this is my first post on this site, and i feel very liberated and comfortable, so i have a feeling that this d/b may be a good thing for me.
my story (although to my "worldly" support group it sounds strange) is alot like many of yours. i was raised a witness, altough my parents have been inactive as long as i can remember. when i was 14, i was pulled out of school because of "bad associations" and started home schooling. serious family issues, a lack of affection and too much spare time on my hands were my reasons for starting regular attendance at the meetings when i was 15. the congregation took me in and became the family that i'd been longing for at home. looking back, i see how i used this against my parents. blaming my lack of communication with them on their inactivity, and that still weighs heavily on me now. regardless, i was baptized at 16, and started auxil pioneering immediately. a year later my dad was hurt in an accident and i quit pioneering and got a job. i remember feeling somewhat greatful for an excuse to quit full time service. i think that's when i began subconsciously pulling myself out of the grasp of the congregation. i became aware of the fact that my reasoning for doing so was a disappointment in the elders; who had never in our 6 years of being a part of the congregation, gave my parents a sheperding call! so i started requesting visits from the brothers. calling elders, crying at 17 years old, begging them to talk to my parents, to no avail. which made me even more resentful of the organization. when i was 18, after a few months of inactivity, the brothers came to my house to call on me. i realized then that the society is more concerned about keeping the people who owned titles (pioneer, ministerial servant, elder) and trying to convince outsiders to convert then there were of helping struggling ones like my parents! roumors had sperad about me in the few months i wasn't attending meetings, about me being sexually active and taking drugs, when really all i was doing was smoking cigarettes. which also angered me. but still, my mind was not my own, and i "confessed my sins", was privately reproved and had all of my privlidges taken away. i quit the job i had, and stopped talking to all of my "worldly" friends, which i felt so horrible about; and i started attending meetings again... but i was no longer convinced, forced, brainwashed to believe what i was hearing and quit a few months later. i'm not disfellowshipped, or disassociated. i think it's just a formality, a way for all of the people who cared for me as brothers and sisters to have closure, and experience the formulated contempt for me that they are forced to have per my having diffrent opinions. i refuse to do that.
it's so hard though. i still struggle back and forth, altough i know i could never be a j/w again... i miss my family. my cousins who were like sisters to me and my aunt who became a surrogate mother when i was having problems with my own. my relationship with my parents has become more open and honest. we're truely friends now, though the topic of religion is taboo. i'm 20, i live on my own, i have a LIFE (a real life! it's so exciting!), friends that care for me because of the person i am, not because they have slim pickings and have no choice and i'm a free thinker, which is the most beautiful feeling in the world. coming up with ideas and not having to stiffle them in order to not break the mold. it's so satisfying.
well, i just wanted to introduce myself, and say thank you to who ever created this site. i've been feeling very alone in the world concering religious issues lately, and i was so greatful to find people with similar experiences as me here!!
i hope to meet and make friends with many of you!!