Fade for me is a choice... simply to ease the feelings of family members. I feel a sense of responsibility to my family to at least let them down easy.
Was I always able to tune it out? No. There are bits of who I am right now.. things I do in day-to-day life... even how I live my day-to-day life that are directly influenced by my JW upbringing. In most cases, I'm good with that.... but I'm also glad to be free to do as I feel is right for me. The fundamental doctrinal bits.. they never stuck. I parrotted what I needed to when I was a child, when I lived under my parent's roof... but that is as far as it ever went with me. I questioned a lot as a child, and I was always firmly instructed not to question, but to simply have faith that what we were told was correct... the year 607 thing stood out to me as incorrect when I was like... 10 or 11. I was an avid reader, especially history and science, and nothing added up... the accepted dates were wrong - or at least didn't connect with history as I read it everywhere else, the quotes from scientists (often I had the books that were being quoted from) were edited, or taken out of context. Every time I pointed this out I was shushed. At some point in my youth, I learned just to shut up and get through it all... much the same way I dealt with the abuse.
Mmmm sounds bitter... and in some ways I suppose it is.
Part of my healing has been to move away... far away... half a planet away. In effect running, but freeing me up to figure out who I am and what's right for me. In that process, I've traveled a lot, and I think that's what made it all become clear to me. I spent a lot of time in 3rd world countries, meeting people, helping people, and learning what it means to be human.
