When my mother was dying, and my sister was still trying to get a motherly reaction from her, my renewed research turned up AS. Suddenly, I understood our family. Sis and I had known for years we were from a dysfunctional family, but only I had had an unusual life, along with mother's siblings. She had first bonded with other women in the military, and when the war ended, she had married to avoid returning home. She approached parenting as a duty to be done as efficiently as possible. Our job was to make her look normal. Back then, Asperger's was not recognized, so she just had to pass as well as she could to avoid a dangerous mis-diagnosis. She just moved quickly, maintaining superficial relationships from the war.
I never bonded with either parent, so even though my AS is fairly mild, I don't do very well with friends. I'd like to hear from others who also got no help at home. Mom was almost dead before she asked me why I'd left home, two years after she split. I told her that dad had set an impossible condition if I wanted to return to school that fall, so I'd stayed with the summer job. She said he would have changed his mind. I said I had no way of knowing that. I had never seen either of them respond to an appeal. Then I asked her at what age she had last formed or changed an opinion. She didn't answer, probably because she was afraid I was going to mention God next. She was wrong, but she rang off anyway, with "Don't call me, I'll call you."