How do I tell my family

Instinct tells me that you may be quite passionate about your family acknowledging and validating your diagnosis and therefore acknowledging and validating you.  With that sort of passion and perhaps, I imagine that if your ASD is like mine, your determination to make your point about the truth as you see it will be strong enough to get the message across eventually.  For what it may be worth my experience has shown me that going about it as calmly and as gently as possible is wise - otherwise strength of conviction can seem too forceful for others to deal with.

As Martin  indicates your family will also be dealing with their emotional reaction to what is taking place and if your ASD is like mine then you might miss the emotional impact that your family is experiencing in response to the news.  Taking things slowly and watching out more consciously for clues to how they are feeling and factoring that into the strategic approach used might help - I suspect they may be feeling a bit of grief themselves on your behalf and for themselves in coming to terms with it.

I understand that the evidence is that the predisposition to autism is 80% genetic - so with that in mind you may also be trying to communicate the knowledge to another autistic person who has been "masking" all their life and not realising it.  As Alien0n3arth has had experience of too.  That may be an explanation for some of the difficulty they have in seeing the (unmasked) truth you present.

Maybe you could explore using the different levels of the social structure that is your family to help.  That is to say analyse "who is who" and what they're like and who might be most likely to be more amenable to understanding to start with and use that knowledge to your advantage with how you go about achieving your aim.

Overall it might be worth explaining that you're not trying to overturn the organisation of your family but instead want to shore up the existing infrastructure with what to you is exciting new knowledge and the possibilities that it brings.

I think that it is worth the effort because it has the potential of bringing a stronger sense of union, community and alliance.

Whatever happens there are people who understand and "get you" for who you are and hanging out with your other family will give a chance to recharge for taking on the challenge.  I'm please you asked so that I have had the chance to be included in that group :-)

All the best!

I’ve removed myself from the family group chat, My wife filters it out and just tells me what i need to know.

however they have started to message me directly (lots) and its finding a way of saying - this was the reason i left the group because i just cant be arsed with it all. I just dont care about your next door neighbours, third cousins uncle has had a haircut bo***cks. 

thanks for your reply, im truly amazed that likeminded people are looking out for one another, 

I’ve removed myself from the family group chat, My wife filters it out and just tells me what i need to know.

however they have started to message me directly (lots) and its finding a way of saying - this was the reason i left the group because i just cant be arsed with it all. I just dont care about your next door neighbours, third cousins uncle has had a haircut bo***cks. 

thanks for your reply, im truly amazed that likeminded people are looking out for one another, 

yep all that "what's the point of that" chit chat can be tricky to engage with - I figure that there us normally a subtext or agenda that people are engaging in that they often don't realise.  I recall how much of a surprise it was to me the first time someone genuinely answered my question of "how are you".  In that instance it was a childhood friend who in his early 20s had learned cancer was killing him pretty soon.  Surprising how much awareness of mortality opens ones mind to things and opens the door to getting things out there for others to share!  Suspect the chat about bo^^cks is how they show they care - not what you would prefer but for now at least all they can do.  

Your thanks are appreciated - for me this forum is an opportunity to consider things and formulating a reply is therapeutic and insightful for me too in working out about autism.

I think that there is lots of good advice that we encounter here.  One thing to keep in mind tho' is that the "what" is often considerably easier than the doing for ASD people.  Maybe decide on a strategy for how to move on the question that you raised and gently give it a go.  Keep us posted about how things work out maybe! 

All the best :-)