My doubts actually started while I was younger. I remember learning in a World History class in high school that the date for the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was not 607 BC. I shrugged it off at first. Then while pioneering, I started seeing some inconsistencies in some other teachings when some "new light" came out. I remember showing my father one of them and he said to me "Gee, I hope there are not any more apostates on the Governing Body like there were before" (He was referring to the Ray Franz incident.)
I went to Bethel and saw the politics. It really helped me to see the organizational leaders as humans and not these almost "inspired" leaders that I was taught to follow. While at Bethel I started having discussions with other Bethelites about things and started reading older literature. This created more doubts. By the time I left Bethel, I would say that I still believed that the JWs taught "the truth" but that the organization was becoming corrupt and too political.
I left Bethel and got married and started college. I pretty much threw myself into my schoolwork. However, I started doing some research and started reading the writings of former JWs. The first one I read was Carl Jonnsen's book on the Gentile Times. It was extremely well written and well researched. I was impressed.
By this time, I was having a hard time going from door to door because I could no longer support the nonsense that the JWs teach with regard to the year 1914. Also, during this time, I read books by Ray Franz, Jim Penton, and David Reed.
I shared the information with my wife who became inactive soon thereafter. Once I graduated from college, I went on to graduate school in Arkansas. I was an inactive JW with no intention of really becoming active again but I was still living in what I like to call limbo so as not to offend any JW relatives.
About that time in 1995 the change in the generation of 1914 doctrine occurred and I had just recently gotten online and met people like AF, Ros, and others. They seemed to know about the change before it occurred. I got the article and that was the last straw for me.
My wife and I left the JWs completely within about a year. I received lots of support from my internet ex-JW and internet Christian friends during those very trying years.
I do not think my exit from the JW cult would have happened as quickly or as smoothly if it had not been for the support network that I received via the internet.
Jeff S.