How close are you with your family?

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I've always loved my mom at least 80% as much as I feel I'm probably supposed to, and my dad about 20%. I see him as more of a boss/financial support. He also cheated on my mom and divorced her, which further paints him in my mind as a douchebag, even if he means well with most of the things he does. My little brother (16) had a brain tumor as a child, and is emotionally (physically, mentally) damaged so he'll spend hours trying specifically to bother people and then offer them candy or packs of gum.

I always wished I could have a brother who was "normal like me" but now that I've accepted my diagnosis (which my parents never acted upon at the time, probably because they were preoccupied with my brother) I wonder if he'd be hooking up with girls left and right and yelling "FAAAAG!" in my ear were he normal.

Anyways, I've never felt anything towards him; his emotions are random and weird, whereas mine are simply lacking in certain areas, and that's how I've always explained it to myself.

Still, I was a momma's boy as a kid; I'd go through phases where I couldn't fall asleep unless she was sleeping on the pull-out trundle bed or floor next to me. But I don't feel strong emotions towards anyone else in my family. I love my dad, but I feel like I love him less. From my perspective, he's annoying, arrogant, and has no real interests; he just goes to work, comes home, watches an action movie or science program, and goes to bed. No, he doesn't pursue science beyond that. I realize now that he's the normal one, but that doesn't make me feel anything more towards him. I evaluate him as I'd evaluate a friend. He tries to get close to me and spend time with me, but we have nothing in common. He usually rents generic gritty crime dramas: A CROOKED COP, A HARDENED KILLER, A DRUG DEAL GONE BAD...AND ONLY ONE MAN HAS THE ANSWERS. He can't play videogames except arcade racing games and only likes mainstream rock music.

Funny thing is, my mom doesn't even try to take part in my interests. One time she did pretend-screaming vocals on Rock Band 2 with me, that's the only recent example I can think of. She mostly just takes care of my brother and provides emotional support when I break down. When we spend time together we go out to lunch. My dad always points out that she doesn't even support me financially; he does.

I'm closer to my grandma than my grandpa, so maybe gender plays a part. I don't know.

I never think about my little brother unless he's in my presence, he just never enters my mind, and I rarely think about my parents. My mom is going through a rough time with the divorce and I empathize with her slightly, but not at all with my brother or almost anyone else. Listening to friends talk about relationship problems? Ugh. I never know what to say, and they don't want to hear "Try being a virgin for 20 years and counting" do they?

Does anyone else lack a "family bond" to certain family members? I haven't seen anything about this anywhere.

The only people in my family I am close to are my aunt and my brother. I'm close to my aunt because she is content with the way I am and does not wish to really change anything about me, that, and she's easier to live with than either one of my parents. I'm close to my brother because he has LFA and he seems to like being around me. My father is not easy to be around, but don't get me started on my mother. Let's just say that her sanity is hanging on by a thread.

I've never been close to my mom. My relationship with my siblings has fluctuated throughout the years. My younger brother and I were very close growing up, but in my teen years I became closer to my sister. Never really been close to my older brother.

These days I'm not very close to any of them. In fact, I've cut contact with both my mom and older brother for various reasons. I keep in minimal touch with my younger brother and my sister.

Not very. But my family is pretty dysfunctional and they haven't exactly allowed me to love them over the years.

I lived with the very naive notion for years that my family cared about me as much as I cared about them. The past 5 years of so, I've been mourning the fact that this is not reality. I forgive my mother--she hasn't had the easiest life (grew up during the Great Depression, raised by a widowed, single mother with 5 as*hole siblings) and she's very emotionally dysfunctional. I'm not so forgiving towards my father and definitely not my brother. That's because they have the need to afflict their misery on others and blame others for their problems. My relationship with my brother is especially tense because he lies and has serious anger issues, and he's very manipulative and tends to project his shortcomings on other people. He never, never takes responsibility for himself.

I think I would be close to them if they were capable of having close relationships. But they are not.

I've never been close to my dad. My mum is tolerable and my sister sees me as the uneducated sibling out of the two of us. I tolerate them.

I'm very close to my mother, my father is deceased (we didn't know eachother) and my relationship with my sister and one of my brothers has worsened greatly over the past few months since I was informally diagnosed with aspergers, my eldest brother lives in Texas (I'm in Ireland) and I haven't seen him in person in 3 years, ironically I am much closer to him then my other two siblings, we've been talking over email and he's givin so much more support and understanding then the other to, I'm pretty resentful of them.

Very close to my Mom and Sister. We've been through everything together. My Sister and I are practically twins with how we think the exact same things and look very, very identical. However we were born sixteen months apart, so clearly we're not. The three of us always have a fun time togather. People stare at us in public because we're such a wierd, yet happy family.

I'm close with my stepfather, stepsister and stepbrother, but we don't share as much time together, and we're (my Mother, Sister and I) opposites. When my Mom got divorced before she met my stepdad, we grew closer but when my stepdad got divorced, they grew apart.

Overall, I love the family I'm in and I wouldn't trade any of them for the world.

To me, my family are just like roommates. Loud, obnoxious, disrespectful roommates. The only one I'd have to respect is the older of my two little sisters because she hooked me up with my current girlfriend. Or rather, she helped her strange, weird (and not to mention loveable!) friend find a very reliable boyfriend that just so happened to me. No one in my family has even the slightest appreciation for modern conviences, and it makes me sick! They're always breaking their phones, losing cameras, and leaving cups everywhere, and they're super messy; I'm messy too, but in an organized way so I never lose anything. Then there are my parents (divorced and living apart) they can be cool sometimes, but I usually just ignore them as they are more involved with the other siblings whereas I'm always in my room doing research on my obsessions.

Woah, almost went on a rant with that one.

I think almost every post is a rant for me. But then, I just looked into Asperger's 3 days ago. I was diagnosed with it at 5th grade and was simply told "You have Asperger's." I completely ignored the fact that I was weird as hell as a kid and rarely brought it up, to protect my self esteem.

Then I saw a post on a message board about having it, so I decided to google it. I immediately went I never knew why I was skinny or blinked for photos or procrastinated every assignment, why I couldn't feel sorry for people, why I couldn't explain the way social skills were organized in my mind.

My dad was in the military and is super organized, my mom not so much. Me? I throw things on the floor or set them on a dresser instead of putting them away. At any given time I probably have my guitar, laptop, PS3 controllers, headphones, and at least 3 days worth of clothing on the floor of my room. But I put things away once a week, and I have a videogame drawer, music drawer, socks, shorts, hats, random, and most commonly used items.

...drawer below it has some old books...time to expand the commonly used items drawer

When I was younger, I would miss my mom every time we went out. We're close to some degree, but when I go away, I don't miss my family, not a single one of them. It's kind of sad.

Yes, I don't have an emotional connection to my immediate family. I hear this is common with alot of aspies, especially the over-logical thinkers. My mom was extremely abusive to me and my sister, physically and emotionally, so that makes it really hard for me to love her. My dad has an explosive temper that seems to come out of nowhere, so I never trusted him either, and I consequently don't love him. I don't feel an emotional connection to my sister either. Similar to your situation, my sister is brain damaged from cerebral palsy and she's also adopted. She is quadriplegic, so I often play the "good sister" role and take her to the bathroom and feed her, but I never felt an emotional connection to her.

With my aunt and my cousins, it's a completely different story. My aunt was always nicer to me than her sister (my mom) and I always feel happy hanging out with my cousins, even though I can still be awkward. For example, when we went to our grandfather's funeral, I was the only one who didn't cry. I felt like an automaton. Regardless, I still feel a strong emotional connection to my aunt and my cousins.

I don't really know. I don't miss them when they're gone, unless I'm really hungry and am in an extremely lazy mood. Mostly I just treat them as furniture, except my mom she's like Rosie from the Jetsons if Rosie needed to recharge for an hour every half hour (she has CFS). They're like most other people I've known for a very long time, I'm more comfortable around them but not enough to let my guard down. My brothers are more like aquantances, we don't talk much and it's always about something fleeting and uninteresting.

I feel indebted to my mother and grandparents and try to repay my debts to them, but it seems they expect to be repaid by seeing me become a normal, functioning member of society. This has created some distance between us in the years since my diagnosis.

My family has gotten better over the years, but I no longer trust them. Every time I think I can trust them, and let my guard down, I'm reminded why it's a bad idea to trust them. I have a nasty habit of being too nice and giving too many chances. This is why I reconcile with old friends and it goes nowhere. You would think I would no longer trust people that scream at me for things like turning the wrong light on in a room, or not throwing away a box of Barq's root beer, or not folding my laundry in my room, or God forbid, if the dog didn't poop when I walked him. They don't do those things anymore, but after years of that crap, I no longer trust them. My dad just screamed at me for having the nerve to forget to get that chain for the chainsaw that he wanted me to get. I took the trip to the dump like he said, but I forgot the chain for the chainsaw. I don't know why he gets so mad. I was using my car, my gas, and usually I don't ask him to reimburse me for things like that, yet all that isn't good enough for him. Never mind that the only things he pays for are my cell phone bill and food that I eat. Even so, that doesn't happen that often anymore, so it's not that big of a deal. I just wish that I knew I could trust them to let me make my own mistakes, instead of taking it as a personal insult when I don't live my life the exact way they want me to. I'm not perfect like them, and I wish they could understand that I don't want to be.

I think society appears to feel as if you should automatically care about someone more because they are related to you. However, I have never understood why that should matter.

That said, the only family I have left is my cousin, who took care of me throughout my teenage years, and I care about him very much. I also miss the rest of my family.

I'm highly attached to my mom. She completely understands me and loves me unconditionally. We run errands and play board games together, and we talk about our feelings on days when we have to make the hour-long trip to see my psychiatrist. I become easily jealous if she spends time with other family members. I was very jealous of my nieces and nephews when they were born, because I worried that my mom would love them more than she loves me, even though I should have known better by then because I was a teenager and not a little kid.

The person I'm closest to besides my mom is my younger brother. He and I have been best friends ever since we were kids. Sometimes I feel like he knows me better than I know myself. We share all of our secrets with one another and give each other advice. He thinks I'm uncool and loves to tease me, which upsets me sometimes, but we still love each other very much.

I love my dad a lot too. He and I don't spend a lot of time together, but at least we are on good terms with one another nowadays as opposed to when I was younger.

I have two older sisters, but I am not close to them at all. One of them is mean-spirited, manipulative and immature, while the other one is much nicer, but lives across the pond in Manchester so it's difficult to have a long-distance relationship with her.

I'm closer to my mom than anyone else, but we don't really spend much time together. She does not really understand me, but she is one of the only people who actually tries. My dad has been really busy the past 3 years , almost to the point where I hardly even know him anymore. He hardly ever sees the rest of us (he is on the other side of the world right now), and when he gets to come home for a few weeks at a time he goes crazy. I can't get him to shut up, and he doesn't stay out of my business. He can be hilarious at times, and fun to be around, but after being distant for so long whenever I do see him I just want him to leave me alone. I would describe it as a bit overloading.