Actually, this is my second post as I replied to a thread a few moments ago, but it turns out I originally registered eight years ago but had never posted.
I left in 2000 (from a Newport, S Wales, congregation) having been brought up in it from about the age of three. Initially, I was obsessed with research and posting to forums but got over it after a few years and just rediscovered this site a couple of days ago. I just thought it would be worth posting my account of leaving in case it helped others.
I always considered myself to be "strong in the truth" and genuinely believed it,, but I suppose the amount of suppressed doubts had been mounting up and I think it was the summer of 1999 when I first thought of leaving. Subconciously, I knew it wasn't right, although I could never bring myself to search the internet for "evidence". The reviewing of "apostate sites" would only come after I declared my leaving.
I was a pioneer, MS and, at just 26, being discussed as eldership material (as I later heard). I asked to be removed from the pioneer list, but they virtually said no so I carried on but just didn't put the hours in. For a few months in advance, I pinpointed the week after the visit of the circuit overseer as the time to come out of it (January 2000). All this time, I don't think anyone really suspected anything was up.
I was due to do a public talk the week after that circuit visit. It was all-new material and I hadn't prepared it at all. I think it was four days before the said public talk that I told the presiding overseer I was having doubts and couldn't do it. I had intended it to be a clean break but somehow ended up continuing to go to meetings for a further 3-4 weeks. Even after telling people I no longer beileved in it, they still had me continuing in my "priveledge" of doing the sound system, doing a prayer at a book study and went out on the ministry once.
Breaking away was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I knew it would mean the end of almost everything I had ever known. I worked from home so had no friends at all outside the JWs. But for me, "fading away" (ie just not going to meetings but saying I still believed it) was not an option. I guess it's mainly my honest personality. I know many people continue in it for years without really believeing in it, but I couldn't do that - even if that meant being ostracised by everyone. I was still living at home, but I feared that my parents (who were witnesses) would throw me out of the house.
As it turned it, though, eventually both parents came out of it too, I believe mainly after many discussions with me after I'd left. Never underestimate the power of family ties. It is sometimes stronger than religious beliefs. They knew I wasn't daft and they were prepared to listen to what I had to say.