Dear Daringhart13,
First of all....((HUGS))
Second..."WELCOME"!!!
You have definately come to the right place if your looking for others who understand!! Most here have been through the same feelings of hurt, loss and confusion. It does take time, but I PROMISE things will get better. You will no doubt be like most of us who have found out the truth about the "truth", experiencing a full spectrum of emotions. Confusion, denial, devistation, hurt, anger...and finally PEACE!! It took me about 2 years of research every spare minute I had outside of working full time, being a wife and a mom to finally be able to be at peace with what I had discovered and to be able to close that chapter of my life and to be able to move forward.
Once you finally do, you will feel like a bird who has flown for the very first time!!! You will experience life from a totally different prospective! I will never forget the first time it hit me, was when I was sitting in a airplane waiting for the plane to depart, watching all the other people baord the plane. I thought to myself, "All these people, are my brothers and sisters!!" It was such a awesome feeling. I had only viewed JWs as my brothers and sisters. How closed minded I had been my whole life!! I never thought of myself as being very judgemental, but after leaving, I would experiece little revelations such as this, that would make me realize how very wrong I was!
All I can suggest, is the more research you can do, to find out the truth about the organization, the faster you will go through the process of emotions and be emotionally free!! Hang in there!! You will find many friends on this forum. And you will find some have been so hurt, that they no longer believe in God. But you will find that there are many who still have been able to maintain and have a close relationship with him. For my husband and I, we firmly believe that without God's Holy Spirit, comfort and direction, there is no way we would have been able to come out of this whole thing as well as we have. We prayed for direction and strength . And to find out the truth..wether it would be what we had always been taught...or if not to find out what it really is. And we were never more driven to continue on our journey. Our prayers were answered, and we found the comfort and strength we so desperately needed. One thing to keep in mind about this forum is that, we do not all agree with one another..but that is ok. We still love and support each other in that we are all on different stages of our journey, and has been very difficult for most.
Now, after several years, we are completly content, happy, and living a life that we are sure is being blessed by God. If you would like to read our story, I welcome you to do so, as you may find its contents very helpful to you. This forum was VITAL to us, in that we found others, like ourselves, had discovered the same things, and it was a HUGE source of information that would have taken us a lifetime if ever to compile.
So, be strong, hang on, and keep your relationship with your heavely father as close as you can!
Sincerely,
Lady Liberty
PS. My computer won't let me copy and paste the link...so if you look me up under members, it is the very first post I ever made entitled, "It's high time I introduce myself"....