Hello,
Just a (slightly) quick introduction for now. I am a 4th generation born in. Father an Elder since I was an infant. Homeschooled most of my childhood. Baptized a few weeks after I turned 13 - regular auxilliary pioneer at 13. I left for a while in my early 20's but was never disfellowshipped. I was back in at 23, and then went on to regular pioneer. I was disfellowshipped almost 9 years ago at age 32, after going to the elders in despair and confessing to misconduct. I had every intention of going back and being reinstated. I truly believed that it was the truth, plus at 32 I lost all my local family and all the friends I had ever known in one fell swoop and couldn't see living out the rest of my life alone.
Desperation led me to seek out new "worldly" friendships in the meantime. Fast forward a few years and I met my now husband. We now have two small children. It was during my pregnancy with my first child that I started researching doctrine. I was trying to figure out how to reconcile the celebration of holidays and birthdays, situations that with a child could no longer just be ignored, with my beliefs that such things were truly evil and from Satan. Visons of my child dying at Armageddon because of my choices disrupted my sleep. Slowly, after much research I was able to find compromises so that such things would not be such crushing issues. That initial research led to further research on other doctrines and beliefs.
At this point, at a little over 40 years of age, I am only in the beginning stages of my spiritual journey. I still am at times plagued with nightmares about Armageddon. My view of religion, the bible, and spirituality continues to evolve. I find this forum to be a comfort. Those who have never been inside just cannot understand. My husband views it as completely bizarre, and often asks if I am making up this stuff. The more I look from the outside in, I cannot help asking myself the same thing.
Anyway, there is a lot more to the story. My childhood family seemed perfect to all in the congregation, but was filled with abuse and violence at home. I suffered for years from depression and social anxiety ...and shame and guilt for not being the happy JW pictured in all the books and magazines.
Some of my immediate family have escaped, some are still diehard jw's. I don't want to return to my former life, but I can't deny missing friends and family that I dearly loved.
That is all for now - the kids are waking up from their naps. : )