My mom has been hiding that I have autism from me

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I am not a parent, but this is a post about one of my parents so maybe it's appropriate here? If not I'm sorry.

My aunt, uncle, and cousins have recently come to Indiana for the 4th of July, and I was sitting upstairs in my cousins room (one that lives in Indiana, not one of the ones visiting) talking with her and my other cousin (one of the ones visiting) and it got brought up how I think my youngest brother may be on the autism spectrum, and then eventually it was brought up that i have autism?? What!!

I was never made aware of this, apparently my mom wanted to hide it from me because she thinks I'd "act different" if I knew. What really bothers me is that she always talks about how she's overstimulated and needs a break, and all this stuff but when I express similar discomfort with things like hugging or people talking loud it's an issue.

Here are some examples;
My cousin (the one that lives in indiana) was at the apartment we lived at with us, and she was talking really loud. I'm in my room and can hear it and it's very loud and it's bothering me alot, so I send my mom a text, which she interprets as rude. She comes into my room, gets mad yadayadayadayada, and then I'm explaining how the noise is overstimulating and how im sorry if the text came off as rude I was just really overstimulated and the loud noise was really frustrating and bothering me. Then it becomes this whole thing about stuff with my dad and how I don't have problems at his house (I do, just not as bad as over here because I have more space and generally there's not alot of guests here). It just annoys me because whenever she's overstimulated by loud talking or loud noise, everybody has to respect that but when I express the same thing it's a problem.

Another example; me and my friend were in the back seat of my mom's car, she was driving us to the movies and my youngest brother was yelling in my ear. I'm very annoyed and am telling him to stop, and my mom goes "he's allowed to talk, atticus". Which like, yeah obviously he can talk but can he just not yell please it's really overwhelming to constantly hear him in the seat behind me yelling. My friend ended up having to pretend to have Steve from the game Minecraft on the phone, and saying something along the lines of "Mineceaft Steve said that he needs you to be quiet for a little, alright?" And it worked. It freaking worked and it was great but I just wish my mom would've asked him to stop.

Also another time, Christmas 2024. My moms boyfriend gave me money as a gift, to which I declined and said he could keep it. I didn't see this as rude, I just thought I was telling him he could keep his money. But according to my mom it is rude, and instead of just explaining it to me she gets mad at me and says the same thing over and over again.

I'm just wondering like... if you know your kid is autistic, why not take that into account when I go silent or get overstimulated???? Does she think keeping it a secret is gonna stop me from "acting" autistic?? She always says "you weren't a neurotypical child," so like... it just stopped?? It just magically went away one day?? I don't think thats really how it works at all but okay mom thank you.

And also, today my aunt (visiting) tried to hug me and I stepped back. She ends up complaining to my cousin (the one that told me I have autism, who's visiting) who told me that everyone knew i had autism... including my aunt. So why is it surprising if everyone just knows I'm autistic and stuff. I don't get it everything's so stupid and I feel betrayed almost.

But that's all thank you!!

I am guessing that you are 14? If so, this is probably a good age for you to figure this out for yourself.

I can speak to this both as a parent as from a technical point of view (I am a sociologist and my interest area is autism).

I have not heard enough about your behavior or feelings to get a sense of whether or not you are on the autism spectrum. My son has ADHD. He is also easily overstimulated and not a hugger. In fact, I think a lot of people in your generation are not huggers. I also think it's normal for your generation to text, even from the next room. Further, it sounds normal to me to be rude to a parent's boyfriend either accidentally or on purpose. I mean, if you are anywhere from the age of 10-18 this all sounds completely regular.

I kind of think your mom sounds autistic. Is she? You both may be. It's also unfortunately common for people these days to say they are not "neurotypical" when describing all kinds of things. So in one way her language seems like an autistic person talking, but it may not be. It could be "autism culture appropriation."

I suggest you do a LOT of research about autism, heavily from the perspective of autistic people themselves. I also think you should try to be gender-specific and as close to your age as possible, because the world us older people grew up in was very different from the world now.

Also, look up something called "social anxiety" while you're at it. Now autistic people obviously can and do have social anxiety, but it is for different reasons. If a neurotypical person has social anxiety, they will display behavior that looks autistic while being socially aware. An autistic person has social anxiety more like how I have anxiety at the pool, because I'm terrible at swimming. In both cases, there have likely been bad experiences that contribute to the anxiety.

I hope some of that helps. I'm sure other people will have more thoughts.

Yeah I get what you're saying. Accidental rudeness is something to add to your list of possible symptoms. I would still look up and decide if you personally think you are on the spectrum before you tackle the other issue.

This is why:

If you decide that you are NOT on the autism spectrum but your family thinks you are, yet they took pains to hide this from you, you may want to ask them why were they gossiping about you. Would they have gossiped if they thought you were a different race? A different orientation? That you had a secret other dad? This is on the same scale.

If you decide that you agree with your family and you are likely on the autism spectrum, this may be an entirely different conversation. At what point were they prepared to discuss this with you? Why was it a secret? What, to them, is the difference between an autistic person and a non-autistic person? (This last may be quite telling- you will want to know if some of them think autistic people do not have a good quality of life and this is why they hid the information from you. If they do have negative stereotypes, I suggest that you tell them that what kind of person you are and what kind of life you have is up to you and is not predetermined. You can tell them what autism means to you and that you expect them to respect that going forward.)

And please remember you do not have to have any conversation at all. Sometimes it is best just to keep thinking about things for awhile until you have made up your mind.

I'm sorry your mother felt it was necessary to hide the truth from you. When I was diagnosed, the psychiatrist didn't think I should know either, but my mom knew better. And I was in my late 20s. And learning I had ASD answered a lot of questions I had about why I was so different as a teenager. I hate thinking about what could have happened if I never did find out the truth, because like many other autistic woman I had to hit rock bottom first.