I could probably come up with a whole lot of things that my parents forfeited on my behalf when they decided the best thing they could do for me would be to raise me in the borg from 2y/o, but I don't know if I want.
Alls I do know, is that from the point I decided to leave the borg I knew that whatever I have made of my life, my thoughts, opinions, successes from that point on were all of my own accord. Although I do get down when I see that I have lost so much time and have been set back many years in ways like personal development, education and just the "normal" fascets of life that most take for granted, I feel an incredible sense of pride and achievement that I have pretty much always done it on my own. As crazy as it sounds I feel as though I may almost be a more rounded person for being successfully on the way to throwing off the twisted miserable repressive upbringing that I had. As for loosing my family, well I know now that I never really had them in the unconditional sense.
What I do more than anything in hindsight (not that a 2y/o is blessed with looking back in hindsight) is that I was forced to live in fear for so long and was denied the Mental Freedom and peace to just be myself, the individual that I was born. I sat in judgement of myself for so long about things which were nothing, things healthy teenagers go through (although there is no doubt that many of the things JW teenagers do are simply because of a lack of education or naiivety, repression or rebellion).
So for me as hard as it is not to look back in anger, I am trying to stay as focused as possible on the future and what I build for myself.
Luv V**