Welcome "another spot'....
I hesitate to speak for anyone else on GS because of the diversity of each persons experiences, but I can share mine with you. I had many of the same questions as you. After my wife and I left TWI (or were dropp kicked), we searched for a home church or somewhere to worship all the while trying to get as far away from TWI's doctrine and mannerisims as possible. Not that all the doctrine was bad, but in my opinion the good was destroyed by all the wacko stuff that was allowed to occur.
One thing that I could never embrace in the Christian culture is the 'trinity'. TWI taught that God and Jesus are not the same person, and that I have taken with me (although even as a young child I never believed that anyway). The problem that my wife and I have found is trying to find a home church that does not cram the trinity down your throat. For this reason, we actually now have embraced the Messianic faith (Jewish failth that accepts Jesus as the Messiah) and found that to be a nice fit. TWI (at least in my experience) always taught that the 'old testimate' doesnt apply to us' and thus put all the attention on 'the new testimate'. I dont agree with that and feel cheated now because I never learned anything about the old testimate within TWI. Maybe that was not the case anywhere else in TWI but that was at least my experience.
I guess to make a long story short, God is still God - no matter how distorted TWI made Him, and Christ still sits on His right hand. If you can dismiss everything else and start again with that as your building block and begin to study the bible for yourself, you will begin to build a relationship with God the way He wants you too.
I hope this helps....thanks for tolerating my long winded post....
Michael.