STRUGGLE,
(I noticed your name is all caps -- is your struggle huge?)
I am DA'd since March of 2001.
Some things that made me leave:
1. Discovering the WT's sleazy past
2. Blood fractions suddenly becoming ok which weren't ok before
3. Disbelieving that God only works in JW's lives
4. Noting the similarity in the organization's hierarchy to the Roman Catholic church's heirarchy, while all the while the Society rails against just about anything Catholic
5. The change in the 'generation' teaching and thus the purpose of the magazines (demonstrating that there was no special link between Jehovah and the Governing Body after all)
6. Lack of love on the part of the local elders towards a DF'd sister and her family when she was gravely ill with a life-threatening disease
7. Parallel to 6. above, realizing that there were SOME in the org. that I would have a very, very difficult time giving my own life for
8. How a case of heinous child abuse was stupidly and deceitfully handled by the Society and its local representatives who, I believe, lied under oath
9. Learning that Christ was not MY Mediator according to the Society's teachings -- something that had never sunk into my head, for some reason
10. Always remembering Barbara and Arnold. It's an account in a book, Visions of Glory now out of print, written by an ex-Witness, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, wherein she describes her disbelief that God would destroy Arnold -- a great friend of hers -- at Armageddon. I never, ever, believed that only JWs would survive the Big A. I read this book in my 3rd year after baptism and it took me another 9+ years of all the rest of the points above to finally extract myself from the Society.
I have no family in, just one dear friend and another lovely lady that I'd like to see liberated, so it was easier for me to leave. I never made a convert, and I'm pleased about that.
My advice to you is to "Make sure of all things." Research, research, research and trust your gut.
Jehovah's Witnesses are NOT a Christian congregation. Christian love is lacking, as you have stated you've already felt.
outnfree
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts -- John Wooden