Hi Stash, First of all, I'm impressed with your level of maturity since you've separated ties from the congregation. For a lot of people, once they leave it's hard for them to make any decisions at all. But here you've been able to be a pretty functional person, be independant, find work, etc, etc, etc...as far as I can tell, despite growing up in unfortunate circumstances. I can relate to a lot of what you're going through. I had to make a lot of decisions myself which resulted in losing everyone I knew. Your brother sounds like a good but misguided person, nevertheless, I don't know him well enough, so take that into consideration. Hopefully, one of these days he'll appreciate you more than a return visit, and you're so much more than that. Anyways, right now, you've got something which few JW's possess (i.e. Independance) and IMHO that makes all the difference.