Autistic Hedgehog

Honestly? This is about you, not her. Unless her anger is very uncomfortable or dangerous to you, worry more about your feelings, rather than hers. If you have to, ask for your dad’s help, since it sounds like he might understand. Your mother may not even need to know about it.

If it is important that you talk to her about it, then there’s something to keep in mind: Modern rhetoric is on autism is still very parent-blaming. The days of the “refrigerator mother” might be largely over, but all these things science keeps thinking might be “causing” autism feels like blaming, too. Too old, too young, where you live, what you eat, how much money you have…these are all correlations, but they’re often put out there by journalists as causations, and that’s wrong.

Unfortunately, it also gives the impression that in some way, if a parent had just done something differently, their kid wouldn’t have autism. In truth, these things are likely just coincidences, but no one tells parents that. So many parents, consciously or subconsciously, end up with the feeling that if their child is autistic, it would be their own fault. Organizations like Autism Speaks don’t help them get through that feeling. 

That is most likely what you’re up against, or at least part of it. It’s terribly unfortunate, and terribly common, for resistance to diagnoses of neurodivergence to come from this feeling, for parents. And your mother needs to understand that this is in no way about her. It’s about you. It’s about how you feel and what’s right for you. Do you feel like there’s something “wrong” with you, or do you simply see that you have differences, and want a name for that?

Think about what you want to say and how you want to say it. What this means to you. As I’ve advised before, write it down if you need to. If that doesn’t work, you may have to be more underhanded about it, but again, ultimately, this is about you, not her.