Is there an NT that constantly criticizes you?

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Like, an NT person who is always picking on some oversight or "obvious" mistake that you made, or some deficit in your motor skills, or timing of conversation topic, etc, etc.???

And do you find they genuinely mean well, or are too destructive or abrasive in their criticism??

I think I've encountered a few of these in my past, and maybe you have too:

"Why did you keep talking to her?? Couldn't you tell by her face and posture that she wasn't interested in you / was uncomfortable around you?"

"Why did you ask him/her if he/she could [insert expectation]? Even if he/she said yes (which they did), couldn't you tell that it wasn't an appropriate request given [insert "obvious" social nuance] ??"

"Don't you realize that so-and-so said 'I don't know' to your question because Person X was also in the same room within earshot??"

So, ahem, something tells me that getting into a scientific discussion of central coherence and ToM (theory of mind) impairments wouldn't cut it as a satisfying response to a layperson who's "put off" by your weird behaviour

In this case, you could reply sort of like a narcissist and say "well, being a rational person, HAD I KNOWN THAT [i.e. the person's advice], then I wouldn't have asked them / would have left them alone."

If they pushed further, you could be a bit smart-ass about it and say "well, you can never tell for sure by the vibes that people give off - I mean, if someone has to go to the bathroom really bad, then all bets are off."

This literally describes my life with my hypercritical narcissistic mother. As for your question, she definitely did not “mean well” and seemed to get some sort of high while putting me down with a smile on her face. I can’t speak for every NT who does this though. Maybe some of have good intentions, I don’t know.

Excessive and repetitive intrusion is a type of bullying (use of coercive force). It can be controlled through the use of reflexive force. For example, if a dog bothers you, you can use a rolled up newspaper to eventually teach it to leave you alone.

If you have become the target of a bully, they have become used to using you to express their need to control someone. This can be discouraged by the use of prepared statements like;

Do you know that your constant criticism of me is hurtful?
Why do you think it is your job to correct me?
Have I ever asked for your opinion?

When a light touch fails or more stern measures are called for:

Just back off, your being too pushy.
Even if your advice was correct, I still wouldn't want to hear it.
My parole officer told me that if I kill just one more person, I could really be in trouble.

Sometimes a punch in the face is needed. However, these days I would not recommend it as, while effective in getting through to the really dense, it can get you in trouble.

I would try and avoid such a person and so not give them the chance to keep doing it. I realise that is hard to do it they are family or you have to live with them.

Yeah....my mother LOL

People like this are a bit of a difficult one when you can't tell if they're doing it to help or if they're trying to make you feel worse.

I honestly think the best case scenario for it is to simply ask them, "why? are you saying this for my benefit or trying to make me feel bad that I did that? I'm confused how you mean it"

Depending on their answer you should be able to gage some kind of better understanding, if they are quick to deny being negative towards you then be more wary of that. If they respond with an explanation of why it's bad then this is more on the positive/helping side.

Honestly though, I think the best thing to do with anyone who is autistic is to honestly take some psychology classes. Ever since I learned a lot about psychology and how to interact with people properly life has gotten a lot easier over the years. I'd recommend Richard Grannon on Youtube for the narcissist behaviour, he's really good and explains in a simple way.

Thanks Lunella, I will totally research his stuff! This could really help with unraveling the perverse behaviour and motives of certain dark/toxic personalities - lord knows I've had to deal with a few of those including a former housemate of years ago who'd try to "paranoid-shame" me, making me feel like I was being irrational in accusing him of covert destructive behaviours, and he'd dismissively retort that "this comment just proves you're even more f***d up than I thought, you really need to get psych help."

It was good to know in the end that I wasn't insane, just cognitively impaired - like a dyslexic - only with socio-emotional nuance. HE was the mentally deranged one.

It's for the best lovely. Putting up with people like that is very draining on your mental health.

From experience, because us autists tend to have a developmental issue we often fall into trouble very easily with narcissists/sociopaths and the like. To them we are like flies and they are spiders. How do you outsmart a spider? You learn how to avoid them at all costs.

It's super important to learn to differentiate behaviours to save yourself a hell of a lot of trouble and conflict in future. I can't stress enough how important it is to get the psychology books out if you're an autist. I honestly wish someone would have told me way sooner.

Interesting, my mother was also constantly criticising me. Not sure if she was NT or not, she certainly wasn't quite normal in some respects. But she became less of a problem as I grew up, and eventually she stopped getting on my case. I suppose I gradually learned how to make it clear I wasn't going to stand for it.

I'm very lucky to have the freedom these days to pick and choose who I'm with, so if anybody gets up my nose I just shut them out of my life. That's one perk of retirement. It must be a lot more difficult for people who have school, college or jobs that they can't just walk away from.

If I ended up as somebody's captive audience like that, I hope I'd one way or another make it plain that their overtures weren't welcome. I hope I'd start by saying things such as "leave it out mate," or "mind your own business," and if they didn't back off then I might try and fight back by focussing the discussion onto them - "what gives you the right to assume you know what's best for me?" or "come to think of it, you do quite a few things yourself that look stupid to me but I don't normally have the cheek to pick spots off you all the time for it," or "you'd do well to use a bit of courtesy on people instead of trying to go at them like a bull in a china shop. Whatever made you think that being rude to people would persuade them of anything?"

Yes, I can recommend "The Gift of Fear", by Gavin DeBecker. It explains the common ruses & tactics that pathological personalities use, and how you can outmanoeuvre them.

my dad.

I have read that book TWICE. I also recommend it. Highly.

I would also say that many of the items in the book apply to NTs at a smaller scale, non-pathological level. It really helps to understand some of the things that people do.

My uncle is a huge criticizer. He has this strange attitude where he thinks that any phobias and disorders are only for children, and that all adults must be emotionally well-adjusted, 100% independent, savvy with every skill (including mechanical, architecture, engineering and technology), and if you're over the age of about 17 and have arms and legs and are able to talk then you have no excuse. He doesn't seem to understand that not everyone is into what he's into, and he thinks that just because something is easy for him it means it's easy for everyone else. He's like, "but you're an adult, you should know how to fix the washing-machine" or "look at the size of you, you can lift that heavy dresser up the stairs on your own" (even if you're a woman), or "you should decorate the house, you're old enough", or "fancy saying you can't swim at your age!", or "why are you so scared of that spider? Grow up!"
He was much better to be around when I was a child because he didn't have anything to criticise about. But the criticisms wouldn't sound so annoying if he didn't keep bringing your age into everything, and just gave you some helpful tips instead or encouraged you (like saying "you're intelligent, go for it!" or something like that).

Yes, he actually thinks that only children have Asperger's or ADHD or other high-functioning type of disorders like that. He only really believes an adult has a disorder if they are severely affected, like if they are unable to talk or something.

Same here with my mom who does this to not only me, but also to my NT sister.

This is a good book, I just blitzed through it on my tablet. I like how it tells you in a clear cut way this is why they are utter bastards and how you avoid them doing mad s**t to you like this. It's mad how evil people can be and how common it is too.

I really recommend this one as well, it helped one of my friends leave their very abusive girlfriend when they started seeing the behaviour it said for themselves.



All these horrible nasty people seem to just follow a pattern, and it's figuring out what the patterns are so you can basically predict what they're going to do.

Sociopaths for example, they're all pretty much standard - they go around and gather information from a bunch of people about you or coerse you into giving personal information about you by lying and pretending to be nice then use it against you at a later date to get what they want.

Autistic people have no idea what's going on with all this, this is why I say everyone needs to be learning about psychology/sociology if you're even just a bit autistic.

I've been severely bullied, criticized abused, neglected by my so called family. I was the scapegoat for decades in a toxic family.