Being aspie affecting credibility with family

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Has anyone else experienced feeling pressure from their family to "be" the negative things either they might have done in the past due to being aspie or to conform to the negative things their family has read about people on the spectrum?

I've ranted before about my family, but more and more I'm seeing a pattern, beyond just me remembering things or frustration with things sometimes.

The short version of it is that when I was younger, my parents focused more on the restrictions and negative stereotypes about my health issues and the mental problems- what one can't do rather than seeing examples of people with various health problems or disabilities functioning just fine despite their limitations.

What's been happening more and more though is that they're really fixating on the negative aspects of my situation- they've read about autism in the past, but now they're taking that and combining that with negative stereotypes about aspies, along with past problems I've had that I now know were causes by ASD, ADHD, depression, and bipolar disorder, and dusting off those very old discussions when discussing what I'm doing today, so basically, the more I'm "normal" and being more focused, responsible, etc, the positive things today are overshadowed by past problems and failures- as if I still need to be held accountable for the past, and basically I have no credibility because of those past problems. I'm feeling a lot of pressure to conform or play along with their negative attitudes about it and how I'm doing things now because they really seem confused and upset when I do anything that disproves it. They really see it as "wrong" when I try to control how things affect me- to them, it's better to put up with things I can't control, so for example, in an aspie context, know why I get stressed and overloaded in certain situations, so I can better sit there and take it. They seriously think it's a good thing if I take a menial job that is non stop sensory overload, constant burnout, depression, and no free time (some disabled persons in my city have 15-16 hour days because they have several hours aboard paratransit vans in addition to their full time work, and I really want to avoid that if possible). I'm tempted to at least pretend I'm going that route just to give the illusion that I'm looking for a "real" job.

Basically, it comes down to feeling like I need to put on an act and downplay the positive things and either exaggerating or flat out make up negative things, just to avoid harsher criticism and make them feel better about what they think they know.

Has anyone else experienced that?

In my day, Asperger syndrome was not a formal classification and autism in general wasn't identified unless it was a very severe, clinical case seen in an institutional setting. I was always encouraged, at least academically, to succeed. In my case, I overemphasized the academic part of my life and neglected to have a fully well-rounded one, which I believe was my own fault.

If there were any restrictions made on me, it was probably because of my social immaturity. I was perceived as being more emotional than normal, which was probably right given my paranoia caused by interaction with school bullies. I also remember being interested in atypical subjects and worrying much more than is normal about my school grades, obsessions that didn't win me very many friends.

It was the same for me when I was younger- parents and teachers knew something was a bit different about me, and we knew something about learning disabilities, but there really wasn't a name for it. For the most part I was encouraged to be "normal" since my obvious limitations were relatively minor- some health issues and some academic difficulties, so despite relatively minor problems that arose, I did well overall- good grades most of the time, and actually doing well with making friends and getting along with most people. No intellectual disability or cognitive impairments. I will admit that I've probably always been slightly immature but not enough to really be a problem, except my parents and probably a few other people picked up on it and bought into the wrong idea that "gifted but slightly immature equals mentally challenged" and based a lot of restrictions on that more that anything really tangible. So it was confusing being seen as mentally "fit" to do age-appropriate things when it was "work" of some sort but it being implied that I wasn't mature enough for the more social things that come with being a certain age. Honestly I always figured the perceived immaturity was more about me not "growning up" based on arbitrary rules, rather than literally not acting my age. I think a large part of the perceived immaturity comes from my family and other people not being able to accept that one can be responsible, get important things done, and still have the time and energy for one's personal interests. The credibility problem I've experienced comes from being just as responsible as everyone else but not making a big deal about it- perhaps to some people it only appears that I'm not being adult enough because most conversations with me are about everything else rather than mundane things- talking about what I did for fun over the weekend doesn't negate the housecleaning I did, for example. A good example of what I experienced when I was younger was when I was 16 and it was decided that driving wasn't going to happen- because I was more enthusiastic about how cool it was going to be to finally get to drive, and not showing the same enthusiasm for the work it would entail, despite having every intention of doing said work.

The thing find a bit aggravating about some of what I've seen online about Asperger's is the idea of being less mature than one's peers, which to me is something subjective, but the examples cited seem more about others people's stereotypes or perhaps hangups and disapproval of how other people conduct themselves. Someone might not actually act immature, but they might have an interest they were "supposed" to outgrow past a certain age or they didn't mature overnight when a certain age was reached.