Thanks for sharing your experience, which I believe happens to a lot of witnesses who get disillusioned with the Society.
My journey was different. I thought it was unfair that being gay/transgendered was considered my own fault. I felt something was wrong and was willing to leave the truth, that is, the organization, in order to explore my sexuality--to see if it could be corrected or just what was happening. I was disfellowshipped and bounced in and out of the organization for the next 20 years after first being disfellowshipped at 20.
Then after a life of free moral choices, I just decided I'd rather be back in the truth. I still believed in God and the Bible. My final conclusion was that since I wasn't happy living a free gay life and I wasn't happy being an active witness either, that I may as well just be unhappy and in the truth; at least that way I might have a chance for life and God's favor. Then it crystallized what it meant not to hold on to this life. You have to give up this life, your soul in order to gain it. If you try to hold on to it, you will lose. In basic terms it means that even if you're in some hardship situation, being gay for instance, then that was your sacrifice. It's better to give up that life of gay fulfillment, if that is possible, and have eternal life later, than to fulfill yourself now and lose your life. That's it. Very simple. You must sacrifice yourself now to have life later. I was able to live with that. I was desperate to get back into Jehovah's favor even if all my gay issues were not answered.
I got reinstated in 1989, but the trauma of being "gay" in the congregation with everybody knowing my past was too much. So I moved away and became inactive. I finally moved far away from my former congregation where nobody knew me where I thought I could have a new start. After moving to that new area in Duarte, California, which was near my job, when the Memorial came up in 1992 I attended my first meeting in years. I knew the routine. The brothers are delighted to see someone new coming to the Memorial so they descend on you and find out what is going on. I knew when I told them I was inactive and wanted to start back they would be delighted. Of course, they assign a ministerial servant to you to study with you every week to help you back to spiritual health. That was fine.
But then some doctrinal questions started to come up as well, just as in your case. My issue was that the ministerial servant suggested that in ancient times it wasn't wrong for someone like Judah to use the services of a temple prostitute. That didn't quite ring true for me. So I started to do some investigation. Wow! I found out about what the ancient prostitution was really like and what really happend in the case of Judah and hy he was such a hypocrit. Turns out, you have to claim you are a Baal worshipper to use those prostitutes. It wasn't just a matter of paying for sex. Judah's daughter-in-law knew this quite well, so she set him up. The ritual with the prostitutes was that they would give you personal items of jewelry that were engraved with your name and stated that "I belong to Baal." That is what the ring and the rod and chain were about. Once you had these items, proving you were part of the "Baal club" then you could use the prostitute. She knew this was total hypocrisy so when he left to visit the prostitute, she played the role of a prostitute, who are all veiled. Only after they had sex, she requested to keep his ring and rod claiming he could retrieve them later when he brought payment. Of course, when he returned she was no where to be found. Once she got pregnant enough to start showing she started to brag about what she did, how she became a prostitute and got pregnant. Judah was about to burn her at the stake when she presented to him his own ring and rod that identified him as a Baal worshipper. Of course, he recognized she was more righteous than himself and left her alone. I got my answer though, that the prostitution wasn't just prostitution.
But by now I could see the pagan influence in other Bible books! Particularly, Esther and the Song of Solomon. I couldn't believe it! How could the Bible which I thought was true be so full of paganism and Satanism? Well, I did a little more research about the Bible's canon and the Apocrypha and discovered that Esther along with the SOS and Ecclesiates were not cross-quoted from by the NT Bible writers. I was saved! Esther, which is not historical, SOS, which is clearly a pagan book about Artemis of Ephesus, and Ecclesiates were not inspired!!! There was no inter-Biblical confirmation of these books which were not quoted from by the NT Bible writers. So that explained everything and allowed the Bible and the true canon to be vindicated.
Well, while this was great for the Bible and Jehovah, it was problematic for the WTS who was not aware of this. So I started to write them a letter about these things. By though, I had become one of the "anointed" via holy spirit. Once that higher level of direct contact with Jehovah and holy spirit occurred, my faith in Jehovah and the Bible had a literal vindication. It was great. As I was writing the letter to the GB and the Writing Commitee though, holy spirit then directed me to basically identify the GB as the "evil slave" and to "disfellowship" the GB since it had become a god to the witnesses, just as prophesied about the "man of lawlessness." The WTS was to be cast into spiritual darkness. I called myself "the watchman" and considered myself a special prophet of Jehovah, who was revealing many new truths and exposing WTS false teachings.
I began to believe my life was threatened and my im important research had to go underground. Others would assist me, I believed, to escape to a private place. Ultimately, this led to my jumping into a dumpster where I would exchange clothing with a decoy. I actually saw the decoy going toward the dumpster late at night around midnight before I would join him. But when I got into the dumpster I was alone. I was instructed to get as comfortable as possible by holy spirit and at one point I saw Jehovah himself with Satan. Jehovah was quite happy with me and wanted to bet with Satan about how much pain I could bear. Satan seemed uninterested and preoccupied and I started to complain. I mean? What was this? I didn't understand. Jehovah had mercy on me and dismissed Satan who left.
Well, the rest, as they say, "is history." I fell asleep and experienced the "war in heaven" which was a court case to determine if Satan should be put to death or not. It boiled down to regardless of how unhappy Satan was with his situation, deciding to kill off billions of innocent unborn humans could not be justified under any circumstances. So Satan was condemned. Some including myself was willing to die themselves in order for justice to be done. Satan was kicked out of heaven. But then all this focus on me was a bit much and it seemed as though in some way I was a key in all this. When I asked Jehovah "Where is Jesus?" then suddenly the spirit of Christ just dropped down into my body! I was joined with Christ. At this point, I knew I had a right to see Jehovah more directly and, indeed, I had two days of interviews with him, most of which has been removed from my memory. But I do remember the very first question I asked him, which was: "How did you get here?" He just told me, in a very direct and unemotional way: "I've just always been here." I felt so stupid, because I already knew that. But ultimately, I guess he doesn't know how he got here either, he's just always been here. That was profound. Anyway, he's Black and has a smooth natural hairstyle like blacks used to wear in the 60's, or like when the Jackson-5 first came out! Of course, the Bible does describe his hair as being like "fine wool" so that matched the Scriptures.
After that, on the 26th in the afternoon, I looked up in the sky and there was a cloud image of an infant on a cloud. Next to the infant was an eagle. On the opposite side of the child, a voice with thunder in the background said: "This is my son, whom I have approved" just like the first time. I saw the heavenly host and everybody was applauding. In fact, they continued to party up in heaven for the next three days after Satan was kicked out. So Satan must have been a huge pain in the arse up there! But I was now the messiah in the flesh with much to do. Of course, I immediately then recognized that the parable about the prodigal son was about me personally. How I had left the truth to see understanding of my gay issues then came hobbling back to ask for a second chance. Amazingly, God forgot about my past immoral life and made me the messiah in the flesh! This would cause some upset, but God didn't care, he was happy I was back.
So that's my experience. Almost the opposite of yours. I ended up becoming more spiritual and more directly connected with the Creator and have experienced direct contact with the Creator and have sense done lots of research to confirm the Bible is true.
Which brings me to one point in your case. As long as you have been in the truth, apparently you did not pay close attention to what is taught. For instance, the 400 years of oppression by Egypt is counted from the time when Isaac was 5 years old and was teased by his half-Egyptian brother, Ishmael. Jacob would not come into Egypt until many years later. So the increase of 70 souls from the time he became a permanent resident in Egypt until they left Egypt was not 400 years, but only 215 years! Even so, the WTS has shown that within that time period the nation could have grown that fast. The Bible indicates further, that this was an alarmingly fast growth, even startling the Egyptians who tried to stunt that growth by killing off the male children. My grandmother comes from a family of 17 children. I have an aunt that had 18 children. My father comes from a family of 10 children. Back then, men could have multiple wives as well. Even Osama Bin Ladin today has 70 siblings! So its just logistics as far as 70 becoming a million plus in just 215 years. It seems dismissible when you think in terms of just one wife having a few kids each generation, but not if you have five or six wives who have 10+ kids each. This was accelerated, of course, but the Bible already says that. That population during the time of Thuthmosis III, when Moses was born, was rivaling the population of the Egyptians. So this really happened.
By the way, archaeology has played a role in strengthening my faith even more; just the opposite as with you. You see, lying archaeologists purposely avoid dating the Exodus when it actually occurred. It occurred at the end of the reign of Amenhotep III. The next pharalh, Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten) became a monotheist due to the 10 plagues. Thus his sun god, "Aten" is actually Yahweh. While not formal Judaism, this form of worship of this new God was accepted by Jehovah and Akhenaten became the high priest of Yaweh! So being a skeptic is one thing. I don't have proof of the Flood (other than tropical plants underneath all that ice in Antartica), but there is credible proof of the 10 plagues if you date it correctly, which archaeology requires us to date it during the time of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten based on the fall of LBA Jericho.
So in conclusion, I emphatize with your journey. It's confusing to have to sort out all the propaganda and the WTS definitely is an apostate organization now. Where do you go from what you believed to be the "only true religion"? Some give up on the Bible but still acknowledge a creator (intelligent design, etc.) Some give up on both God and the Bible and become hardcore atheists and Biblical critics, often focussing on those strange things in the Bible like Lot having sex with his daughters. But ironically, I found out from my research of the ritual temple prostitution that they used an aphrodesiac, apparently some mold on bread to cause involuntary ejaculation during unconsciousness. Those in Sodom must have used it as a sex stimulant. They would mix the fundus with wine to induce the involuntary orgasms during sleep. The prostitutes would presume they were having sex with gods or demons and then sacrifice the child later by putting it in the fire. Lot's daughters were aware of this wine and apparently had some, so it was a simple matter of giving their father some of it to get pregnant by him, since the drug caused spontaneous orgasm while unconscious. So, indeed, Lot knew nothing about it and the daughters knew ahead of time they could get inseminated by him. The point being, sometimes with inaccurate or shallow understanding or knowledge of what the Bible teaches or what was actually going on in ancient times, you come to a different conclusion than if you know a little more. So while the story of Lot getting his daughters pregnant after getting drunk with wine seems contraindicated under normal circumstances, if you knew about that aphrodesiac the prostitutes used, then you understand what happened. So my perception of the Bible's stories and histories is probably seen through different colored glasses than yours, though if wearing your glasses I might become as jaded as you are against the Bible. So I validate your choices based on your understanding. I've been fortunate to have been granted special understanding and so things in the Bible don't seem as contradictory.
Anway, for whatever it is worth, God is real and the Bible is true. Beyond that, we all share the scars of being XJW cult chlidren. I was "raised in the truth" as well, and relate to a whole lot of things that you do. In fact, I got married thinking I could cure my homosexuality. Big mistake. But at that time, in 1970, you could not get a divorce for homosexuality! Only adultery between a man and a woman was grounds for divorce. I wanted to set my young wife free. But here I was having sex with men again and she couldn't get a legal divorce! I could have infected her with VD or something. It didn't make sense. But then 2 years later the WTS came out with a better understanding of "pornea" which included all forms of sexual immorality including homosexuality and so my wife could get a legal divorce. But by this time she had fallen away as well. Ironically, if I thought that by having sex with another man was "adultery", I would not have committed that sin against my wife. So the WTS complicated a lot of things for me too. A lot of pain, a lot of tears, some arrests, some near-death experiences with a knife at my through, but I got through it all in the end.
Know what I think about now? I'll soon be 62 in January and I know I'll never get my Socicial Security! Just when I'm ready to retire, here Armageddon is occurring. That's how bad it is. We've just finally run out of time, for real! The 2nd coming occurred in 1992, nearly 20 years ago.
So hang in there! I went through my experience so Jehovah can look past a whole lot of those issues, especially those related to how Satan has manipulated the WTS. Persons who are sincere and honest can still have a chance at eternal life after Judgment Day. Once Armageddon starts, of course, atheism and agnosticism will be a dead issue. So I'm just saying, basically Jehovah wants life for everyone, if YOU want life for yourself. It's okay to be skeptical or judgmental, but make sure your facts are correct before making any big decisions about God or the Bible.
Thanks, again, for sharing your experience!
LS