Dont worry about losing your family, you got "friends".
Spot on, Mrsjones5! One isn't told one's family is likely to be broken up once one joins the JWs, as mine has been. And, you rightly put 'friends' in inverted commas. True friendship is NEVER conditional. JW-friendship is a sham and is always conditional. I spent 19 years dedicated service in the Org and was everybody's "friend". Once I left - and I haven't been DF'd or DA'd -, in spite of contracting a terminal illness which the congregation knows about, not a solitary JW has telephoned/visited/written - yet people I stopped contact with on becoming a JW have been in constant touch. Given the choice, I'll take "worldly people", as JWs put it, any day!
Love Bombing is, indeed, a hallmark of JWs no matter what anyone says to the contrary - only it ALWAYS stops once one sees through it all and exits. My daughters got love bombed when the rest of us exited and we became 'marked'. There really is no one more blind than those who cannot see - or, rather, should I say the JW apologists who come here and blatantly DON'T WISH TO SEE!
Had the JW Organisation truly lived up to what it said it represented none of us here would have left, for who in their right mind would turn their back on God and not want to live forever in a beautiful paradise earth?! If JW apologists can't even comprehend that one point they are truly lost to Watchtower dogma and have lost the faculty of free-thinking!
Having literally come so close to death last year at no point did I even entertain the JWs were right! Rather, I felt so sorry that here I was potentially making my final journey into the 'unknown' but with a pure conscience, whereas the JWs, and the leadership in particular, would pay a heavy price for their lies and deceit. Apologists will undoubtedly suffer likewise as it is a Universal law that every action results in a reaction - karma, if you like! If the JWs were right I should have been dying in fear. As it was, I could feel nothing but freedom and peace.
Apologists must understand that they are doing more harm than good and as such they will pay for it. There are thousands of articles, posts and stories in the archives here fully exposing Watchtower lies. If they don't wish to read them and gain accurate knowledge the blame is entirely theirs. No one is suggesting they take up another religion or another branch of Christianity, etc. All one asks is that they open up their minds - and preferably their hearts - to the true exposes on Watchtower. Perhaps they are more evil than even I gave them credit for. Perhaps they actually enjoy knowing people are getting seriously injured, mentally or physically or both! Perhaps that's it, they are Sadists!
Well, all I can say is that in spite of battling my illness I wouldn't change places with any JW. Freedom is far too precious for that.
Ian