage at a circuit assembly. I remember the days when women covered their head on the platform. My mother always used alot of guilt messages with me to get me to be a good Witness. "Don't you love Jehovah"? " Don't you want to live in the New World?"
Along with a righteous indignation that we were right about the holidays, I secretly wished I could be honest about the excitement of looking at the kids in costumes at Halloween and the colored lights twinkling in the snow at Christmas.
Two of my aunts and uncles became witnesses also. I'm sure some of you who were Witness children in the 60's and 70's experienced the fear that I did. I had many nightmares and dreams of finding places to hide when the great tribulation came and "they" came to persecute us. I also found out in this time that my dad was molesting my friend and some other little girls that he studied with; but, my mother never turned him in to the Witnesses. I guess that would have disrupted her life to much. I met a man who was studying to be a Witness in 1971. One thing led to another and we got disfellowshipped for fornication. So I wore my figurative big "F" on my chest. I was very repentent and wrote my letter to get back and was reinstated. Eight years and two children later my husband and I are getting a divorce and I decide to go to a therapist to help me through it. It seemed to be the thing to do at the time. My mother was really against this and to this day my mother blames her for me not being a Witness. In truth, I had started having doubts long before that, probably when the end didn't come in 1975. Boy, thats a long story in itself that I am sure you are all familiar with. My therapist helped me to not be afraid and to think for myself. I was so afraid of demons and never being good enouph and of the end of the world. She never told me what to do. A big moment in my life was after a session one night when I sat in the bath tub and my arms slowly wrapped around my own shoulders. It was a spontaneouos thing. Trembling, I cried "Cheri, I love you, you are a good person". I can't express the intensity of the feelings that flowed through me. Next, I went to the library and looked up every thing I could find about JWs. I found out their "real" history and that there were people up there in NY making the rules and regulations of JWs. Not God. Then I started reading the Bible from the beginning without the fear that I had always had.
I moved into an apartment over the man who is now my husband of almost 20 years. My mom found a beer bottle by my bed and asked me what was going on. I of course, didn't believe in lying so I told her. She of course went to the elders. (to be continued, I have to be somewhere tonight)