Greetings to all!
I must say that I have been lurking around this place for a good long while. To know that you are not alone in your quest to escape the Watchtower is one of the best ways to actually do it.
Right now I'm 18, but became an unbaptized publisher at 12. I blew those elders away with my skill at parroting back the WTS doctrine, and for a while, I was faithful enough in service, which I didn't really enjoy, but I had to do it to live, right? We went to meetings regularly, even thosugh I simply dreaded the boredom and the inevitable guilt I would feel. Even at 13 you feel like you're not doing enough!
Long story short, when my mom stopped going to the meetings, the constant indoctinization let-up let me actually start to think. And I realized "I can't stand this." Still, even though I didn't buy all the WTS stuff, the process of coming out was quite hard. I still find myself doing rote responces to certain questions, if on;y in my head.
The downside is, my mother, a former unbaptized publisher, has picked up studying again with some sister at her job. I am worried about her- she already knows I do not agree with the JW's but now I fear that she will start trying to "save" me. That's the last thing I need.
In the meantime, I've started exercising my critical thinking skills and have begun to analyze old Watchtower articles for their emotional content and information control...taking a card from dear Blondie. I have a copy of the watchtower CD, but the old one, and I can;t get on my home computer too often. Can you find the texts someplace else?
Oh, and one more thing. I think that we should put our heads together and come up with an answer to the Reasoning book, i.e. answering every possible protest with a REAL answer. Just a thought.