When I was studying to become a JW, I pushed the love of my life, my boyfriend of two years, right out of my life. It was excruciating. But at the time I thought he was holding me back from progressing spiritually. Years later, he moved across the country, but now we are friends and keep in touch.
I'm the kind of person who only has a few close friends, and my family has never been close...so my friends have always meant alot to me. When I become a Witness (or a Witless, as it seems sometimes) I gave up the few close friends I had...and became very close to those "In The Truth" but it's been a few years since I was Df'd and I find myself very lonely because it's so hard to make friends.
I gave up friends, I gave up personal things like crosses and stuff, I got rid of music and abandoned holidays...all because I was told it would please Jehovah. I gave up my animals, at that time I had 8 ferrets and a cat, that was heartbreaking.
I gave up wearing jeans everyday and dressed up for the first time in around ten years, and I gave up my sleep and worked a night shift so that I could go out in service more during the day.
What I learned about life and God, and humanity was and still is valuable, but some of the costs, like feeling like I was going to lose my mind when I realized I was living in a fantasy and what I thought was reality was not what it seemed I paid a high price for.
Truth2Me