Hi. Former lurker here (maybe lurked around 6 months, maybe a bit more). I want to share my personal story, but it'll be a bit long because I think there are several things to fully understand how I got to this point. So, long text warning, for anyone who doesn't feel like reading a lot right now. This is pretty much my life story with a focus on the JW side. As a side note, I'll be using mostly 'God' rather than the (in)famous trademark J-name so as not to trigger too many bad memories. Apologies in advance for any I caused anyway.

First of all, I'm a 3rd generation pseudoJW (more on that later). I live in Mexico, so, a lot, and I mean a lot of things tended to differ from 'mainstream' JW even though on text the doctrine was the same. My mother is a 2nd generation JW while my father is a partial unbeliever.

A bit about my father: Here in Mexico, people used to be highly catholic, specially around the 60's (both my parents were born in the '59). So, my father had several bad experiences with religion back in his childhood, although no child abuse, thankfully. He, however, did try several times to call out the pastor on being an actually bad person, but not even his parents would believe him, so, he got sick of religion and never did the First Communion (it's something of a big deal, or it used to be). He also quit cold turkey going to church. Even then, he still believed in God, but couldn't accept that he led such a religion. After this, he grew up a kinda normal/secular person (take this with a grain of salt, more on that later).

My mother in the mean time was raised a JW, and in direct defiance to everyone around her (including her own mother and the org), she married my father at 20 years old (More about my mother later). I would be born 12 years later. She moved in with us shortly after my birth, she has her own little house above ours.

So, my father used to work a lot because he was in charge of something big in the gasoline business (government-supported/run in Mexico). So this left my mom and grandma to raise me, as a JW, obviously. However, I feel can't complain too much because it's been quite different from the experiences I've read here.

Just a small stop before proceeding. I in no way am trying to gloat or do apologetics for JW stuff, nor I'm really trying to say I'm better than anyone else. I'll just share what were my personal experiences as I grew up. And if some sentences end up sounding awkward, well, english is not my first language...

Back on track. At the time, I had no idea myself, but it turns out my father was kind of a jerk, usually, a typical mexican father would (or should) be pretty hyped about his firstborn child being a boy, and would try to rush out of their job to go play with their kid. Not mine, besides the long work hours, he was also too busy screwing random women.

Meanwhile, as I said, I was raised by my mom and grandma (significantly more than either of my parents) , she might be close to being an uberdub, but even she's fairly 'light' on several matters. Examples of this: My grandma initially opposed to me watching ANY disney movies because of magic, and that the villain usually dies or gets killed. My mom (and surprisingly, a CO) explained her that it was all fantasy and wasn't even depicted in a too realistic manner. The CO also pointed out that if they had such a strict criteria kids wouldn't be able to watch or play with anything, so, he suggested my grandma not to worry and let me have my entertainment, just as there would also be time to educate me, citing what king Solomon once wrote "There's a time for everything". She never brought up this 'issue' ever again.

So I was allowed to have a pretty normal-ish early childhood.. Due to the neighborhood and living quite far from most family, I was raised in isolation from my blood-relatives (which seems to be kind of a big deal for mexican families, now that as an adult I've had some contact with them), but, I wouldn't realize this had any impact on me til decades later. This might have been at least a bit mitigated by the fact that 3 years after my birth, my younger brother was born (the only one I have btw)

As I said, my mom somehow knew that I had inherited her intellect so, she did stimulate its growth and development by letting me watch documentaries (I was the one who wanted to, mostly stuff about dinosaurs or animals, but also the human body) and reading me books (I learned to read at about 3yo because I wanted to know what several books said, specially a bunch of old, red ones about dinosaurs and ice age animals). Besides this, she also taught me to think for myself, and to always wonder about things to be sure they're either right or wrong.

Being a child, the JW teachings from either my mom or grandma seemed as pretty innocent and harmless. So, I really didn't have issues getting the idea that God, an all powerful spirit, made all that exists. I was also taught with the (here infamous) yellow book of bible stories. So I 'learned' that God had a name, Jehovah, that he directly made one angel whom he'd call his son, and with his help he would go on to create the rest of things, more angels, the universe, our galaxy, solar system and our planet, Earth. I also 'learned' about one angel deciding that he should be a god himself, which kickstarted the series of events that led us to our current situation, among a bunch of many other things that were in that book.

Outside the book, and sometimes even while 'studying' it, I was always taught that God was essentially good, merciful and fair (as in justice). My grandma taught me to see God's greatness not just in the big things like the world or the universe, which are by themselves fascinating, but also in the smallest things, like the wind that gently shakes the trees' leaves (There are quite a bit of trees and green areas around my house). Also in the animals, even though they're not 'sapient' as we humans are, they are still incredibly complex living beings with their own personalities and thoughts.. My mom always believed that God didn't make such a big universe full of planets and galaxies without a purpose, and her personal theory was that we'd get to explore the universe in the New System.

I started attending to meetings ever since my 8th day of life, and according to my mom and grandma, I was actually well behaved so, there was pretty much never any issue (I've read here that some JWs can be incredibly harsh to their babies/toddles/kids during or after meetings). As an older child, I too sat quietly and listened for the most part, although sometimes I would just drift off thinking about dinosaurs, ice age animals, or the space, but silently, so, nobody had any reason to complain, and I think my mom understood that as a kid I had my limits. I personally liked book study meetings the most, because I tended to find the books we 'studied' fairly interesting, so I even managed to comment several times giving my own input on some things. This kinda surprised several of the brothers and sisters there and my comments started being something people would look forward (lol, I mean this seriously, not the hypocritical 'love your comments' I've read about in here. More on my cong a bit further ahead)

At around 6 years old I got enrolled in the now defunct Theocratic Ministry School so, being the 90's, I was given parts that implied not just reading from the bible, but making my own points based about it. I'd write these with my mother's help, and it felt like a good mental exercise, along other stuff. As a now JW kid, I was taught that there'd be time I'd have to defend my beliefs (mostly about saluting the flag/singing the national anthem, also holidays, since Catholicism still lingersin Mexican society). Different from other experiences I've seen here, I was never told or compelled to preach or even mention I was a JW unless it were absolutely necessary, so, I managed to have a more normal-ish school life than most born-in JWs. Even when I had to make more explicit statements, I managed to make them come across as something that wasn't quite a big deal, so, ironically, I avoided some bullying/being treated as an outcast, but still remained fairly solitary simply because I have never been a very social person.

So, back on JW things, my mom always told me that I needed to have an open and sharp mind to stand for what I believe in, and writing my speeches helped quite a bit with that. One little bonus side effect from my early 'performances' was that when in 5th grade, class exposition, aka students giving most of the class themselves, was introduced, most other kids were utterly terrified (the teacher even had a mic for when we'd do it) while I did it like it was no big deal, lol.

Ok, so, a bit about my cong: Where I live is not a big city, it's more of a town that keeps calling itself a city, so, all the community (including JWs) is fairly small, which also meant that the cong was also a small community itself. Trying to follow the org's own teachings, they (or most of them at least) have tried to be a 'spiritual family' to the best of their ability. Now, I'm not apologizing for JWs as a whole, but I want to point out that the JW people around me weren't actually jerks themselves, or if some were, it was behind closed doors. With my father being both an unbeliever and a bad, disinterested father, I did feel like an orphan from very early on. My grandma pointed out that God is our father, specially even more so to those without a human one. So, I'd look up at the sky and hoped he'd always be watching over me, as I made my honest best efforts to be a good follower of his. My grandma and mom also emphasized quite a bit that Jesus was also a good person that cared about us, and along him, countless angels. So, even though I was aware to some extent that I was living in the third world, I felt a bit safer than if I thought I was entirely alone. Not that I used this 'knowledge' to do reckless stuff.

Back about my cong, for some reason, I was a 'lone generation'. The only child at the time, so, this is why I might have been given some more attention than other JWs would've given. The cong as a collective did try to help raise me, and my grandma then also pointed that while our 'family by blood' were distant (over several non-JW issues besides a few JW ones) here we had a 'family by spirit' and that God gave me spiritual uncles and aunts for the ones I didn't have. So, I learned to see them as pretty much extended family. An older brother even stood in as my 'spiritual grandpa' since I didn't have one (my maternal grandpa passed away about a month after my birth, so, I did meet him, but way too early to remember). This brother would also study with me books and like my grandma, teach me about God. He also sometimes took me out to preach but not house to house. We went to a place we call Alameda, a sort of park/public space and we'd just casually talk to people about various subjects, and when applicable let them know what the Bible had to say about it. However, sometimes we'd just go there to give some bread crumbs or rice to the pigeons and enjoy the cool breeze and the shade of the trees. The other brothers and sisters had also their moments where they really tried to behave like a family for me. Even though we weren't too bad economically, several brothers and sisters would give me stuff to take to my house, like food or other supplies. A sister had even a small farm herself so she'd give me fresh eggs since scrambled eggs was my favorite food (still is, not counting pizza, lol).

So, TL;DR, I think these people truly tried their best to follow the teachings about being a spiritual family, and my childhood wasn't exactly too dark or depressing in JW-specific regards.

Now that I've mentioned preaching, perhaps this is where I started being an 'odd sheep'. I just honestly never liked house to house preaching, because, and ironically, of the Golden Rule that Jesus taught himself. I just knew that someone knocking on your door was at best a bother, and a very annoying interruption at worst so I didn't really do much 'service' in this fashion. My mom agreed with this, as she disliked it for the very same reason (She didn't tell me any of this back then, so, I know I wasn't just parroting, I was thinking for myself that early). Rather than knock on doors, I took in my mom's style of preaching, which was going to the alameda or other parks/public places and just casually talk to people about some current topic, we didn't even introduce ourselves as JWs right away. Our aim wasn't even to outright 'convert' because I was taught quite thoroughly about free will and why it was a big deal, so, in my and my mother's view, we'd just point out to the people what the Bible had to say about certain topic, and they'd have to take a decision on their own. In contrast to most JWs, me and my mother used the Bible alone for over 90% of the time so we weren't too big into handing tracts, magazines, etc. We'd just leave them with a Bible message and that they could consider checking it themselves.

I also never believed the things about 'wordly' people being particularly evil, since I easily could see they were all just normal people living their lives, of course, there were bad people, but weren't or didn't seem to be a majority, so, I never even held 'worldy' as a pejorative term myself, for me it pretty much meant 'non-JW' and that was it.

As several people have said here, in the 90's JWs had a bit more of a 'serious religion' air to themselves, studying the bible and books while other religions just had the pastor talk about some current topic, with little to no input from the bible. Even I wanted to put my intellect to use, so, even as a young kid, I kept asking to study the Revelation red book, but every brother and sister thought a kid wouldn't understand it. The reason my mother didn't study it with me herself was that she worked as a teacher, so she was busy in the mornings and tended to be fairly tired in her free time. This was also why I sometimes went to the service meetings on my own. Anyway, my grandma shared the view that the book was 'too deep' for a kid, but then, my surrogate grandpa said yes, and we studied that book, I would go to his house around sunset (For some reason, despite having brown skin, I suffer from horrible sunburns so I could only go out for anything early in the morning or when the sun began to set).

I'd help him run errands, as I'm taller than average and subsequently, quite strong even as a kid. As we studied the book, I confirmed that I could readily understand it, and progressed fairly quickly. I know now that most of it is probably bogus, but at the time I felt like I was easily learning the deeper truths about the bible, and understanding the symbolisms seemed like a really big deal, even an adult-level skill.

After we finished the Revelation/Apocalypse book we went on to study the young people ask, fittingly, as I was turning 12 by then. Again, none of it came off as wacky or even insanely strict to me. But this is because I had some further education. I mentioned earlier that I liked to watch documentaries even when I was very young, so, I did learn stuff like that smoking, drinking in excess (even my mom has always enjoyed a cold beer from time to time, and she even pointed to me things like first century christians or pre-christian israelites had wine on a somewhat regular basis because the water wasn't too good, but that didn't mean they'd go and get drunk. Even further 'demonstrated' when Jesus' first miracle was to turn water into wine) or doing drugs is bad because it causes harm to the body, so, it wasn't exactly a surprise to learn that God also considered these things to be wrong.

Now, I want to say that while the JW aspect of my life was fairly light hearted (or seemed to be), with my father being an irresponsible jerk, and a cheating bastard, my life was also shitty to some extent, and from seeing his failed marriage with my mom (who doesn't have him f*ck off simply because we'd all starve without his money) I took the decision to never marry myself nor have children, so, I never had any interest in sex. I did wonder how children were made as most other kids, but in my case it was just out of pure curiosity about a biological function and nothing more. From reading books I eventually learned how animals breed and concluded that humans, being mammals, were probably quite similar. So, yeah, I learned how human sex works (on paper) without any explicit exposure. Anyway, as I was saying, I never had any interest in sex/romantic relationship/anything related to that, so, JWs teaching about not having sex til marriage, the one teaching that seems the most difficult and restrictive for most born-ins to endure, wasn't exactly a big deal for me either. Perhaps this is one of the things what delayed my 'waking up'

Other than that, the rest of YPA stuff seemed reasonable, stuff like 'obey your parents because they're older, more experienced and know more about life than you' but even then I knew obedience wasn't to be blind, and that while I was young, my own intelligence held value and wasn't to be disregarded simply because of age (a point my 'grandpa', grandma and mom all made quite a few times actually). I also knew obeying my father was likely not a very good idea, so, for the most part I always sided with my mother whenever there was conflict between them (and there was, way often, as over 20 years ago as of now, my mom found out he's had an affair that he keeps up to this day)

Besides just studying what was there in the YPA book, we also tried to correlate some to my current school experiences. We also both knew some stuff couldn't be fully applied to Mexico's reality, like what the org says about 'not fighting back' bullies and stuff. I knew that Jesus' giving the other cheek HAD a meaning because he came to Earth to suffer and die as a human, but at the same time, me getting beat up wasn't accomplishing anything, so, being taller than most kids my age and considerably stronger, I always fought back, and unless seriously numerically overwhelmed, won for the most part. The elderly brother would chuckle at my school anecdotes (when they weren't overly serious, like some guy wanted to punch me and couldn't even reach my face, then I knock him out cold with a square punch to the jaw) and even he understood we sometimes had to do things our own way, according to reality. He was a man of the field (literal) from another state, where he lived in a village and was part farmer, hunter and fisherman. He used to always carry a machete with him since he walked through the jungle on a regular basis. He wasn't too explicit with details but he did tell me he sometimes had to fight people who wanted to hurt him or his wife and most likely wounded some of them. But he was like "I just can't let these people kill me, my wife or my kids, whom I swore to always protect. I know God is seeing it, and that he is reasonable, so, even if he ever asks me about it, I will explain and hope he judges me mercifully" So, basically, he understood that we sometimes had to defend ourselves despite what was taught on paper. He also told me that at least once he did have to kill a jaguar that got into the village and ate an elderly woman, but still felt bad for it, because it was one thing to kill animals to eat, which God gave permission to Noah and mankind ever since, and killing for other reasons felt sinful. (I like animals myself, but I always understood that some were also food. Never had any problem with reconciling both ideas). To try and honor the jaguar's death (not letting stuff go to waste), he used the pelt to make a pretty badass looking coat and buried the rest to let it 'go back and nourish the earth' He also sometimes had to kill alligators that walked into the village and they were eaten afterwards (that day I learned they were edible, lol). There were many other stories we both shared, but the post is overly long as it is, so I'll move on...

Shortly after we finished the book, the eldery brother, my 'spiritual grandpa' had some health problems due to old age (I think he's older than 90 now, he's still alive) so he would return to his home state. After a very heart-wrenching farewell for both of us, he left, and I was pretty much left on my own, as this was the one brother who always had time for me, the others helped and were well meaning, but I knew they also had their lives, so, this was quite a big blow to my young psyche, but I decided to stay strong to honor all the time he spent with me, not to let it be in vain.

At that time, there was only officially preaching in the morning, and as I said earlier, the sun is my enemy, so, even though it was unofficial, I went to preach around sunset, sometimes helped by the elderly brother's son and daughters, but it was obviously not the same. Some elders were a bit weirded by my going to preach on my own, but let me continue, as at least they seemed to trust me as a smarter than average kid.

Between shitty moment from my father's shenanigans and JW life, I had bits of normal-ish life, stuff like playing videogames (SNES) and watching tv, both documentaries and other stuff like cartoons. My mom is extremely chill for JW standards now that I see it, since she also played the SNES games with me and hell, even watched Dragon Ball, DBZ, DBGT, Pokemon, Digimon and a lot more stuff with me, we watched pretty much EVERY episode, lol, so I think I had bits of a good childhood in between the shitty bits and religion stuff, which didn't seem too shitty at the time.

On the other hand, as I was saying, my father was sometimes drunk, or just came way late from work on a regular basis which prompted fights between him and my mother since she'd call him out on cheating, and his lack of repentance even though his affair was a total whore who was with many men at the same time (I've confirmed a lot of this stuff myself). Even though my father was the perfect 'JW worldly person example' I still knew he was just horrible himself, and that other 'worldly' people were normal unless proven otherwise.

Anyway, as I have been saying, I became aware of my father's affair very early on, but had little to no involvement. I always sided with my mother, and prepared myself to fight my father if he ever tried to hit my mother (at 12 years old I was already 1.60m tall, he's 1.68 himself lol). My mother and grandma all raised me to the best of their ability and we didn't have too many problems.

Then, I entered highschool and things changed quite a bit. I was never really restricted about having 'wordly' friends, but prior to high school, I only really hung out with them at school or during 'free hours' (when teachers don't come for their class but it's still early to leave for home). Highschool brought forth team projects to be worked at someone's home, and also, being somewhat more mature than before, I trusted myself as intelligent and firm enough to be able to hang out with my friends without falling to sstuff like smoking, drinking, etc (which my friends didn't even do anyway). Yet, for some reason both my grandma and mother went near full uberdub regarding control, and wanted to tighten my 'leash' way too much, opposing me every single time, trying to punish me if i so much as arrived home a few minutes past 10 pm (my physical size was a good deterrent from physical abuse though, as at 15yo i was well over 1.70m tall, so, even though it may have been considered, it was never carried out).

During this time, my father played 'the faustian Devil' he would offer me his support, as he was still the father, the one who sustained the whole family and had the last word in some stuff. The price? Help cover up his affairs as just going on errands or just 'hanging out' ourselves. In exchange I would be pretty much never punished/grounded and was free to hang out with my friends and arrive at least past midnight (he did point out that later than that was likely dangerous, being Mexico and all). Another thing my grandma tried to do was to close the locks (we lock the house at night) to keep me ouut for arriving 'late' so, I was granted immunity from this too. I knew it was wrong, but I also knew my mother and grandma's behavior was totally uncalled for, and decided to play this part. I basically served as a 'double agent' since my mother wouldn't ever suspect I was now on my father's side (Due to his affairs, he can't be trusted with the car alone, so I'd always be sent with him to 'keep him under control' but now, he was enabled to use the car as he pleased as I wouldn't stop or tell on him)

This facade only lasted about one year because of two things, one, my conscience kept bitching at me, and two, after such prolonged conflicts with both me and my father, my mom and grandma decided to drop the stuff on me and trust my judgement. Helping my father became no longer necessary so I did eventually tell my mom a lot of what he had been up to (without giving myself away as being quite an active accomplice though) which further sparked more fights between them and also meant I was more free than before.

Back to the JW stuff, the most I had to deal with in school was not saluting the flag and not singing the anthem, or not participating in holiday related activities, and nobody made a big deal out of it (unlike previous generations, nationalism wasn't that strong among my peers at least) although not celebrating holidays was a bit odd, but I had an answer for that, which was actually true (at least for my family): JWs weren't limited to give/receive gifts on specific days, and instead it was done whenever we could. Our being rather poor held that back though.

Even though my father was a somewhat important person in the 90's and early 2000's, most of the money he earned was blown into whores and drinks, so, once he lost his political privileges and became a more average employee, our normal-ish life took a considerable blow. With my father being 'a zero to the left' (my grandma's way of calling him useless) I had to step in to fill what would've been my father's duties.

I mentioned I have a younger brother, 3 years younger than me. Well, there's more on him. He was born at 8 months as opposed to 9, and has issues to this day (unknown. physically similar to sotos' syndrome, but several things don't quite match that diagnostic). His mind exists in a sort of limbo, there are some things he can't quite grasp yet, but also, there are things he can understand clearly as any normal person, and some in between, met with the equivalent of perhaps a 5 - 8 years old intelligence. So, instead of the usual sibling rivalry, I assumed my position as the one who'd always have to protect him practically from the get go. Ironically, while his condition would seem to be evidence of an uncaring or potentially evil god, my grandma did remind me about the part of the bible that says that "unexpected event can happen to us all" (I'm translating from spanish, so, it's likely to be inaccurate to the actual english quote). Also, that my brother had been born in a critical state, that he was on the edge of death during his early days until he finally got stabilized (which my grandma attributed both to the doctors, but also to 'God's hand').

I know that that last bit seems to upset a lot of people here, but, as a kid, this seemed perfectly sincere and understandable, because as far as I had been concerned as a kid: God wasn't quite to blame, since all diseases and shiet were the result of Adam and Eve's screw-up, so, while my brother's problems weren't or didn't seem to be directly caused by God himself, it certainly seemed like he 'lent us a hand' in not letting him die. My grandma hadn't said that he simply snapped his fingers and he stopped being sick, but it was more along the lines of that, through the doctors' skill and good will, they saved my brother. She also said that he was basically God's gift to us. Regardless of whether or not there is a God, or if he had any hand in my brother's survival, my brother's coming into existence has proven to be a gift time after time, despite living in the third world and going through more hardships than even the average (JW or non JW) family.

I am not pinning or blaming this on my brother, but, given that my parents' marriage is rather a disastrous failure, I was already turned off that idea, but one more reason to add onto that is that I don't feel like I'd trust a 'strange' (as in, non blood relative) to live in the same house as my brother and myself. I'd rather help my brother be able to stay by himself while I were out, working, rather than risking leaving him alone with someone else. So, you could say that my worrying about him was one extra nail on the coffin where I buried any sort of romantic/relationship desire long ago, to this day.

So, after a year of hardships at high school (mostly my grandma and mom vs my 'worldly' friends), I was left pretty much alone on those matters, so, I had a somewhat normal-ish life at that point, although, as I also said, with a jerk of a father that wasn't much of any sort of guide or help, and a brother that would need me all of his life. I knew what career I wanted since childhood, I wanted to be a doctor (Veterinarian was also an idea, but, I was told it'd be much worse paid since mexicans don't care as much for animals as americans or other western cultures do, no joke). I wanted to diagnose diseases and help fight or cure them, helping people obviously as well. I felt like this was one of the more honest ways of 'earning my bread', helping people every day (police was always out of the question due to JW stuff... and firefighters aren't much of a thing where I live).

Kinda surprisingly, I passed the admission exam on my first try (here it's more usual to get in at the second or third due to corruption shenanigans, again, this is Mexico...). Sadly, I was extremely unlucky and I arrived at a time where they changed the traditional educational plan to some new bs, instead of studying the subjects properly as you would in any decent school, I was subjected to insane bullshit like cramming THE ENTIRE HUMAN ANATOMY in 3 goddamned weeks, and I was expected to recite pretty much every and all of the places muscles and bones connect as well as amny other, honestly bs questions that not even actual practicing surgeons would be able to answer without checking a book or the internet. A lot of other subjects were interesting, but the insanely short time required to 'learn' (read, memorize like a friggin parrot) and write down on an exam killed most of this stuff for me. On top of it all, the 'exam committee' was made up of a bunch of teachers (AND. NOT. A. SINGLE. DOCTOR. AMONG. THEM. I seriously can't make this shiet up myself, I lack the imagination and skill to come up with bs like this) who were corrupt as hell and pretty much demanded a sum varying from 1,000 to 3,000 pesos (about 100 to 300 bucks at the time, but consider that Mexican minimum wage was at around 5 bucks for every 8 hours). Most other students, being spoiled brats, sons and daughters of doctors, easily shrugged and simply gave up the cash.

A few friends of mine, myself, and an unknown number of other poor/non-relatives of anyone important were screwed out every single time because we refused to pay. The note system here goes from 0 to 10, and usually, up to 5 is a failure, while 6 was a passing note. Stupidly, right when I entered, the system was changed to make 6 a failure too, so 7 was required to pass. Guess what most of my notes were, 6.9, sometimes 6.8 or when really pushing it 6.95. Even though I managed to get decent notes on some subjects (I suck with numbers and equations so chemistry related subjects screwed me over even more), due to these godfriggin decimals, I was screwed out of passing to 2nd year, unless of course I were willing to shell out up to 4,000 for every 'failed' subject. I didn't have the money, but even if I had it, I always prided myself on not cheating at school (or at life, save some videogames) ever. I fought every 'failed' exam along with my friends, but they always had some shitty excuse to not give back the exams for us to review ourselves (a student's right that was on the friggin book they handed out themselves on my first day). And the few times they did give the exams back, they 'cleverly' only gave back the answer sheets, so we couldn't actually correlate whether or not our answers had been right or wrong, so, we were all screwed anyway.

At the same time, while med school was still an insanely difficult thing for most students here at least, it was also on top of JW stuff I 'had' to do, like preaching, going to meetings, conventions, etc. It was all a pretty heavy burden on my shoulders, and I spent many sleepless nights, attempting to cram the absurd amount of stuff I needed for exams (memorizing has never been my thing, i can explain to you how something works, but I can't parrot back every single detail as written on the book), to the point where I took psychological damage. I also prayed a lot to God to have a bit of extra strength/endurance/whatever I neededto keep going on. I wasn't doing this entirely for myself, yes, being a doctor would've been a job I would've loved, but I also wanted it because then I'd be able to maintain myself, my brother and my mother without needing my father ever again.

As it was obvious that everything fell apart and that I was 'kicked out' (Actually, I formally quit, but that's what was going to happen anyway) of med school, everything collapsed and shattered for me. I had never failed a school year, since that seemed to be one of the worst things ever, so, I always made an effort to pass despite struggling with stuff like Math, so, the shock was even worse than for the average student. Also, I was extremely angry and disappointed at God, not because I felt entitled to anything, but because I was doing all of this, for myself, for my family, while not ditching religion, whose burden's weight I had started to notice as I had taken on this career, and all I asked for was for him to lend me a hand, in any way he could've done so, and yet he did nothing.

I saw it as me going through life carrying a large backpack, while my arms and hands were also loaded with bags of heavy stuff, feeling on the verge of collapsing, and asking God to just take my hand for me to keep going on, and yet, he stood there idly as I fell due to exhaustion and the sheer weight of the stuff on me. This is how this experience felt altogether, and I pretty much lost my genuine faith. I sank into a severe depression and quit cold turkey any and all religious activity, as I spent my days confined to my room, barely eating, and feeling like an absolute failure at life and everything.

I wanted to kill myself. I even considered a few ways to go about it, but in the end, every time, a single thought stopped me from going through with it: my brother. As much as my life was at its shittiest, I was aware that my brother would be doomed once my mother died if I wasn't there, and I just couldn't shake it off, so, I could never force myself to go on and kill myself. Even when I had managed to get a bunch of medicines on a calculated dose to kill me, nor when I had a knife against my chest, nor when I stood on my house's roof, ready to jump off.

One year passed with me sunk into this depression, only held back from suicide because of the thought of my brother. The next year, my grandma got me psychiatric therapy (and yes, she's quite the devout JW, but isn't exactly the same as american JWs). The psychiatrist was a JW as well (not from my cong), but was very professional and as far as I can tell, nothing we ever talked about was leaked, in fact, we never talked about religion at all, and in all honesty, seemed to be a good person that helped me through my darkest days, so, there's that.

The first weeks were slow, I wanted to be helped, so that was one obstacle less, but, still, opening up to a stranger was difficult, specially at a time like that, but I eventually did. After like two or three months that were spent learning the details on my life and stuff (sans religion), he made me do a battery of tests, of which I remember a little. But still, it turned out that I had quite the severe clinical depression, as he showed me several of the values form my own tests superimposed over healthy results. My values were either extremely high (on things like anxiety, anger, frustration) or low peaks (like self esteem, enjoyment and idk what else). There was only a single value that was high while all others were low, and was quite higher than even the healthy standard. I don't remember the exact name, but the psychiarist summed it up as 'mental strength', or 'the ability to hold it all together despite the negativity from both inside and outside'. It seemed that this was the single thing that had kept me from going insane, and the doc was honest with me, he said that with less than half of the values I reported, most people required some sort of medication at best.

But at the same time, seeing these tests results himself, he was convinced that I could do it without drugs, that I actually had the necessary strength to recover from this. He said that if I just felt like I couldn't take it anymore, or didn't feel like doing this anymore, he could get me the prescriptions I needed and just live like that, at any time I wanted. But, even though that seemed tempting, specially since it seemed I always lived 'the hard way' (like not cheating even at math exams, even though I suck, and failed many), I decided to just follow my own conscience on this one too and we went on with the drug-less treatment. It took nearly two years from there to make a recovery. I still grieved over my failure at med school, but, I had recovered my will to live and keep fighting, something that was much harder than it sounds. I still had taken the decision of 'walking my life without God' because, as far as I was concerned, he let me down when I needed him the most, and the painfully slow climb back to mental health was all my and the doc's work, so, I still stayed away from religious stuff.

My mother never bothered me a single time through all the process, nor after I recovered. My grandma did want me to at least go to the meetings, but this was less of a vicious intent and more of just honest concern, as she fully believes in Armageddon, but doesn't think God will be as 'trigger-hapy' as the Watchtower makes him seem to be, so, in her view, if I just went to the meetings, that should have been enough for me to be spared on Armageddon, or revived into the thousand year rule. She also believes God will only kill the truly bad people, so, even non JWs that never believed, besides the ones that never had a chance to 'hear the message' would also be spared and or revived. This probably also delayed my awakening.

In the mean time, my father, over the years, has taken on a more morally ambiguous position, as he appears to regret his past actions (namely cheating on my mom countless times). He also studied with JWs from time to time, so he has general knowledge of the bible and their teachings or stuff, but even then, my mother never believed him, even to this day. I kinda hate him too, because it turns out he has (had, according to him) a mistress and two daughters (that he doesn't acknowledge, neither verbally nor legally). As I grew up with only one brother, and he has been there with me my whole life, I refuse to acknowledge those girls as my sisters, or as my siblings, ever. My family are only my grandma, my mom and my brother. My father, in name only. No one else. So, there's some tension about the future, my mom fears that the mistress and her daughters (before you all feel bad, the 3 are all cheap sluts, no joke) want a piece of what we have, like our house or stuff. Thankfully, most of it only has my mom's or grandma's name, so, legally, it should be very hard for them to take anything from us, but they can still try, so, there's worry and resentment.

These later years (currently 25, this would be from around the time I turned 21 or 22) he seemed to regret his past actions, as I had said, and it seems that he genuinely goes from work back to home, without the 'mistress' involved in the way, and since I taught that well, only God can make absolute judgements, (also that thing when Jesus forgave a robber right before they died), I gave him the benefit of the doubt, while my mother refuses to forgive him to this day. So, things are somewhat more peaceful at home than they used to be. I attended a bunch of courses to learn to repair electronic stuff, and started working as a freelancer ever since. I was turned off attempting a serious career again after my failure, which I still see as catastrophic for me.

Freelancing work rarely works as a fully sustainable way of life, since it's not taken as a 'serious job'. On the good side, I was paying no taxes lol (We still pay all the other required taxes like on our ouse, water and stuff), but on the other hand, it wasn't consistent enough to live off from, so, my income could vary wildly. Thankfully my mother never demanded any amount of my earnings, I gave her what I could when I could, while also allowing myself to save up for nice things like a cellphone, a PS3 and a few games. This way of life came to an end about 2 years ago, because my father, who had been working as a government electrician for the last decade (he fixes stuff like public lamps, and sets the lighting for public events and things like that), had a work accident, he was working on an 8 meter (like 26 ft) tall lamp post, on a staircase, when the post itself collapsed, because its base was rusty as all hell (but nicely painted to cover this up), so, it fell, and my father with it. He managed to maneuver so as not to fall headfirst, so, his pelvis shattered instead of his skull. He almost died, and was immediately taken to a hospital.

Up to this point, my mom also worked, she wrote articles and corrected gramar and ortography for a local newspaper. Both she and I had to quit our jobs to take care of him, since mexican public hospitals have worse service than even a motel... seriously, the nurses barely did stuff, the patient's relatives are expected to take care of everything sans the infrastructure and very basic stuff like food. It was a VERY long recovery, followed by VERY long rehab process. The accident my father suffered was nearly fatal, to the point that he really felt like he was going to die for the first days (even the doctors are surprised a 57yo man who didn't precisely live a healthy life recovered from this and managed to get to walk again, his pelvis had been practically pulverized). As a 'side effect', he decided that, despite being an overall jerk most of his life, which he actually admits, God spared his life, so, he took this 2nd chance, and his decreased work load, to once again to study with a JW elder, friend of our family, although sadly, still seems to be fully in. He also started to go to meetings. This is when my unknowingly performed fade ended, as he asked me to go with him (partially justified, because he needs a cane to walk, so, as his only capable son, I should accompany him), so I went.

The cong itself didn't seem to hold any hard feelings to me, and a few people sincerely seemed to be happy to see me again (I can only say so for a few, I can't tell how sincere others are, although so far, none has given me reasons to doubt them). So, things seemed to be better. Even though I had still been mad at God, I swallowed my pride and went with my father, partially because as a now disabled/crippled person, he needs help, and partially because I still felt it was 'the right thing to do'.

A few months in, it seemed all was back to normal. JWs were pretty much just like last time I had been there, so, there was nothing specially new or anything. However, I still didn't feel like preaching again, and both my mom and grandma respected this, the latter was content enough with me going to the meetings. She's also come to respect me quite a bit because, not to boast, or anything, but, save for my mental 'downtime' I was always 'the man of the house', while my father was more along the lines of a bratty teenager whose only redeeming quality was that every 2 weeks he brought money for the family to eat and live. As my father is now able to do even less things and I do more, my grandma sees that she and my mom educated me as a good person, living up to the situation and helping any way I could. So she never gave me the 'you're not good enough' bs I keep reading people here have suffered through. As I said, she was happy to see I was leading a decent life and attending to the meetings.

Nearly a year later, the JW stuff started to change from what I knew all my life to something different, and I didn't like it. I had a few doubts during my teen years, but I had chalked those up to my own human flaws and being a teenager (yes, I thought that as a teen, stuff that seemed way too tedious, or things I had doubts about were just me being a stupid teen, despite my best attempts at being mature and intelligent). The changes to the meetings definitely went into a direction that I wasn't liking, and while I still hadn't thought 'this is a cult' just yet, things started to seem off. Meetings seemed more robotic, and the videos seemed to take away the seriousness I once believed the meetings had. Killing off the TMS also set off some internal alarms, because there is where it seemed that we were living up to the 'studying the bible' shtick.

The new things they brought in their place, namely those 'presentations' seemed stupidly unrealistic to me, and I had a hard time believing that this was the same religion God and Jesus were supporting as the true one. In fact, even though preaching has always been a big deal, it seemed to me that now they had gone overboard with it, after all, the preaching passage was just a small part of the Bible, and I felt that we were supposed to study it all, not just a few bits over and over.

During my depression years, my best friend was the only non family person that stood by my side. He's a guy who is about 6 years younger than I am, we became friends when he was like 6 and I was 12 lol (TL;DR: I was playing with a frisbee a bunch of neighborhood kids, it landed inside his garage, we asked to have it back and invited him to join us, that's how my longest lasting friendship started). Never a JW, or very religious on that matter, what little he knows about Bible I told him about it (in a more honest matter, without the 'Join the JWs' bs). This is one of the other things both my mom and grandma are fairly chill about, for JW standards. My only remaining friend, who comes to my house quite often, is a non JW, and they don't have a problem with it.

During the late stages of my mental recovery, he and I went out to search for jobs, and one day he told me of something that seemed easy and promised decent pay. He was about 17 at the time, so, 23yo me had a mild suspicion over that. We attended the 'meeting'. It was a pyramid scheme, and because of me, my friend didn't fall into it. What slightly shocked me was that even though this was a commercial thing, you know, supposed to be a job, it struck me as frighteningly similar to JW meetings, even with the 'house to house presentations' and shiet. Of course, they also had videos and stuff, so, since this was before I went back to JW meetings, I left it as being mere coincidences at most, but this never left my mind.

So, those memories came back when I saw what the JW meetings degenerated into. At an earlier point, I was enrolled into the TMS (About 6 months before it got destroyed), but since all I did was read the Bible, it didn't seem like that much of a big deal to me, I mean, out of all the stuff JWs do, just reading a few passages of the Bible once every few months definitely doesn't seem like much. Although I still didn't feel like preaching or taking it any further beyond that. I was never baptized because again, I never felt ready for it, not when I was nearly 'fully in', and not now. I just recently realize that being unbaptized turned out to have been a big protection.

Also (still before the JW 2.0 stuff was introduced), it seemed that my cong would be disbanded and we'd merge into another one. I decided that if that happened, I'd quit the TMS. One thing was stepping in front of a community I grew up in, people who were pretty much extended family, to read the Bible aloud, and another was to do that in fornt of a bunch of complete strangers. I also was slightly worried that these 'new' brothers would be much harsher and stricter to me, while the elders and ministerial servants from my cong were always pretty chill with me, (quite a bit considering I was already 23, unbaptized, and not even a publisher anymore). In the end, the cong was not disbanded, and I admit I kinda felt like perhaps God had lent me a hand for a change (not just me, I assumed there had to be many other reasons to let the cong stay).

So, I didn't quit the TMS, and JW 2.0 stuff was introduced. As I mentioned earlier, my internal alarms started going off, and it started to seem less of the serious religion I once had considered it to be. As some have mentioned, I remembered when back in the 90's other churches were criticized for televising their stuff, and years later, we have the JW broadcasting... I kinda welcome the internet acceptance, since before, it seemed like it was a 'bad thing' (it didn't stop my mom from getting us internet since the early 2000's). The JW library also seemed to be a somewhat convenient thing, no more carrying portfolios, I could have the bible and any book needed on my phone, this one seemed to be one of the few 'good things' the org had done.

During all these years, and despite having Internet, my conscience had kept me from researching JW stuff on teh internetz, because, you know, evul apostates and their lies and shiet. Hell, a single time I had checked the JW article on the wikipedia, and saw the names of the governing body, I, as a kid, was actually worried that the government had this kind of info (in my mind, I thought they were supposed to stay anonymous so that the government and stuff couldn't easily arrest/kill them. Yes, kid me had sympathy for those people, and had some concern that their names being on the wikipedia meant there was knowledge that could lead to bad stuff happening to them)

I finally went to research the JWs on the internet after all these crazy changes that seemed to have turned the religion I had grown up in in a sort of bad caricature of itself. This is when I first found the doctrinal flip flops, the blood guilt they bear, the hypocrissy, the fact that those seven men in new york are rocking 10k+ gold watches and jewelry that, as supposed disciples of Jesus, and as people who are supposed to be dedicated to 'spiritual stuff' (aka not working/living off donations) shouldn't have, Rutherford's corruption, the child abuse horrors and basically, I realized that it was all a lie.

I still can't call me 'fully awakened' because I still feel that there is a God, and Jesus. I might be open to atheism later on, but right now, it'd be to lie to myself, so, what I have personally concluded is that the JWs are NOT the true religion, that the org has failed to prove to truly live up to God's and Jesus' principles and teachings, that they bear blood guilt on their hands, not unlike every other eligion they've criticised, and that God and Jesus can't possibly agree to stuff like letting people die over a symbol (blood), specially when Jesus himself freaking broke the rules of his time to heal a man. Also, I can't believe God to be so petty as to only bless people who dedicate x amount of hours to busywork, regardless on whether or not they try to be genuinely god. I also can't believe God, or Jesus (specially Jesus because he came to Earth to live as a human, and had a human family) to approve of the shunning bs, kicking out of the house even underage relatives, or the child abusers getting pretty much scott free. In fact, I'd believe that Jesus would be sick at such things.

I also genuinely doubt the mysoginy the JWs impose, as, as far as the Bible can tell, Jesus had no problem teaching women just as men, or children. I can't imagine Jesus being mad at women who live independent, or women who don't let men intimidate/manipulate/push them into their 'traditional' roles (something still kinda prevalent in Mexico). I also can't imagine that Jesus or God care all that much about the head covering. Just like I can't picture them making a big fuss about watching/reading stuff, including fantasy.

In short, I realized the JWs were a cult, not so different from Scientology, the Mormons, or any other. Being unbaptized, it meant that my family technically has no reason to shun me. But even still, I was slightly worried. I know that my grandma can never wake up, because a good part of her life (at the very least over 50 years outof her 84) is in the JWs, also, that all her hopes are there, because many, many relatives of her have died (most were non JWs), and she hopes to see them again in the idyllic paradise. She had been raised a catholic, but 'learned' that heaven as they taught it was not real, because she learned of this stuff, the 'earthly hope'. She hopes to wake up one day and be young again, to find her relatives whom death took away far too early (numerous cousins, sisters, her only son [she has 2 daughters left, my mom and an aunt], and that sons' eldest son). It'd destroy her to learn that the JWs are a lie, so, I have accepted that I can't wake her up, and in fact, I only go to meetings now for her, although boring, they can no longer brainwash me, so, this is more of a mild inconvenience, a sacrifice I do, not too different from the guys that attend to Mass or other religious stuff because of their parents/grandparents.

However, my mom is a different deal. She's been always my only intellectual match in the house, also, she stopped going to meetings or openly preaching years ago, but still seemed to believe JW stuff. After I had stumbled upon the r/exjw subreddit, and read several terrible stories, I was worried my mom was a JW first before being my mom. But at the same time, I knew I got my intelligence from her, and I felt there could be good chances she'd wake up. So, after months of lurking in here, and making my research, I started cautious, but talked to her about stuff.

My mom always had an open mind, and is always reading about new scientific discoveries alogn with many news, she also is a fan of dinosaurs/ice age stuff, and owns the entire clan of the cave bear collection, which she's read more than once. She sometimes talked to me about stuff that was discovered about neanderthals or other hominids, and we even watch documentaries about such things together, but, every once in a while, she seemed to attempt to reconcile JW stuff with this, as she'd guess that perhaps those hominids were just extinct human races, lost to the Deluge. Speaking of the Deluge, one of the doubts I always had, and she also showed curiosity about, was, why didn't animals like the wooly mammoth or the sabretooth tiger get on the ark? It doesn't help that the yellow Bible stories book did depict two mammonths in the Deluge story. Our personal theories had been that they were either too big, or God simply had some other reason not to let those beasts live in the post-Deluge world. Definitely one of the things we would've asked Noah if we ever met him.

So, back on track, I started cautiously with things that could cause a bit of doubt, like the evidence of cancer in dinosaur bones, millions of years prior to the creation of man. I do't remember what other things we talked about, but, I felt like she really had her mind open to things, so, I took the leap of faith and started mentioning to her things I found off with the JWs. Namely all the new stuff, for starters.

As I mentioned the TMS's removal and the much more robotic presentations, as well as no longer teaching the rank and file to explain the bible themselves, but redirect them to the website, I was surprised to find that my mom, even though she was baptized, had these same kind of doubts as early as her teen years. Like me, she wondered why the emphasis on preaching was so overblown when, comparatively, it was a very small part of the Bible, and there was much more to analyze. She had discussed some of these things with my grandma, but, as a more 'in' JW, she shot her down and just hoped that either they understand things later on, or God makes things right via some change.

I also mentioned to her the child abuse cases, the flip flops about organs and vaccines, the biblical validity of shunning (which doesn't even have a name in spanish lol), the hard stance on birthdays (which we have always celebrated, sans candles or parties, because we always saw it as just a nice day to remember that we were born x years ago), the JW broadcastings resembling too much the evangelical TV stuff the JWs themselves once criticised. I didn't even get to mention it when she talked to me about the 1975 fiasco, and that she didn't understand why they keep pushing the 'we're in the last days/the end is around the corner' ever since, she thiks they should've had the humility to admit they were wrong, that no human can predict Armageddon, and that they shouldn't push people's lifestyles according to something nobody can be sure of.

As I had thought my mom to be 'in', this baffled me. This was a huge advance in my opinion, but I wasn't done yet. Some time later (I only talk about this stuff when my fatherisn't at home, because he's gossipy as hell) I decided to finish things, as last time, we had serious doubts, but it had been left inconcluse, my mom had said that 'We have nowhere else to go', and that 'maybe we can wait and see if God will fix this stuff'. Once again, I took a deep breath and talked to her more seriously about this stuff. ut this time, I had stuff to show her on my computer.

I pretty much told her that the JWs were definitely NOT the true religion. And that maybe there isn't a true one, at least, none of the big, organized ones (She still believes in God and Jesus, so, she might not be as open to atheism just yet, I'm open to it in the future, but the feeling of believing in God, Jesus, and the Bible still lingers in my mind). I once again went over the blood thing, that the symbol can't be more valuable than that which it represents, so, letting someone die over blood is nonsense (this came up because my mother might have a form of tumors and be subjected to surgery, and I was definitely not going to let her die to something as pathetic as lack of blood), that the shunning practice was antibiblical, as Jesus merely stated to treat others 'as people from the nations' at worst, and, how he treated people from the nations? The question answers itself with the samaritan woman part, Jesus did NOT shun anyone, and I can't imagine him in Heaven approving of this friendship and family-destroying practice. Specially not to people who just can't blindly obey the 7 men in new york who merely claim to be God's channel without true proof to back that up.

I told my mom that the JWs are a cult, and that I could prove it. I showed her a wiki entry about the BITE model in spanish, I explained to her that there are professionals that stufy the social phenomenon of cults, and that the BITE model came up as a way to identify such organizations. That these people never, ever directly interacted with JWs and that there can't possibly be 'apostate' interests on this article, so, I showed her, and on her own, she realized how the JWs fit the BITE model 'nicely'. She said she was shocked and horrified, but didn't look that surprised to me. Then I showed her the recent australian news on the ARC thing, and as I had previously talked to her about it (including the spectacular failure of a governing body member to defend 'the truth' at all), she read with her own eyes (and me translating, as her english is a bit rusty) how the royal comission deemed the JWs to use a ridiculous 2,000 year old method to determine wrongdoing, that it doesn't help the victims in any way, and that it hinders prosecution, that this 'religious organization' does not care to provide protection for the kids or victims in general.

Then I showed her a pic where it showed the luxurious/expensive things a governing body member was sporting during a broadcast, and I commented to her that sometime ago, without knowledge of this, a song had as its title 'If Jesus had a tv show, would he wear a 10k rolex?'. A 'brother' who lived off donations and was supposedly fully dedicated to 'spiritual work', someone who supposedly tries to live up to Jesus' legacy, shouldn't be showing these kind of things. We understand hard working 'brothers' who have their nice stuff (we know a bunch of moderately rich families, but they're rich by their own work), but this is unacceptable. I also mentioned the multiple sales of halls and merging of congs. This definitely is not the true religion. My mom agreed that this was, indeed, a cult.

She still acknowledged that I'm slightly bound because of my grandma, so I still have to go to meetings for as long as she lives. But she knows I will never baptise, or become a publisher, because I can no longer promote these things. One of the points I told her about earlier was in fact, the perversion of the baptism, supposed to be a thing between a person and God, and that the Watchtower only uses it to 'have power' over people, so, I can't agree to such a baptism. I also made the point that the org only has as much power over you as you're willing to give it. She and I agreed on that we cannot talk about this to any brothers/sisters, nor my grandma. She also reassured me that she's going to be by my side, regardless of what the watchtower says (sadly, she was baptised at 15yo, but at the time, she had felt it was a sincere compromise between her and God, not that she was pressured or that she was doing it to 'fit in'. I think she was never a pioneer either).

When the thing about 'where else can we go to' thing came up again, she said that there were only 2 options, atheism, or some other religion, and she couldn't accept any of those, I told her there was a third option, which is to go forward, take the few good things we learned from the JWs and the Bible (mostly generic religious stuff to be honest, like the golen rule and the like, I know that the 'good' things I learned weren't unique to the JWs) and move forward. The only slight dilemma was that Jesus did command his disciples to preach, and I said we can just do what we used to do, talk to people in public places (we both hate annoying people at their home) and just suggest to read the Bible, and leave up to them whether or not to believe in it. Still, one of the problems is that we have nowhere to lead people into, and I compared the JW org to Noah's ark.

I said that preaching while knowing the JWs are a cult was akin to having been told by some random people that God says to go preach about the Deluge, and that the only salvation was the ark, only to find out that the ark is full of holes, barely standing, and overall a completely defective thing that won't stand a chance in the Deluge. So, without having a religion (to our knowledge) that really tries to live up to God's and Jesus' teachings and principles, preaching in itself is almost pointless, but we can try sometime, I even commented things like writing a blog or videos, not pushing anyone into a particular religion, just to invite them to read the Bible and consider if its advice can be useful or not to the person's life. I don't actually intend to do any of this, it was just me solving the preach dilemma in the best, sincere way I could come up with. I'm not discarding entirely the possibility of writing a blog, but I don't feel like doing that anytime soon. The general idea with my mom was that what we should do is to try and lead a good life, and then wait to see whatever is at the end of it (if there is anything).

She then mentioned that she is actually baptised, and that that might be troublesome. I mentioned to her that besides DF'ing and DA'ing, there is another way, which is called fading (it doesn't have a name in spanish as far as i know). I even commented that she had unkowingly performed a fade already since it's been years (at the very least near a decade) since she last went to meetings (she still goes to the commemoration of Jesus' death because, well, as far as the Bible says, that is a big deal).

Plot twist: She chuckled and told me that it wasn't unknowingly, she just didn't know it had a name.

Our conversation ended as my father came back home from work, and I sat there, baffled, feeling a bit like I had been in some sort of movie... it seems that my mom was a least half-awake for the last 10 years, and might have been my entire life (remember that she was quite chill for JW standards...).

In conclusion, maybe this wasn't the objectively 'best' way to wake up. But I can't picture many ways this could have gone better, and I can picture many it could've gone worse (even though perhaps, some would say she should've done it when I was young, my grandma, a believing JW still played a big role in raising me, so, it may have caused more harm than good). So, at 25 years old, and with a fairly balanced upbringing, without any specific traumatic experience, I woke up simply because I realized that things were wrong, and it turns out, my mom woke up with me as well. Life is hard, in this little, southern insignificant state of a third world country called Mexico, but, I'm kinda content with my life. Now that I know my mom is on my side, my outlook on life has gotten a lot more positive. Our ultimate sever of bonds with the watchtower will be when we move to Canada, what I plan to do in 1 - 3 years max. So, this is my life, it's not the 'best life ever' but, I'm still quite happy to be alive, I have a good friend by my side, me and my mom aren't brainwashed, good enough for me. I'll take care of the rest.

PS: The final talk about the JWs being an actual cult came up because the Regional convention is coming, and I was definitely not going to sit half a day to hear hate speech (which is what I exactly told to my mom, lol). To prove it, I showed her the video where they disfellowship a daughter, and when the phone rings, they refuse to answer. She was disgusted, and said that people who follow Jesus shouldn't be able to do this kind of thing and still call themselves christians. I commented that US JWs seem to be a lot like this, and she told me that mexican culture, stronger family bonds and stuff has probably kept us from falling into that level of brainwashing. She also implied that many mexican families would probably ignore the org behind their backs and not actually shun close relatives.

To avoid the convention, I came up with a plan, and I got my mom's support for it. I told my grandma that I'll be on a work capacitation course this weekend from 10 AM to 1:30 PM (I'm actually trying to get ajob for real, I just haven't gotten any reply yet), and surprisingly, she didn't object, she said that it's understandable that I go and try to get the job to help my family survive. No fuss about the convention whatsoever. So, Ima go walk around the city, and hang out at the city's main park for free wifi until the time comes. I'll go back home because at 2:00 PM, every day, I have to go upstairs and serve my grandma her food and arrange her medicines for the day. My dad will go on his own to the convention 'to tell us what it was about'.

My mom is convinced he doesn't actually believe so, we'll just let him. He's been talking shiet of brothers and sisters behind their backs so, we can't give him ammo by letting him know the actual truth. Still, we don't understand his motives, but, whatever he does will be up to him. At least, the people whom I care about, namely my mom and my brother, are free. And I'll respect my grandma's whishes just for as long as she lives.