There were definitely different levels, and changes over time. I say different levels because I recall the rhetoric that would tend to convince you that any kind of "worldly" enjoyment was usurping time with God and the saints, so something to be avoided.
I went through some of the same issues. I started dealing with the religious issues fairly early on. I think I might have skipped the first communion that I attended after leaving the LRC, but none after that. It took a year to join the choir. Since then, I have played in the band, even doing it very recently (imagine that, allowing a 57-y-o to play guitar in the band — it convinced me to go out and buy a new guitar just 2 days ago).
In fact, we went to our first Ranger baseball game shortly after leaving. Played the Yankees. Kids were too little to really remember it. But we have been back many time since.
It has been the thinking about church, leadership, denominations, unity of believers, etc., that has continued to be my problem. I rock along for years not being faced with a particular issue and then it pops up in some sermon or Bible study. And I default to LRC dogma.
And the thing I am slowly coming to see is that the key is not in just saying that the LRC position is wrong, but in seeing why it is wrong — or right. Look at the basis for the thing, teaching, etc., that is your default. Does it really say what you think it says? Or was there a message, LSM book, training, etc., that redefined the verse or passage without justification. (And be careful about how some overlay like "God's economy" is so often used as a basis to reject the obvious meaning of a passage and the supplied meaning not be findable in the passage.)
We were taught how to define and discern "worldly," "religious," "spiritual," "grace," "law," "church," "unity," and even "God's economy" such that the outcome was for the LRC and against everything else, including every other Christian group of any kind. "Religion" is just dead works, and all of Christianity is religion, therefore just dead works. "Works" are always dead, therefore the epistle of James is only useful as evidence of what not to do. (BTW, can you find that scripture ever asserts that works are simplyu dead? I can only find that there are dead works. And there are works that are not.)
We were put under a microscope in a way that always made us insecure. Always engaged in activity to appear spiritual. 1 Corinthians 3:9 and following (the bit about building with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay and/or stubble) was always aimed at us by Lee or whoever we were hearing from despite the fact that when Paul wrote it, he was applying it to himself, Apollos, Peter, and other workers, but
not to the Corinthians to whom he was writing. Later in that letter, Paul reigned-in their penchant for meeting in which everyone got involved, but Lee managed to conclude that everyone can speak. (A little counterintuitive?)
We got fed this line about "Nicolaitan" meaning clergy being over the laity (unlikely what it means) and we therefore can dismiss any kind of clergy as being Satanic. (We can "clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
)
We heard for so long that everything about Protestant Christianity was fallen and degraded. The reasons given were ostensibly based on application of scripture. But were they? Was every negative account, picture, metaphor, etc., simply said to apply to Christianity?
Were any reasons given really any different than with the LRC? Do they really have no hierarchy? Do you local elders not answer to someone or someones with flesh and bones and living (probably in Anaheim) at this very time? What happens if they quit having as many ministry station meetings as they have been having? What happens if they cut their standing order of LSM materials in half?
The answer to these questions does not answer any question about Christianity. But does put the mindset of the ones who have raised the questions in the first place under a microscope. It would seem that they want to do more of what "those denominations" do than the denominations do. But they don't want you looking at them.
But I have been looking at both. And my conclusion is that the LRC power structure is everything that they claim Christianity is at the worst that they claim it. And Christianity is, for the most part, nothing like they have been saying. I do not deny specific abuses. We have had many discussions on these topics recently and I do tend to stand out as the "defender" of the Christian status quo. I do not defend the indefensible. But some of the things that we learned to call indefensible are not so because scripture would suggest that it is so, but because Nee, Lee, and/or the leftovers (BBs) say it is so.
But they need more than scripture to arrive at so many of their declarations. You need a decoder ring. You need to assert that "because of God's economy" you can't take that passage at face value. You must instead replace its meaning with this alternate.
The true normal Christian life is a Christian doing normal things, but righteously and with love for those around him. That means honesty and integrity in the marketplace. It means kindness to all. It means having normal relations, conversations, activities, with all kinds of people. You don't even have to segregate from those worldly people. You can go to a ballgame with some friends from work. (And you can have friends at work — even unsaved friends that you do not have a schedule figured out on when you are going to read them the riot act, er, sorry, I mean preach them the gospel.)