having serious trouble relating to my snobbish NT cousins

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hi, i'm a high functioning, more social than most member of wp, mainly thanks to my manic depression i also have that usually has me at a manic high. that doesn't means i don't have problems socializing with people i want to make friends with, or enjoy having time with even. i'm talking about my FAMILY!

of course there are several things that are obvious and common that explain this situation that i should give out first.
Well, typically one heck of a percentage of families are dysfunctional right? and sometimes when you don't know your other parent's side of the family well enough, it's hard to really connect with your fellow relatives, especially the more potentially judging (and mine are just on the cusp of NOT FRIENDLY) younger side of the fam. it's too bad, that only family gatherings are when i drive miles north in california to see my family, but i'm sure it's pretty common, if not very often, to be far off in distance from family--literally and in a way of not psychologically knowing them...that things get bad.

my point is, there was one last-straw situation for my younger cousin (i will keep everyone anon obviously), who now is the only one i see at all gatherings except Christmas (my older one is now in college since one or two years ago in San Diego and is a boatrower nationwide). she was just so tired of seeing my down and unexcited point that i sometimes get on and off of being excited with family that she rudely imitated my perfectly expected as aspie reaction (my mom considers it aspie cause i don't know any better sometimes despite being 22) when my grandparents conversed in one split minuted about the constant insect problem they had traveling somewhere in particular....sry about all the parentheses bombarding my case in point.

she basically made fun of my perfectly innocent reaction to one disturbing detail in the middle of enjoying a birthday dinner conversation, and the family didn't give a care. geez, nice family i have. the rest of them are alright, but i just want to know how to socialize with my dad's side of the family, basically my two girl cousins, and i wonder that i'll get my non social situation bout from whatever stuff is happening that's igniting my negativity that somehow makes me uninterested in making conversation.
i've always wanted to know how to talk NT wise with family. not be normal completely, but you know, not being with family enough can really put a damper on my confidence once i get in the door of a family's house and the talking begins and GRRR i just want to break the ice!! !!

if anyone's known the feeling, knows enough now, and can live to give the advice, please help.
sincerely, the faerie

I only browsed what you wrote - I gather that you want to avoid certain family members.

I recommend you do what I do now and avoid them all. I don't feel I was accomplishing anything with them anyway.

My situation is similar to yours. I have 14 cousins, and most of them are over 18 (but no older than 26), and they are all NTs and all seem to be into going out to parties and bars on week-end nights, and I sometimes feel very left out when they start talking about it or add pictures of themselves in bars with their mates on Facebook. Even a cousin who I always thought had a lot of ASD traits (possibly enough to be diagnosed) still goes out clubbing all week-end, and he has a girlfriend now too. But whenever he's at social gatherings with just his family, he doesn't say two words to any of his cousins. My mum often says he's always been a bit strange, but I don't think he's that strange if he is socially accepted by his peers and spends week-ends at the bar and has a girlfriend who adores him (she writes it all over Facebook, saying how wonderful he is). He can't be that odd, because how come I'm not socially accepted by my peers and spend week-ends at the bar and have a boyfriend who adores me?

I've always been jealous of my cousins, probably because I've always felt angry that I'm lumbered with this awful ASD, and nobody else in my family is, and it's always made me feel singled out and victimized against it. I think the teen years have scarred me for life because I remember when I got to about 12, the cousins around my age started going out and about with friends more and kind of didn't have time for me any more. They sometimes did let me go about with them, but sometimes they criticised that I should have my own friends. It made me feel really miserable, and you know how teenagers are, they can be nasty and unempathetic, and my own cousins were very critical of my loneliness. I got really upset and angry with myself, and I kept asking my mum questions like, ''why am I here? What have I done to deserve this? Why are all my cousins popular and I'm not?'' And it was so heartbreakingly sad really.

But the trouble is, my mum is close to her siblings, and so they come over a lot and I can't avoid my cousins. I will look horrible.

In know the feeling as well. I feel extremely awkward talking to my cousins in my family, especially my cousins who are closer to my age. I sometimes feel like my mom had recently told my family that I have mental problems and everybody in my family is tiptoeing around me and giving me looks of sympathy because they know about my mental problems. I just find it extremely awkward to talk to them without feeling like they're judging me. I don't feel as smart as my cousins and I feel kind of jealous sometimes because I wonder why was I the one to get this out of my whole family. Why can't I be as good looking and smart as the rest of my family? Yeah, I'm a tad jealous but at least I admit it right? I mean I still try to act nice but I never know what to say to them and we don't have a lot in common.