How to tell my sister about AS?

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I appreciate your input, naturalplastic, I really do, but I'm afraid things are a bit more complicated than that. As I see it I have little to win and quite a bit to lose. My mother is a pretty self-centered person and she has problems with seeing other people's point of view. It's not like an AS-oid trait with her; she is simply too concerned about what people think of her and she tries to make her family look perfect on the outside.

I don't really identify with this, but I have learned the hard way that it is usually easiest to nod my head when she talks to me about what she doesn't like about my behaviour and then to carry on the way I think best. I would like to help her understand me and by now there is quite a number of things that I would like to explain to her and to apologize about, but it simply is not worth what would most likely follow.

I have managed to maintain an uneasy peace with my mother for the last two years and I really do not want to be the one to destroy that peace. The worst thing in my mother's eyes would probably be that someone, anyone could find out my mother has an autistic daughter (never mind the finer nuances of the spectrum...). This would completely destroy my mother's self-image and make her lose her face and seven other kinds of nonsense. But the possibility alone of this happening would be enough to unsettle her and make her snap at me at the least provocation.

I just don't fancy the possibility of spending the next months or years in the same kind of continual atmosphere of confrontation that followed after I told my parents about my preferring females, something that is a good bit more accepted than autism here in Germany at the moment. I simply don't have the strength to go through something like that again.

I'm more or less just trying to bring some kind of order into my thoughts with this post; I don't eally expect an answer to this...

"I would like to help her understand me."

I think you are right on with she will be more concerned about what people will think....autism = ret*d or rainman savant. The world has no interest in what doesn't directly affect them...or have random freakish entertainment value.

Maybe better use of your time would be to concentrate on what you have been doing the last couple of years. You have a decent relationship with your mother. It will be very clear if she would like a 'full rounded' relationship with you, she will ask for more. Family members usually just want us to act right and get over it. They've known you all your life, whatever interest level they have in all facets of your life you have already experienced. If they aren't real interested now nothing (especially a genetic disorder) is going to change it. Be careful projecting your mother's reaction. If she cares what others think then she is operating under the assumption that what others think is important...that is, more important than what she thinks.

All of the discoveries about ourselves are for our use. You don't need anyone to understand you, you only need to understand yourself.

I think in the near future I will focus on sorting out my emotional issues. Emotions are certainly somthing I would like to be able to deal with a bit better. So I will let this particular sleeping dog (i.e. my mother) lie. I am really glad my sister is as understanding as she is. We have exchanged a number of emails since I told her and she is such a wonderful person. We used to misunderstand each other a lot, but now that we are clear on the reasons for that, things are improving a lot.

So I will try not to waste energy on my relationship with my mother anymore and instead work on improving myself and enjoy the support my sister is offering me.