Anyone have attachment issues with their parents?

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I have always wondered if there are other people who feel they were a poor match with their parents and feel guilty for not being attached to their parents the way most people seem to be. They were not very attached to me, either. They seemed to feel they got a bad deal in the child department. I also wondered if my Asperger traits interfered with my getting along with them. They always accused me of being cold and selfish.

Yes, I've never felt very attached to my parents. I feel, I think, like I was adopted...I wasn't, but I feel detached.

My father's peers had told him he treats me like I was adopted. Like you, I was not. He most definitely was my father. When I was really young I thought that although I could go up to the doors of the familys I wanted to be in, they would not let me be a member of their family. I could not wait to grow up and not have to live with them.

Actually, I'm quite the opposite. I find I'm so attached to my mum that I spend most of my time with her, and waiting for her if I'm not with her, and feeling lonely when she's not with me. My dad often says, ''it's OK, mummy will be home soon'' in a sarcastic voice, which irritates me because it is a different kind of attachment as to how a small child would be.

Joe90 - I feel toward my daughter the way you feel toward your mother. I feel lucky that, through her, I could understand love and family. I'm glad you have that love for your mother.

I'm like that with my Mum. We had a few years where are relationship went a bit wrong (my fault, not hers) but now we are super close. I don't live with her any more but I phone her every day at least once and text her as well.

It's a different story with my Dad, he is a nice man and was a reasonable father (certainly much better than many) but I don't feel a connection to him at all. I don't think he feels one for me either. I think I am a disappointment to him. For a long time that bothered me, but now I am a wee bit older I have managed to let that go and I don't feel guilty that we aren't closer. Neither of us are bad people, we are just ill suited.

I'm the opposite to. I'm very attached to my parents and I can still feel separation anxiety when leaving them for longer periods of times. And I'm almost 22.

I am not attached to my parental units at all, nor do I feel bad about it.

I don't feel bad about being unattached to my father. I feel a little bad about my mother because she did some nice things for me. Mostly, through the years, I have a disconnect with the general public. When the media reports a father is returning to his family after being gone a long time, I think the family will lose a lot of their freedom. People say things like "everyone loves their mother", "but she's your mother".

Yeah, parental units.

I felt very attached to my grandparents on my mother's side. They were rather quiet and very patient people who were never in a hurry or stressed out and always had time for me. But they also gave me my space when I wanted to play alone in a corner. Alas, my grandmother died when I was 7, and my grandfather died one year later. As for my parents... well, I used to feel attached to my mother as a kid. But that changed when I grew up, and I think the experience was mutual. My father never spent much time with me and I never got close to him. I think he resented me when I got older, because he thought I was gay and generally weird.

Besides, my mother, who also has some aspie traits as far as I can tell, kind of pitched me against my father by ranting about his supposed flaws all day long, and about the many other things that supposedly made her life miserable. I guess she was glad to have someone who listened to her, even if it was just a wide-eyed infant who didn't know how to process or respond to this and felt guilty for being yet another burden on that poor (read: hypochondriac) woman. I guess this was partially responsible for my emotional distance to my father. I also don't feel anything for my sister or for my extended family, and have long lost contact with them.

I felt very attached to my mum in a good way when I was younger until I was 20. I never really felt attached to my dad. I started to feel detached from my entire immediate family that year, due to the fact that my parents didn't understand my autism and they wanted me to be a typical young woman. The next summer after I got a decent haircut and read up on The Kinks, the 60s lineup of that band became my surrogate family and I took on the mental role of Mick Avory in my mind. Pete reminded me of my dad, Ray reminded me of my mum and Dave reminded me of my sister. I'm not going to go on, because the rest of the story is predictable. You know how I am and what I'm like.

I'm very close to my father. The time was I could talk to him about almost anything. Now that I'm 35 and live interstate, I'm not as close to Dad as I used to be, but I still miss him. My mother, on the other hand... I'm pretty indifferent towards her. I recently wrote a thread about it in the In-depth Adult Discussion section of the forum: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt198657.html.

I'm pretty close to my mom, even though I don't show a lot of outward affection toward her. My personality tends to be pretty similar to hers, and we think a lot alike. She was also the only person who was willing to put up with me when I was a kid. I haven't seen my father since I was a kid, but I wasn't quite as attached to him. I didn't see him a lot--he was something of a "workaholic" and worked odd hours--and he wasn't one for outward displays of affection (I can remember him hugging me all of once).

I am very detached from my parents and always have been. When I was growing up I always considered my family just to be people who shared the house and looked after my needs. That's not to say I don't love them ... I think I do, they never did anything bad and as I said always looked after me. But I just have never felt connected to them. I wouldn't say I feel guilty about it, but sometimes I feel a bit uncomfortable about it sometimes because I know my mum at least would like it if we were "closer" but I can't give her that.

I mentioned in another post, mine is the classic "refrigerator mother" from the 1950's. She stopped all contact with her own mother & sister on a dime in the 1970s. My grandmother was a poster child for AS, her weird indexed obsession/collections were breathtaking. None of these people possessed a pulse. That's where I came in, pulseless as well. Took half a century to be able to hang out w/ my mother. She can handle a brisk hug about once a year. My father, total opposite, superextrovert alcoholic type. Haven't talked to him in 30 years. I spent most of my childhood in my room drawing pictures and conducting imaginary orchestras. Emotion isn't in my blood and it started with the blood. BTW, my mother holds the record for oldest female to thru-hike the AT. I'm sure she never needed anybody's help for a second.

I'm very close to my father, and have been since I was a young teenager. He's strongly introverted, and it was incredibly beneficial for me to have a non-extrovert role model in my earlier years. I still live with him and he's probably the most important person in my life.

My mother is an emotionally abusive, manipulative, alcoholic narcissist. I have no contact with her except when she initiates it a few times a year, and it's not usually positive. She's also the one who spent my childhood chastising me for not being normal, so there's a lot of emotional clutter for me there. I can't see myself ever forming a decent relationship with her.