Hello All
I've finally got round to joining the site (after over 2 years lurking!
I was born into JWs, pioneered for 10 years (met my husband at pioneer school). Had health issues that saw me catapulted away from 'the centre of the cong' and Wow what a different place that was! I had spent my life not feeling good enough (even as a regular pioneer - not enough studies/not out Sat And Sun etc) and now I was being told I wasn't good enough - need to be at every meeting/ministry/talks - you know the endless list! I was having panic attacks on the way to the Kingdom Hall, it was a miracle if I could get there! My husband had become an elder and they were giving him a hard time about me, which made him feel that he was letting me down and not looking after me properly. We were both miserable! There is a lot more to the story but the upshot is my husband resigned as an elder, we both stopped going to meetings. Over 2 years later we received a text from the elders to say they believed we were celebrating Christmas ( I think the lights on the outside of my house gave it away)!!! CO got involved and said the elders should leave us alone as we had been out for over 2 years. We knew they would never leave us alone though (and a million other reasons) so we disassociated ourselves. This site helped me through the darkest days so thank you for all your posts, I realised I was not alone in my thoughts. It's been 6 months now and (apart from loss of everyone virtually) it is the best thing we have ever done. I never knew what a wonderful place this world is, we are happy and have no health issues anymore.