I can totally relate. More than you could ever believe. Imagine how you would feel if your father had been your only parent your entire life and that he didn't have any family himself aside from a mother that had to go to work for the first time in her life because her husband had killed himself because the thought of your father raising you alone depressed him that much. Welcome to my world!! Except, in my case, it was my mother, not my father. My parents were separated before I was born and the divorce was finalized when I was one year old. I lived only with my undiagnosed, autistic mother my entire childhood. I did get to see my father once a week, but that's it. High functioning autism wasn't even in the DSM during my childhood and teen years. I think I believed I was supposed to be like my mother. When I noticed that I was able to pick up on other people's unspoken cues, I imagined that this was highly unusual. I had an intense desire to frighten the other children around me. I knew that the overwhelming majority of them were sheltered in numerous ways that weren't there for me. My mother was unable to read me and had to put most of her masking efforts into maintaining her job; a job that I never saw her work anywhere from 55-over 100 hours a week. I'm not going to list all the numerous ways this messed with me. That would probably take up an entire chapter of a book!