who supported you and taught you the most growing up.

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My friends, both NT and Aspie, were the most involved. I was never well-known or well-liked growing up, but at least I was never alone or in the dark about social matters.

I had my stepdad until I was about ten. After that, I was left to my own devices.

There was a lot of social workers as I remember. I was in a children's home that just happened to be a convent, the nuns were absolute diamonds, just such lovely people, I suppose they were like mother figures really.

When I was a teenager I lived in a squat for a while, where two punks took me under their wing. They were both heroin addicts, but they saw I was ok.

I can't say that I have gone short of support really, I wouldn't like to complain.

Mother wasn't allowed to play with me, I had to stay alone in my room, pretty much the only interaction I had with my "family" was to be beaten or abused in some way, hence, I would not describe them as being very supportive and teaching me much.

However, we did have a Dog who Loved me the most and was most supportive, Suzie helped me learn how to sit, stay and fetch, and that it was important to eat your food very quickly.

My parents were pretty great in supporting me. I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's as a child, but they noticed I had a few things that were off (my father is an Aspie and he recognized a lot of the same behavior in me that he had as a child.) They didn't think my quirks were weird or needed fixing really, so they gave me a lot of room to grow and be myself. The main thing they pushed a lot was socializing. We're Turkish, so we went to a lot of gatherings, events, parties, and I was always dumped with the other kids of course. Many times they would find me hiding some place and my mom would just pull me out and say, "Go talk to them. You'll find one person to talk to," and she was right 90% of the time. Currently, I think my social skills are great thanks to her. My dad beat in a lot of the social rules and formulated everything for me The last person that really helped me out was this girl who was 4 years older than I and really taught me how to maintain eye contact and execute appropriate social conduct. It's one thing to learn the social formulas but another to put them in practice.

I do feel blessed to have had this support structure growing up.