Thank you all for your support and words of advice. I appreciate it and have taken it to heart. I'm sorry that many of you have had to deal with gossip as well: rebel, cicatrix, big tex, hilary It seems to be the common situation when people leave the org.
I hope that if there are any lurking JWs they will read this thread and see that rumors they hear about ones who leave, are not always or are, most of the time, Untrue. And the reason why JWs would start gossip like that to begin with. Which is as expatbrit put it :
It's sickening that they have to try and blacken your character because they can't accept the simple fact of your having rational reasons for not wanting to be a JW.