Hi Troubled: I read your post just now, and because so many made such good comments, I was not sure if you would see my comments.
While I was still an Elder, my wife started exhibiting serious signs of depression. The was back in the mid-1980s. Fortuniately, the Society had by that time relaxed enough about depressoin, that we were able to get her help. She ended up accumulatively spending over 500 days in the hospital during a 12 or 13 year period.
We experienced much of what you mention. The JWs are so pressured to 'preach' that any exhortation to comfort the depressed seems to go unnoticed. Finally, near the end of my time at meetings I protested to one Elder that he never once came to see my wife when she was in the hospital. He defended himself by saying, 'well, you say she is depressed. I don't know for a fact that she is depressed. So why would I go to a hospital to visit someone who may not even be depressed?'
This expression of his was all a part of the tightening down from the Society at the 1992 Summer District Conventions where they said that those who miss meetings are to be viewed as worldly people. After that convention, my wife and me and my fammily were seen in a new negative light, one that labeled us as 'worldly' rather than in need of any comfort.
When I read your story, I thought a lot about my situation and my wife, and I have to admit, I broke down and cried. It was like reading the story of my wife's life ... and my won struggles to cope between being there for her, and trying to be a good JW.
When we left the organization, she did for a time seem to improve. This lasted several years, and the friendship and fellowship she recieved from non-JW Christian women was outstanding, and what I would have expected of from the JWs in years gone by. Some of her improvement may have been timed to her change in medication, but I think that leaving the organization did provide a measure of relief for her.
But, leaving the JWs is not of itself s cure for our ills. Doing so may help aleviate some of the strain and pressures and allow us to cultivate new friends who will really be there for us. But, many of our problems are just usual to being human and struggling through this life. The JW philosophy and religious views kind of provided a 'spiritual-quick-fix-drug' by making us feel that anytime soon, the New System would be here. But, like any drug, be it physical or spiritual, it wears off and each new fix seems less and less potent, and pretty soon, we go to meetings just to help reduce the guilt, and no longer feel the 'uplift' we enjoyed at first when we were new JWs.
I cannot necesarily recommend that you leave the organizaton, as I have no idea of your unique situation and circumstances. But I am very pleased that you and your husband are in therapy. As you work with your counselor, you may very well discover that part of the problem is the JW religion. Thereapist, contrary to Watch Tower warnings, are not there to cause you to leave your belief system. If anything they will do their best to work with you in that context. But, you may reach the point where in your own thinking come to accept the inevitable and see the need for a change of religious views.
Others have offerred to have you email them. You may also email me at [email protected] if you decide that you and/or your husband want to talk. Let me know how things go. - Amazing