It really helps reading other peoples experiences as a Ex JW. Other people never quite understand why it takes you so long to integrate into normal society!!
I was brought up a JW and even married into it as I thought it was expected of me. All the time as I was growing up I had many inner conflicts wondering if it was right for me. My Mum was (and still is) a Regular Pioneer and my Dad was an elder. So, I guess you could say, we were a typically 'strong family in the truth'. I was baptized at 12 (How can you know what you want for the rest of your life at that age!!!!!). I became a regular pioneer and married into a family which were well known in the whole of the District. My husband (ex now) was a Regular Pioneer and MS. His brother and Dad were elders who had many responsiblities within the Circuit and District.
I remember walking down the aisle of the KH to get married and thinking why am I doing this, ITS NOT WHAT I WANT!! Despite what my head and heart was telling me, because of the teachings that were embedded into me like a robot, I tried to throw myself into marriage and being a great JW.
We had friends everywhere, a great social life and everyone thought we were rock solid and that we were really strong. Friends encouraged their kids to spend lots of time with us. I became increasingly stumbled at elders preaching one thing and then living a materialistic life. There were lots of other things that happened, I could go on forever!! I gradually stopped going to meetings and eventually left my husband and everything I had ever known. This was the hardest thing in my life, I broke my parents heart and everyone I had ever known. I did love my husband but in a brotherly way and it broke my heart that I turned his world upside down. My dad stopped speaking to me and cut me out of his life completely.
That was about 4 years ago. When I left the elders told me I would never be happy and never find real love in this dark sinful world. I have made some lovely real friends and now am engaged to be married to a wonderful man and pregnant with my first baby. (Shock horror in the JW world at me living in sin and pregnant!!!!)
It has been really hard at some point. I got DF just over 3 years ago, all because I wanted my ex husband to be free to remarry in the eyes of his religion, so confessed adultery in a letter to the elders. I heard I had been DF from my Mum. My head was messed up for a while and every time something bad happened in my life I wanted to run back to the security of what I had known. The first couple of years I couldnt get the thought of Armageddon out of my head. Gradually I learnt how to live in the real world and since meeting my partner about 3 years ago (IN IBIZA!!!) he has been my rock, has always tried to understand what it might have been like for me.
I have learnt that life experiences make you change, and that there is real happiness and real people outside of the JW. I think when you leave you want to experience everything life has to offer which can be when you do something that can mess your head up and why some people go running back. I want to do so much in life now, which I think is taken from you when you are a JW as your life is governed by it.