Thank you for asking this pointed question. It is cleansing actually. I was a teen, with a toddler and a head filled with idealism when I was first contacted. I had come from a religiously challenged family with no particular doctrine or tradition or structure and married a man from Catholicism who was very devout as a youth but turned way off by the time I met him. I dragged him to church to create a cohesive family life I decided I wanted through worship of God. When the JW's called at my door and came in and answered all my questions and introduced me to the Bible and to God [albeit a wrong God] I was literally thrilled! Alas I had found the way to be a family united in worship! I was a sponge and there was nothing they could ask I would not comply with even envying those who'd been associated all their lives! We spent 15 yrs being most obedient, connected in the center, part of the scene of our congregation....then....we happened onto a dirty little secret that being the good little Witnesses we were required we take to the body only to be told that we were to leave it alone and not to muddy the waters...the dirty little secret? A 14 yr old 'sister' [our daughter's age] had been routinely sexually molested with her mother's knowledge by her stepfather who served as an elder in our congregation! And they did not want to muddy the waters! Long story short...we wound up on the short end of disfellowshipping because our naivete led us to believe that she should be protected from this pervert and because we would not leave it alone we were shown the back room and then relegated to the back row! With family and friends all JW's and our whole world till then being fully and centrically focused on the WTS we were nomads in a very strange land. However, work associates came to our aid, lovingly supporting us through this experience...we stayed out 8 yrs before returning. FOOLS though we were for returning we always felt being a JW was the only life for us and we felt since we'd done nothing to justify being disfellowshipped we would not turn our backs on HIM!
We came back, were reinstated and it was really a good thing...it was the next 10 yrs that proved to choke off any and all affection, loyalty, innocence, and adherence to the org. A series of idiotic and unbelievable events were set in motion which when they all came to bear were so twilight zonian that I had to just simply acknowledge things were definitely not right in Dodge City...and beat a hasty retreat. We disassociated in 1999 leaving behind close friends and family of 3 decades and find ourselves even to this day giggling at the simple things we do freely we would be in hot water for doing were we still Witnesses...like VOTING on Tuesday! Like prepping for CHRISTMAS...like wishing someone a HAPPY BDAY...like discussing POLITICS and TAKING A SIDE! Oh the joys of just being a normal citizen of these United States like everyone else and not feeling like a sore thumb! Glory to God for FREEDOM IN CHRIST!