Born in the truth. "Made it my own" (puke) at age 12 and got baptized. At the time I just wanted to be friends with God, and had no idea I was acually entering into a verbal contract with a company in Brooklyn. At age 13 I regularly pioneered. Fast forward to age 16 when I was depressed (caused by guilt and a feeling of not being good enough to please God and my parents). At age 17 I got involved with an older woman, and got disfellowshiped. I still beleived it was the truth, so I became the perfect witness, even while disfellowedshiped. About a year later I got reinstated. I promised myself that if things didn't work out this time I would walk away forever, cause I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life going from perfect witness to worldy rebel and back again. Again, I pioneered and did all the right things to seek "God's" approval. God and the Organization were one and the same in the mind, so I did whatever I read in the Watchtower publications. After a few years, I again fell into depression, again due to guilt and feeling I wasn't good enough. This time though I recognized why I was feeling that way. I'm not exactly sure why or how, but I made the subconcious decision to fade, even before I knew what fade was. I changed congregations and then moved a thousand miles away. I went to the meetings in my new home town, in part to please my wife (who is still in) and in part because my concious mind did not yet know I was done with it. After a couple of months I stopped going to meetings altogether. I still thought it was The Truth, and I wasn't good enough for it. I still thought they were God's agents, and I became really angry at God. I was done trying to live up to his petty rules and was ready to live my now, and have him kill me at Armageddon. The rest is pretty standard. Did some research on the Internet that made me realize I didn't know the whole truth about The Truth. The I read CoC and realized it's all a scam. I discovered this site, lurked for a while, and then jumped in. Yes, the avatar is actually a picture of me. (Not really.) I am not crazy!!!!!!