I had virtually no family from when I was about 10. The story was enough to give a psychologist a full blown breakdown right in front of me. He was covering his face as he was balling his eyes out - so I quietly got up and left the room. I don't really feel that sorry for myself as I have met many people much worse of than me - and they did have family. As younger people we all need mentoring and usually that comes from psychologically healthy parents - but it does not have to be them. I regret there was no one just to give me a few hours of advice and how different my life would have been. Now at 70, I seem to spend all my time mentoring others - and here we are mostly talking adults. I support some long term prisoners in NZ - as a mentor more than anything else. The crazy thing is, when I was a teenager, all I wanted was a girlfriend. Now in my old age - I am surrounded by girls - and no, it most certainly is not for money. I even have a 7 year old Khmer daughter. She is the only person I will call my family. I choose to remain "non family" even when I get offers all the time to be part of someone's family. I have to say for all their good intentions, I do not trust them if the chips were down. I write on crime, social issues and psychology. I am constantly learning. And it has just occurred to me that western children when they become older, as in mid teens and later do tend to have unrealistic expectations of their parents. They expect their parents to be "perfect" and when they are not, they feel they have been cheated. I do see a lot of lonely people in social forums. I think they are often consumed by fear, fear of (further ?) rejection and thus so not try to reach out to people on a very personal level - which means exposing just who you are - and hence they will stay the way they are. When I am trying to teach "my prisoners" how to be heard and express themselves, and they start to do it, and I have to point out where they need to improve, I remind them that it has taken me 25 years to get the communication skills I have and for them not to expect to get there in two years. Another point I like to make is "we spend all our lives learning the lessons we need to learn, then we die and the next generation have to start all over again".. crazy eh ? but then we are only random cosmic accidents made from star dust to which we will return...