I was raised in it and left when young. I had an interesting thought, maybe. . .when I was growing up, I was told it was the truth(tm). I understood there could only be one true religion and that was it. What I mean to say is that I didn't think I COULD question anything. The cognitive dissonance bit in full force. . .I questioned a few things that didn't make logical sense to me as a child(at a home,Thurs night, bookstudy when the wtbts answer in the book was stupid) and got scolded for it after my mom was counseled and she was mortified and I got huge spanking for my question. Studies are not to learn, but to parrot. Anyway, I kept telling myself for years that I was bad,wrong, disobedient, ungrateful, etc for even wondering to myself.
JWs like to say we leave for personal issues. . .and to some extent I think that's true. We usually stay in loyally for personal reasons, not so much actual devotion to the teachings. We let a lot of nonsense slide right by because on balance, it works. Many of us might not even question our own hypocrisy because our reasons for being a JWs are less spiritual than they are carnal, practical, familial reasons. BUT, have a personal thing come up that is connected to the WT and all the things that were easier to ignore suddenly become prominent or we no longer can ignore them or we realize how much we did so. The scale tips.
Most religion doesn't make it so much of an all or nothing proposition. The WT loses people more than other churches because any questioning is quashed. Once we question a teaching unique to jws, we have to balance our relationships and personal integrity/conscience Even those who stay in, but are mentally out, know what it is and they all have their ties, but those ties are because a relationship requires staying. The JW affiliation only rests on the life of a parent or spouse. I think JWs are internally more fractured than other churches, but they require dissidents to play in order to maintain relationships. Everyone is trapped by their partner/family.