Just Diagnosed, Coming Out To Parents All Over Again

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I find myself in a curious and anxiety-inducing position; and I'm
wondering if any of you can relate and/or give me some advice.

I'm 29 years old, gay, and--while I'd suspected it for some time now--just last
week I was officially diagnosed with Aspergers/HFA.

I want to tell my parents about my diagnosis, hoping it will make
things about me ever since my childhood finally make sense for them,
but at the same time, it feels like "coming out" all over again,
and I'm anxious about how they'll react and what conclusions they may leap to...
also about how they'll treat me from then on.

I came out as gay to them about seven years ago, and, while they were
supportive at first in the moment, not long after they began to tell me it
was probably just a phase, or tell me that "being gay is a hard life choice, and" I "should
try to be straight as hard as I can".

I just feel like "coming out as an aspie" to them now is like another bomb shell,
completely redefining their perspective of the son they thought they had.
"First he's gay, now he's autistic!? What next!!??" I can imagine them thinking.

Have any others gone through this sort of thing? If so, how did you go about it and how
did things turn out?
Just looking for some advice...not sure if this is something I should bother with at all...but then I think it might help them understand so much of why I am the way I am and why things were the way they were when I was a kid.

At least you have a nice professional piece of paper to show them. Denial, and rejection is actually quite normal at first. Get a copy.

Is it important to you that they know you? Do you want to be close with your parents? If yes, it's probably a good idea to tell them. Tell them a bit about Asperger's and how it affects you. Be ready to answer questions.
Do you fear that they'll react the same way as when you came out as gay? "Being autistic is a hard life choice, you should really try to be as neurotypical as you can"?

If you were just diagnosed last week, there might be wisdom in delaying making the decision to telling them. Unless there is some compelling reason for doing so now, of course.

I "came out" as aspie last year. They understand little about it, which turns out to be neither here nor there; all I am really interested in is their acceptance that sometimes I need to be not intruded upon, and that my stay at family gatherings needs to generally be limited to about 2 hours. That puts things in a context of practicable behaviors that they can act upon.

My general experience is that it is a tall order to expect straight NT's to "understand" what it means to be a gay aspie. Few professionals can do it and non-professionals even fewer. Parents can sometimes face the added challenge of overcoming their own pride and egos.

So if expectations are that they will "understand", you might be more in line for disappointment than if they were offered some concrete, actionable examples of "things to do differently".

Best wishes!

I am 30. A cisgender straight male, undiagnosed aspergers(so not sure how relevant my response is) but have been a self-diagnosed aspie since 2010. I have been very selective with disclosure. Just like it says in Aspergers on the job, a lot of times people will invalidate by scoffing "you don't have aspergers/autism" which is a reaction I've gotten from only 2 of my really close friends. About 10 people I'm close with know. Most of them friends and not family. My Mother is aware and one of my grandfather's brother's daughters was told about it 4 years ago as well, (not too close but she knows I want to keep it secret for now). It helped for my friends to take the RDOS.net aspie test, and once it showed them dominantly NT or half/half I think that's when suddenly they understood my difference with them. With parents I've noticed my mom was denying it at first but now I see her post autism awareness posts from time to time, I wonder if it is for me or someone else, I think she has taken time to learn a bit about it. There's definitely no harm in waiting. In hindsight, do you regret waiting for coming out gay or wish you came out sooner? That might be a better guage for you. Another thing is if you were just diagnosed last week make sure to visit this post: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt169368.html and look over your account and use that as a good gauge because while you will be relieved that some people know, especially now that you know, it will be better to wait for others to know. I think more than anything at first you will want your childhood actions to be understood, but soon you will also realize what your parents likely had to deal with as well, a lot of aspie books are from an NT perspective. My grandfather in particular liked to cook really fancy complex meals that made everyone else's mouth water and I really feel bad that I had such a hard time with new food. He often got angry when my mom would request that he "dumb a recipe down". As I said, not sure how you'll relate to me, but I do hope it helps. I know a ton of aspies and people of many sexualities/genders.

My life has always forced me to "come out" of many closets. I am gay and I am diagnosed with Asperger's. I wrote all about it in a recent blog post that gained more attention than I thought it would. It was in response to a Ted speech by Ash Beckham. She said that "closets" are just difficult conversations that we may hate, but we have to get it off of our chest.

http://dwarren57.wordpress.com/2014/03/ ... g-closets/

My life has always forced me to "come out" of many closets. I am gay and I am diagnosed with Asperger's. I wrote all about it in a recent blog post that gained more attention than I thought it would. It was in response to a Ted speech by Ash Beckham. She said that "closets" are just difficult conversations that we may hate, but we have to get it off of our chest.

http://dwarren57.wordpress.com/2014/03/ ... g-closets/