Welcome, joyfulfader.
Your story about the underhanded things done by the elders sounds very familiar.
When my teen daughter did a few normal teen things with her friends, she faced a committee of five men who berated, humiliated, and verbally beat her, and began accusing her of fornication (which she didn't do), lesbianism (because sleep overs are "lesbian training grounds") and being in a "girl gang" (she was an honor student who had never been in trouble in school or anywhere else-the only "group" she was in was the Latin Honor Society). But as you know, truth is what the elders say.
After df'ing my daughter without explanation, since she never admitted to fornication (there were no witnessess, no accusations from anyone). We later found out after questioning that she was df'd for 'disregarding counsel' since it seemed she didn't want to answer their questions.
Then they went after my husband, who was an elder. They told him he did not preside over his household correctly, and when he felt badly and offered to step down, they wouldn't let him.
You just can't make stuff like this up-they told him they were removing him as an elder, so the next meeting, the head b@#t@^d on the df committee for my daughter stepped up to the platform to make an announcement and said, "We have some good news for the congregation-brother Quandry's husband is no longer an elder and we have two auxiliary pioneers this month." Needless to say the audience sat in stunned silence and no one clapped for the pioneers, as usually happens.
My daughter went through a horribly depressed period, as you can imagine, but to her credit, she went on to college and recently got her degree in Biology.
I decided to get my degree, and will finish in Dec. with the last two classes. I will be 61 but will have a degree in History.
My husband has had a hard time dealing with the anger left from all we went through, but we are "out" together and try to find enjoyment in every day-and at least the days belong to us now.
I hope that you don't spend too much time worrying about what you believe. Just give yourself time to slowly sort things out. Maybe travel, get involved in a hobby that you wouldn't allow yourself to do when you thought it would take time away from "spiritual pursuits." Enjoy doing things with your daughter, and encouraging her to get that education so that she'll be equiped to make decisions and care for herself in the future.
Glad you are here with us and I feel that good things are in your future!