The end of one thing is always the beginning of another, congratulations. No doubt tough times are ahead for you, but you have the benefit of the experience of others here.
He just left, asking all of the questions you'd expect. 'Where will you go'? Telling me I'm full of myself. Asking why I didn't just come to him earlier when he could help. He refused to listen to a word.
The elder was the one I was closest to. He was heart broken that I did not come to him. He was right in calling me a hypocrite for going so long in something I don't believe in.
Him being heart broken is actually a symptom that he is full of himself, full of the JW self. It's not always a matter of pride, it's sometimes just being totally absorbed in that trance. With all the peer pressure involved, it takes a certain openness and vulnerability to leave.
I've posted this poem before, but I think it's appropriate here:
The Journey
by Mary Oliver
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.