So I'm resurrecting this old blog. Why did I stop posting here as soon as I started? Because I'm a big chicken, that's why. I have been concerned that old friends and family members might search my name and find me here. Well, that was silly. All those "old friends" and family members have disowned me anyway, so I guess it shouldn't concern me. Here I am. I keep talking my partner's ear off about things and he says, "BLOG IT!" and then I don't blog it. Maybe I will now. To start off, here is a letter I sent in to Freeminds.org a couple of years ago. I went to look it up recently and it's all in Spanish for some reason and I couldn't find the original version on the site anymore. Maybe I just missed it. Jeremy said I should post it here and put a link to it on freeminds.org in case anyone stumbles onto it. Note that this is a very, very brief version of my "story." Here goes:

I was born into the fourth generation of a family of Witnesses. When I was eighteen I began to lose my faith. I tried so hard to guard my faith from my doubts. I had about a thousand reasons to stay in the organization and no reasons to leave. I thought my life was over. I had no support system outside the cult. I wanted to die. Indeed, I thought dying would be better than leaving, or staying within the organization, a hypocrite, a wolf in sheep's clothing. That's what I felt like.

I thought I could never leave. My upbringing was severe and extreme even for a Witness. It made me...weird. Other people didn't know how to approach me and I didn't know how to approach them. I was socially inept. I despaired of ever having a normal life. Then one day, I stumbled over Freeminds.org. I systematically devoured everything on the site - several times. Randy, the things I found gave me courage and understanding. I was so relieved to find that I wasn't crazy, I wept. Often. In the most difficult of times, I would return to the website to read everything over again.

Six years later, things are still difficult. I have finally left the organization. I have been disowned by some. I have lost my job twice because I left (I worked for a Witness). I have had rumors started about me. Recently I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder stemming from my childhood experiences as a Jehovah's Witness. I am going through a lot right now, and I know it may take years more for me to heal and have a normal life. But I do not regret my decision to leave.

I know that without the many personal accounts on freeminds.org attesting to the fact that there is life after the organization, I may never have been strong enough to leave. I think that I probably would have killed myself eventually. I knew that my parents would rather have lost me to suicide than to "Satan." They would have been able to tell themselves that I was ill, and Jehovah would have mercy on me. Suicide seemed like the most loving (!!) course of action at one time. I do feel that finding your site saved my life. It certainly saved my sanity. I can talk about it to "outsiders" until I'm blue in the face but the only people capable of truly understanding the impact being a Witness has made on my life, are other ex-Witnesses. It's taken me six years to finally reach out to other ex-Witnesses on the internet. I hope that it helps. And as I continue to grow and heal, I hope my own words can help others, the way the accounts on your site helped me. I feel like it's more or less my responsibility to help others like me.

Thank you for all you have done to help me and other people searching for truth and comfort and understanding. And courage. I don't have much money but I will do all I can to support Freeminds.org to the day I die. I really do believe you are saving people's lives, even if they never write in to tell you that. After all, it took me six years just to be able to write you this e-mail.

I have to add that it is very hard to convey the proper emotion through typed words! Please know that this is heartfelt.

Leila Benoit