Journey-on: You're absolutely right about the effect the organization's teachings had on all of us. My first contact with Jehovah's Witnesses was back in 1968 when I was a boy of only twelve. I got baptized eight years later in 1976 after the disappointment of 1975 but during a time when enthusiasm was still great and most of us were confident that the End would surely come within a few short years.
I think for me, as it was for many others, the thought never occurred that the Governing Body was either a) deliberately misleading the rank-and-file, or b) misled themselves as to their own understanding of the Bible, or even c) both of the foregoing. They were so good at pointing out the errors of other religions and churches that they made themselves look as pure as the driven snow in comparison. So I put my utmost faith and confidence in them, never wanting to believe that I was being hoodwinked. It wasn't until the November 1, 1995 Watchtower study on the meaning of a generation that the first seeds of doubt were sown.
Even then, it took years more for me to make up my mind to leave. An elder whom I had known for a long time and who had served as a Gilead missionary and a circuit overseer, began to study on his own. He persuaded me to assist him in his research and gradually I began to draw away from the Society. But it took my being disfellowshipped and subsequent treatment at the hands of my judicial committee to make me resolve to leave. The elder who had put me on a different spiritual path was himself disfellowshipped for apostasy in absentia, on orders from Brooklyn. That strengthened my resolve to stay out; and it was finalized when my judicial committee made embracing the WTS as God's one, only, and exclusive organization as the condition for my reinstatement.
It has been a long, arduous journey, but one I have not regretted and which I am still on. You are right, my friend, to say that while I was inside the "spiritual paradise", I was "high" on the new and exciting things I was being taught. Everything was geared to keep me wanting more: the meetings, the conventions, and even much of the association I enjoyed. I am working now to fill the void created by my departure, and JWN is one of the tools I am using to do this. I am continuing my independent Bible studies and am enjoying them very much. But I am especially happy to have recovered two things the WTS had taken away from me: my free will and power of reason. Those are God-given gifts that we should never surrender, and having regained them I am determined to hold on with all my strength. My friends, I wish the same for all of you.
Quendi