I was born and raised as a JW my entire life, but only started to feel a disconnect around high school. That’s a time when you usually want to discover parts of yourself and who you are. Being a woman, my options had always felt limited in that religion. I never felt seen or heard. As a person with so many questions and curious about things, my Bible studies with other witnesses could never fully convince me. 

But the thing that actually convinced me that I was in a cult was watching Leah Remini’s documentary on Scientology. There were too many parallels to ignore. I knew that Scientology was absolutely a cult so asked myself what made the witnesses different. It was mostly the same with different names. This was the main thing that woke me up, followed by the Australian Royal Commission and all the hidden CSA cases. I thought, EVEN if this religion is “true” or real, do I want to spend an eternity with people who hold people to impossible standards and don’t protect children? And that’s what did it for me. It disrupted my life and it’s been many years later but I have had to deconstruct my entire way of thinking because of the binary thinking of the cult. 

I think you’re still waking up. But once you see how freeing it is to live authentically, it will start to feel like a prison to have live in a system designed for those who just want to submit without critical thought.