While viewing many of your experiences here, its strange to hear the problems that have resulted from many of you being in " the truth ". I'm speaking with regard to those who've been in most of their lives and have never really known much else.
When I finally came in I had spent a majority of my life, doing the things of the world. Although I had known of " the truth " or as I've heard it said "been around the truth " , I could never really see it for what it truly was, or in the case of the information found here, for what it was not.
I had never any doubt as to the truthfulness of the organization until I was somehow led here, on a night that I was to have my study started, as I had been inactive for nearly ten years. I was curious and new to the world of the internet. Just out of curiosty, I did a search on Jehovah's Witnesses and much to my surprise there was a wealth of information available, both pro and con, however.
I had all the early warning lights come up into my mind about seeking information on the organization that was not favorable to it. I fought off however my natural inclination to cower in fear of even questioning anything the orginization had to say and of course... the rest is history.
I was allowed to see over a lengthy period of time, how my perspective of the society may need re-adjusting. I bought the Crissis of Conscience book by Raymond Franz and was absolutely astonished by some of the things that went on in the undertow of the Watchtower Society.
My beliefs had died a painfully slow death, and I was like a passenger who had survived the Titanic with only timbers to keep me from drowning, while now waiting for the sharks to bring me to my finality. I had nothing left to believe in, to whom was I to belong to now?
I have never experienced living as a witness from the ground up, as it were. I've never known what its like to have to shun anyone because they got themselves in a jam, or what it must be like to be shunned. To consider your family members as dead is such a horrific stance to take, and the lives that have been lost to suicide because of such shunning is just unimaginable.
I've not had any really close family involved in the truth, in fact, I was the only one in my immediate family to try and have a go at being a witness. From days of adolescense and beyond. After spending 17 years of trying to make up my mind, however, I finally made my way in, only to sneak out the back door after only 2 years of service.
I couldn't adjust to the lifestyle, the changes required to serve that to me came to be to feel so superficial.
So how much different is it for those who've been in all your life, as opposed to some who have only to experienced being JW for a moment? Now that there is more to the story about being in the organization, or out, for that matter, are your struggles even more or less significant since your coming to terms with the truth, about the truth?