Realisation and change: how much and what, and who should be putting effort in?

Long post, mix of venting and questions.

Obviously there's the realisation that your parent has autism, which might be a relief in itself to have a description for why being parented by them was so difficult and hurtful and your upbringing so inadequate.

Then maybe there's realisation that their traits and behaviours are symptoms of their diagnosis and choices by them, not a fault of you.

Hopefully by that point any self esteem issues you might have are improving and you're working on identifying and gaining any skills they didn't teach you properly.

Where do you go after that, with your relationship with your parent? If they know about their behaviour or have a diagnosis, ideally they'd work on their behaviour and change. But what if they don't? After all, you can't make them change.

My mother has autism, diagnosed about 2 years ago, no surprise, suspected for decades, level 2. Diagnosis hasn't resulted in change. And it's meant I feel angry more often and call her behaviour out more, because, to me, she knows how she is and why she's like that and has professionals to help her, but she has instead chosen to use her diagnosis to justify her identity as a victim of the world at large, and uses it as an excuse to keep choosing to behave hurtfully instead of using it as the reason to work on changing.

I have always driven and maintained the relationship. She doesn't action even specific, repeated requests to initiate contact, not dominate conversation, or remember and follow up things that are important to me. I have given her tools and advice both task-specific and generally that she should work with her professionals on it. She ignores that. She's well meaning but hurtful, accidentally rude and insulting when she does interact, long spells where she forgets I exist, has a concept of me in her head that is not me. All quite a common experience.

I've said to her various iterations of "put more effort in and treat me better or I won't keep putting up with your poor behaviour to have a relationship with you any more." She's told me responses to the effect that I am being mean and discriminatory and excluding her, because that's just how she is because of her diagnosis.

Of course if I do stop putting effort in, I don't get to have a relationship with her either except for the occasional random message which is 50/50 special interest monologue, or a family emergency I can do nothing about eg a note that she thinks she might have had a stroke in the week beforehand, or grandparents are in hospital again or have died. I dread opening messages from her.

Some options that others might have tried and found helpful are: 1.family therapy (emotionally exhausting. I'm not prepared for the time or emotional committment here because I don't believe she can change) 2. Solo counselling/therapy (which she already does. No evident improvement). I think she needs more of that, but that could be because her health/social issues including autism are a special interest of her and that's all she talks about with me, so she could do that to a counsellor with a more productive result for her and relief for me. 3. I quietly stop putting the effort in but don't mention it. This seems to be the winner except again I don't get the relationship I want with her if I do this. When I waited for her to invite me to things or call, visit, write, message, I saw her three times in two years and only for things I arranged, and she only initiated contact 4 times- once for my birthday, the rest about her special interests. 4. Maintain contact but reduce duration of direct interaction and therefore opportunity for her to hurt me. Eg, go see a movie together in cinema and sit in silence instead of trying to meet for a coffee or have a meal together with conversation. 5. Cut her off entirely with a dramatic declaration that I won't endure being hurt anymore to get only scraps of attention from her once in a while. Except I have this irrational fear of being called a Bad Daughter by her if I give up on a relationship with her, because she's the vulnerable one.

I wouldn't feel at all bad for cutting contact if she didn't have a diagnosis, it would feel entirely justified and pragmatic as a response to her hurtful behaviour, my repeated requests to change, and her failure to do so. That's what I'd tell a friend to do. But somehow I feel that with a diagnosis, maybe I should put in more effort and put up with it, because I can, and she can't...

My sister is a master of mother management, and pretends she doesn't hear anything our mother says or see anything she does, and at most treats our mother like a wind-up-and-go monologue machine by asking how she is then tunes out the monologue and says at intervals "wow, really" "how about that" "mm" "uh huh" "if you say so" "I don't know anything about that" "must be a reason I guess" "seems like a mystery" "better ask your counseller" "I'm sure you'll figure it out" "well times up, I guess I'd better go" - Zero real connection which my sister hates, but our mother loves it (until being told "times up").

Any obvious other options that people have found useful to reduce how painful interacting is? Or to get people to put effort in and change?