I would say I stopped being very active around age 22-23. That was when I learned about a lot of beliefs that had changed over the years and become contradictions of the previously held doctrine, so that really hit me pretty hard and made me step back and look at the religion more objectively. Kind of sporadically went to some meetings until I was around 30. I'm now mid-30s and no longer believe in anything supernatural.
I went to school with a couple of them. One of them actually knocked on my door with her parents one day. I have never seen someone more embarrassed.
She was about 14 at that point and on the edge of not believing any of it I think. It is probably different here because basically nobody is religious in the UK.
I've had that exact experience before. Knocked on a classmates door. Understand - it's terrifying to knock on ANY total strangers door. But when it's your classmate, you know you're going to be the weirdo in school. It's almost giving me an anxiety attack just thinking about it.
It's so hard to drop a religion you were raised with. For years after I would still catch myself feeling guilty about something I shouldn't feel guilty about. Then get frustrated that I had that response.
Once you break the rules and actually question the belief, it gets hard to not see the contradictions.
Very true. Even now I almost WISH I could believe, just so I could have a better relationship with my family and my parents would be proud of me. But at this point I'm all out of faith and would need some hard evidence, which I'm convinced doesn't exist. So it is what it is I guess.
At what age did you stop being a Jehovah's Witness?