How do I get our autistic cousin to respect our boundaries?

[Anonymous]

Okay so we have a cousin who is a few years older than us right? She’s 28 and currently isn’t doing anything for herself. She’s not working or going to school.
She’s autistic but she can carry a conversation. She is argumentative, rude, obnoxious and she always talks about herself. She has a huge ego and never asks how everyone else is doing. So yesterday we were hanging out with her right? She asked me for an opinion on what boy band do I like the best. I was honest and said I don’t really care for boy bands much. They never appealed to me. She looked at me like I was nuts. She was like, “Seriously? What’s wrong with you? Most girls love boy bands!”
I told her sternly, “Well not me. I don’t care for them and not every girl likes them so get used to it.”
Shexkept nagging at me to listen to One Direction. I like some of their songs but I don’t care for them. She kept pushing me and arguing with me. Then I snapped at her to back off and she’s the one that’s asked and I gave an honest answer. She walked off. Man she’s annoying.
Like when we were upset of when things go bad she would try to be positive.
One time we were in the house with no air-conditioning and then we have to go outside. She said, “Isn’t this great! At least we don’t have to worry about having a heatstroke.” we are just looked at her very angrily. She doesn’t respect anybody boundaries. Then when we call her out, she gets upset and put us. We need to be nice. Hell no! We don’t need to be nice all the time. Then she claims we’re being mean when she’s the one that’s being disrespectful and aggressive. She should’ve been talking about boundaries when she was younger a lot better, so what are we do?

[ohsheeT]

You have to understand that she does not know a lot of things and when she says you guys are being mean to her and if you talk to her with body language and attitude she learns that and that's who she's going to become who she is right now is somebody that she's mirroring so


If she wants you to listen to the boy band say okay it's fine and listen to it it's only going to last 3 to 5 minutes they say well yeah I'm still right I don't like that this is what I like and then put on the music that you like but you have to talk to her in a low-key calmly if you want her to act right you have to treat her right with your voice and your actions she's not here in any words that you say she's too busy focusing on your attitude the tone of voice and that your body language


If you want her to change and become a better person you have to teach her because nobody has seemed to be doing that if you want her to do things in life give her things to follow you about yeah I'm doing this I'm doing this I'm so happy and blah blah blah blah blah you have to be a positive in her life because all she is is a sponge soaking up other people's energy and that's who she is right now if you want to be a great help to her you need to help her change because otherwise she's going to be a raging b**** when she gets older she's going to make everything about her and she's going to be a right fighter if you want to teach her something teach her how to be real and teach her how to be nice every action you do every tone of voice you have with her every disagreement you have that's who she's going to become because she doesn't understand what's really going on all she hears is negative feels negative and becomes negative

And pending on how her parents treat her she's going to act just like them if they don't give her time of day anymore and they cut her off in the middle of a sentence and they bark at her instead of talking calm and collective to her that's who she becomes

I mean you have an opportunity right now since you're asking this question to understand why she does what she does you have to look at it deeper and not as who's right or who's wrong because neither one of you are right neither one of you or wrong because neither one of you are respecting each other and that's just because the way she's been brought up or what she's learned by watching other people you're the bigger person you have it more together so be a good friend be a good cousin if you just to get human being and help her by just being calm

[Astarlessnightsky]

Thats just what autistic people work.

They are forced to small talk and hold conversation their entire life and when they finally managed to wear this personality as a mask, they can't let go of it easy.

Like talking about (boy)-bands is one thing she learned the hard way interests people, and when she manages to fake an interest in these as well, you come in and turn the world upside down. Because as you wrote, she said most other people like them. Not "I" like them.

If i were you ask her what she is interested in, if she likes boy bands. And so on.

Otherwise you have to be direct and simple, autistic people usually don't understand the neurotypcial way of phrasing things nicely. And hoping the other one understands the nuances between the lines.

[slatyb]

You establish boundaries and if she violated them you end the conversation.

[Asker]

Right? Why doesn’t she get it? She should know what others are talking about! God!!!

[Anonymous]

i have autism too and it will be very hard to teach someone to respect someone but trough patience and kindly asking her u should be able to get her to respect u