Hi blue,
I’ve struggled with it for years, in the form of a little inner voice that would look something like a little smurf in a little red devil suit sitting on my shoulder if I listened to how “the society” would chose to define it.
The conditioning that takes place, once inducted, is powerful enough to convert persons of any religious background into believing they have finally found the true truth and there is no other. Imagine how deep these feelings are inside one who was born and raised as a JW. It is a tough struggle. There is a constant battle that lives inside between heart, intuition, reason, right, wrong, and fear of trusting ones own intelligence, like some virus or infection with no apparent cure in sight, anxiety takes the place of blood and oxygen. You know you’re alive because you’re always waiting for tomorrow to come so you can wait for another day, and another. Why? Because someday there will be a tomorrow that will bring you happiness and a reason to live. But until that day comes, you wait and wait and wait because there is nothing to be happy about now and nothing to live for now, nothing that would include you, except a belief that just around the corner will be that tomorrow that will bring meaning to your life with an abundance of never ending blessings. But until that final tomorrow gets here, you are not relevant. Moreover, if you dare think you are, you are being selfish like Satan, and we don’t want to be destroyed with him do we. Life revolves around Satan when you are a JW. It may sound a bit radical to say that but in reality how often did you think about Satan before you were a JW?