Should I tell my cousin she is an aspie too?

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I have a female cousin who is now in her late 50s. I am 6 years older. Her life has followed a recognisable pattern: bullied at school (she ascribes all her subsequent difficulties to this), never settled into a job, lives alone, never married. Unlike me, she is obsessively religious (I am not religious at all) which can make her very judgmental and annoying at times. Recently another cousin was dying from a terminal illness (she has since died) and religious cousin pestered our dying cousin to declare belief and die "saved". Religious cousin could not see anything inappropriate about this, and bragged about "saving" her at the funeral. This was a one off, though, and more usually this undiagnosed, unaware cousin is annoying in other ways: for example, if I mention that I am thinking of making some jam, this slight comment will trigger a lecture from her lasting 20 minutes: how to make jam (as if I didn't know), when she made jam, who she gave jam too, where she bought the fruit, how cheaply she got it..

I am an aspie too, so I understand this, and feel sorry for her and - though it seems horrible of me to say so - it's why I put up with her visits (which I dread). The difference between us is that I have some self-awareness about my tendencies, and so can rein them in a bit, while she has none. She strives hard to be a "good" person, earning brownie points by doing "good works" and she can be very generous in doing this, although I think the generosity is often a tactic to prevent others from rejecting her. She obsesses about finding bargains on everything she buys, which I have to listen to for hours, and ironically, I get to have the "NT" experience, sitting there out of politeness with my eyes glazed over praying for her to shut up and go home. I feel awful saying this, but it's true.

Telling her might help me release the stored up feelings of frustration I feel after years of her lectures, but would it help her at this stage? Would it do more good than harm or vice versa?

Does she know about your diagnosis? If so, the next time she comes over, you might start a conversation about something you did or that happened that was particularly "aspie" of you, then suggest that you've seen similar traits in her, ask what she thinks about your observation.

Thanks, you got me thinking about how to raise it with herm if that's what I decide to do. No, she doesn't know that I am an aspie.

Some background: there are aspies on both my paternal and maternal side of the family. She is a paternal cousin.

On my mother's side the aspies are/were: me, my mother, my grandmother, (both deceased), my brother, his son, a daughter and granddaughter of mine, and a grandson with fairly extreme autism. Because my maternal side is aspie dominant, we are able to talk about issues with anxiety etc. and can talk about our differences and challenges. There's mutual support, understanding and acceptance. There's quite a lot of creative success on this side of the family so being different is not stigmatised, we are non-conformists anyway for the most part.

On my paternal side (the cousin's side) it's totally different: there are only two aspies: this cousin and her brother. (They have 2 NT siblings). The paternal side of the family is extremely conventional, uptight, and obsessed with "seeming normal", they are very conformist, religious, easily threatened by any idea of difference. If any of them have recognised that I am an aspie (I doubt it) they would consider that to be a slur on them, a shameful family "defect". The more I have thought about it, the more I think that this is why 2 of my paternal cousins have lived as aspies without ever becoming conscious of it. Anything unconventional is considered shameful, inferior, sinful.

I guess I am thinking about the worst outcome possibilities of telling her: that she feels shamed by me, or shamed by aspie realisation. I guess my question really is: at her advanced age, is ignorance likely to be less harmful to her than knowing? Is ignorance bliss? Would "telling" cause more harm than good?

One option might be to address individual problematic traits, rather than talk about the over-all condition or try to break news that she may have it, which may be too much for her to take onboard.

For your circumstances, maybe it would be more helpful to focus on a direction to improve how things go?

Like if she goes on about things you don't want to hear about, is there anything she has an interest in that you would want to discuss that the conversation could be directed towards? Because it doesn't sound like she is going to be able to be sensitive to yr needs and I interests without some direction.

Seeing what she has lived through, I think she might be desperately searching for an explanation and getting as frustrated as you are because she can't find any. She probably doesn't show it but I think it's worth giving a shot. Go for it.

Trust me it never goes over well...

The three times I tried it did not go over well.

First was my wife after saying she had a hard time relating to people her age and other stuff.

Second was a co-worker who can't stop talking about his stuff, and has a daughter that learned to read before school, and was at the top of her class.

Third was an online friend that is an accountant with kids with some issues; that one was probably the dumbest, I can't even see them.

Don't expect any hero points that's for sure.

May I make a a suggestion? Read the book "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. (In my case it was a book on CD). One of Dale's rules is, "it is better to try to improve yourself than to improve others." Another concept is that if you can get them to think it was their idea instead of yours - turn things into questions into statements. Even as simple as, instead of saying "You have Asperger's" to "You know, I have a diagnosis of Asperger's (or ASD or whatever its called now), and its a genetic condition, could it be that you might have it too?"

I don't know about never but some people who think there's nothing wrong with them and have poor insight get very upset when told even something as innocuous as "you might have some autistic traits". My dad was like that. He is almost 80 now, he was almost 50 when I was born. He also struggled to hold down a job and has two ex-wives. He's married again now, actually. The thing is he definitely DOES have autistic traits. He's very rigid about where and what he eats and he goes on and on about classical composers even to my young nieces and gets annoyed when people interrupt him. Once his new wife was choking on a piece of food and he had been giving one of his lectures so when everyone stopped listening to ask if she was okay he said "okay, I'd like to finish what I was saying if you're done now". When people in my family suggest to him that he has autistic traits even when they explain that very intelligent people can be autistic or have traits he get upset and adamantly denies that he does. He insists that he doesn't have any social problems. Also my dad is a bit arrogant so if something goes wrong for him at a job because he couldn't get along with the admin then it's the admin's fault and not his ect. So, that might happen with your cousin if she really believes she doesn't have any problems.

To be honest, I have met a few people who are like your cousin, and I don't know that I'd be diagnosing them with anything. Some of her issues could be cultural - family, church, demographic - and some down to her personality and attitude to life and other people. For your own comfort, you might try to work on tuning out the more offensive of her attitudes, strenuously diverting or blocking her, or simply spending less time in her company.

I'm grateful for all your feedback. I'm not going to cut her loose, because I believe she is lonely, isolated and desperately unhappy. So although she can (and does) annoy the Hell out of me - it doesn't help that she has a high, strident and somewhat hysterical tone of voice - if I rejected her it would only compound her suffering. Her two NT siblings dump on her and sneer behind her back, and she doesn't have any other meaningful family nor social links but me. She strives so hard to be a "good" person - her heart is in the right place. I do have some compassion for her. She tries so hard to earn the acceptance that eludes her.

As to whether I have the right to "diagnose" her - well I don't go around looking for aspies to diagnose; however if she isn't an aspie, then I'd eat my proverbial hat! In the aspie world there is a lot of truth in the saying that it takes one to know one. Also I take note of the caution (thanks) that it never goes well .. so will tread carefully.

What I have decided to do is to bring up the topic of bullying with her, (an issue she profoundly relates to) by telling her about how this has been a huge issue at school for my autistic grandson, and for me (in the workplace, in the past, ouch) and why bullies target people on the spectrum. Also I might arrange, before her next visit, to have some books lying around - maybe Attwood and Pretending to be Normal - she is quite inquisitive and bound to pick them up. Hopefully that will provide a context for discussion if she wants to go there. This is the least threatening way I can think of.

Yes, I think that deep down she probably is desperate for answers and self contextual understanding. Also thanks for letting me vent about my overlay of frustration. Underneath that, there is my concern and your replies have helped me shift the focus to that.

I love WP.