My perspective on this issue is based on being out and clear for several years now. I will not make any assumptions about your experience or reactions. I just want to tell you what I went through and how I feel about it now.
When the committee met with me I was so frightened. It was like a roller coaster of emotion, up and down. I realize now that I was in the grip of a powerful subconscious battle between the two "realities" I was struggling to reconcile - the JW worldview, and everything else I'd learned. I pleaded with the elders to let me remain. When they told me I would be disfellowshipped it was like a kick in the throat. I couldn't breathe. It was like a kind of death, or what I always imagined death to be like.
The utter destruction of my former self occurred slowly, over the next year or so [brought to an end only by this board and what I learned on it, hence my periodic return]. From then on I was regrowing a new self, a new identity.
Now here I am, my career is successful, I have a wonderful family, and my former life honestly doesn't trouble me much at all. I realize that those I thought were my friends were actually ensnared in the same web I had been, and I could forgive them for the shunning - including my family, although I never forgot it. Even the elders that disfellowshipped me so unfairly, so coldly, seem in the end to be merely pathetic, frightened old men in bad suits, cutting themselves off from the world in search of an impossible level of security. I have contempt for them, although no longer being a Christian, I am not obligated to forgive them, either.
My "death" at that time was merely the gateway to a much better, fulfilling life. Even more spiritual, in ways I could never have conceived of as a Jehovah's Witness. I'm more mature, because my emotional development was no longer being stunted by a warped and constrictive set of nonsensical rules. I am more truly disciplined, being a good person because I WANT to be, not out of fear. And more invested in my life, not constantly spending my days marking off the calendar to the imaginary date of Armageddon.
In short, a clean break was the best thing that ever happened to me. I hope it works out this way for you - but in any case I don't think you can continue to wrestle the dissonance of the "slow fade". I've always felt that it was conflict avoidance; but then not everyone is strong enough to argue with those elders. But they can't hurt you - they can only set you free.
Good Luck...
CZAR
