Agreeing with criticism vs. flat-out ignoring it

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There has got to be a balance, right? There was a time when I would think everyone who would ever say anything bad about me was a sadist or a jealous hater. I held on to all those turn-of-the-decade cheesy self-esteem messages found in pop songs and "It Gets Better" PSA's, and the combination of people being mean to me in real life and the idea that such self-esteem messages were my only escape warped my mind. After some time, I lost the ability to take responsibility for myself and lost the ability to see when the hate you get is because you've done something wrong. I wound up losing faith in such cheesy self-esteem messages because they didn't improve my life.

So now, I at least try my best to see where any hate I get comes from. But the problem is that I sometimes get all resigned and "I guess it's true then'' about it. I mean, I know I do have a high-strung personality and I do repeat things a lot, and I do talk about things even when most people aren't interested in them so I at least see where it comes from. But I also miss when I had more of a safety net against any criticism about me.

Indulging in a Special Interest that you are good at can be a good way to gain the self esteem needed to properly evaluate criticism.

People often feel the need to judge and criticise others because their own life is going to hell and "making others feel bad" is just their attempt to project and punish others for their own failings in life...it's quite sad actually.

I often respond to all the haters with an "I am sorry you feel that way" or "I acknowledge your pain" or "it's a great thing that each of us has a unique perspective on life".

Being Autistic, I take a lot of cues from all of the motivational speakers on YouTube..adopting all of their mantras as my own...learning most of them by rote...eg:

"If you cannot accept me for who I am, as a fellow embodiment of universal Source Consciousness..try not to let the door hit your arse on the way out...cya".

That works like a charm every time!

The question is, of course, how willing are you just to let everyone ignore YOU? because there has to be a trade-off for being fully confident in knowing your own stuff and not letting yourself be influenced by others who believe they know more about you than you do yourself...I call arrogance and bulldust when I see it..because NTs are so predictable and easily manipulated by and through all their emotional attachments. So, it is awesome to be totally free of all that.

If someone points out I'm wrong somewhere, I've learned (it wasn't natural at first but training makes a master) to say: thanks, you're right, I'm correcting myself.
If someone criticizes me for things I don't want to change, I ask: Does it harm you? If not, I'll stick to my ways.
If someone feels harmed by things I need to live as myself, avoiding each other is the best solution.