I know how you feel. I was in the same situation, but 15 years ago. Yes it was the first change of the generation done by the WT. It was the contemporary “light”.
I had the misfortune to be teenager at the early 80’s, when all that pressure about “worldly education” was coming out from the headquarters. It was close to the 1975 fiasco of the WT, then it was the Ray Franz incident, so the Old boys decide to tight things more.
So since the end was Soooooo close I quit school to become pioneer and save as many more people I can. You see our preaching was separating the sheep from the goats, according to WT since 1935. So there was no time for education since the generation that will witness the “sign” at 1914, it will be old enough to witness the end of this system. A generation lives 70-80 years, so we have 1914+70 = 1984…
As a teenager and having faith that this was “God’s Words” and solid as a rock, I became pioneer. (I guess this pioneer thing is in the family) I quit school, plus a promising career as a musician, in order to save the World from the end.
So I preached, in the meantime, got married, and waited for the end. Then in 1995 comes a “light” from Brooklyn. The generation now means contemporaries and does include those seeing the “sign” in 1914 and those who have seen those who seen the “sign”…and the separation work it will be done by Jesus only, so for 70 years our preaching work went down the drain!!!
I was young and I have wasted my best years of my creative life for a preaching work that now have changed. In fact if I continue to do the preaching work I used to, I will be considered an apostate…After that, in just 5 years I became inactive, step down from all the privileges I had in the WT world and try to fix my life that was in a great financial mess. Plus I lost my credibility to all those I have preached regarding the generation: How can they believe me now? How can I tell them, look there is a new understanding now and forget the previous one? How can I be credible to them since I was telling them that this are the words of Jesus in the Bible? Was it Jesus fault of this change? Does Jesus change His mind from time to time in order to create a state of confusion to His followers? Or I spend all those years preaching a FALSE GOSPEL by FALSE PROPHETS, who claim that they have the “holy spirit”?
During those years I didn’t proceed to a serious business deal, that for sure it would have change my financial future completely, since I come from a pour family, that spend their time to promote WT’s gospel. So due to the fact the end was near I declined that proposition. But you can’t turn back time since I was in the mid 30’s when I had to move on with my life.
Boy it is hard world out there, especially when you have no friends and most of all education. I could see my “worldly” friends that most of them studied higher education, getting a respectable amount of money, while I was killing my self to work, doing (and still do)2-3 jobs, working 14 hours a day just to get the minimum money to support my family.
Many didn’t like my fading. I was a great tool in the hands of the WT. So after a lot of pressure from my wife and tense and intense arguing I told I just don’t believe anymore that the WT has something to do with God. It is just an American Religion created 150 years ago by a guy who has no clue of Christianity, based upon Pyramidology and Occult practices, passed upon wrong dates that coming out from the measures of Pyramids (607 B.C instead of 587 B.C). So it is easy to guess what happened. I was handed over to the ”loving elders” of the WT Society by my wife for apostasy…So I managed to get way from been disfellowshiped, and I continue my fading. But this wasn’t enough so few years later again I was turned to the elders for apostasy, but this time I was strong enough to blow WT in their faces. I walked for the KH and never turned back.
As you will already know WT controls your family. There is no real love amongst the JW couples, actually I found that their love is with terms and conditions. Follow them in order to love you. So my family was broken due to WT’s policy of disfellowship and I left house, since there was no way that I could have a normal life.
In my case I was born in the WT, didn’t had anyone else in my life besides JW’s and trying to be a normal person it takes years, specially to deprogram your mind from the brainwashing of the WT. Like you I have children but I speak to them why I left WT and why they should use their mind capabilities, conscious in their life.
I did found peace on mind after living WT, and tried to live a peaceful life. Most of all I enjoy freedom of thought without anyone telling what to believe today….If you need anything PM