Averse to Criticism

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Somehow I wonder how I've made it this far without ever getting fired.

I hate people telling me what to do, and I think the root of it is that I strongly dislike criticism. Even when it's nicely packaged, I take offense. I'm so damn sensitive.

I've always been a hard worker and am good at what I do, and in some ways this hard work has insurance from criticism.

Now I am freelancing (no boss, different "boss" with each project.) With each project I am working with people who do not know me and who are much more prolific in their feedback (which I take to be criticism almost all the time). I am trying to cope by not responding to emails right away, because when I do I tend to be really defensive and it doesn't come off well.

Do others have this problem? I am wondering if it is in part a theory of mind problem. I'm starting to see signs of this in my AS son and am wondering how I can help him be more accepting of feedback in his life.

Work the pure logic mojo.

When you receive feedback, break it down, point by point, into separate lines. Examine them from a purely factual basis. Respond to them on a purely factual basis. The client is paying you. Thus, your life depends upon the quality of your work as evaluated by the client. Your emotions are irrelevant. Throw them away. If you can't live under that, learn to or starve. It's that simple, that factual, that logical.

I have had dozens of papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I don't give a personal tinker's damn about the critiques. They are merely factual matters that need to be addressed as such. I save emotions for people who matter, not for clients or reviewers.

I'm really emotionally sensitive and sensitive to criticism.

It's not quite THAT difficult, in my opinion.

In fact, in writing terms - it's pretty much required to improve the work, as you need an unbiased opinion to see what works, what's entertaining, and what isn't.

That said, multiple opinions can help ;p

I think people with AS are more sensitive to everything. Things affect us that do not affect an NT.

I could be NTs are insensitive to these things. That is another discussion.

I don't like it because I'm also really sensitive to it, but I do recognize its necessity. As a writer and musician I've appreciated the pointers I've received over the years. I may not have liked them, but still.

Yep, I think I might be overreacting to this as well...really makes all the gears grind in my head.

If the criticism is justified, I probably already know what I messed up, and there's no need to rub it in.

If it's not justified, well, then you just made an enemy for life

I'm also extremely sensitive to criticism, though at the same time I am very devoted to personal growth. What I try to do is allow myself to experience that initial negative reaction and then revisit the criticism with a calm mind later on.

It also depends on who the criticism is coming from. Most criticism is actually opinion in disguise. There are certain people who I know put a lot of thought into advice before opening their mouths and are people I look up to; those are the people I trust.

I actually like getting criticism most of the time. I always want to improve myself.

Best example was when i made a map pack for a certain game. It got critiqued a lot and went down as a big failure. I read through all the critique and made a whole new map pack without the problems that the previous pack had. It was a great success and some people are still playing it as of today(Got released 4 years ago).

I like criticism as long as it's not phrased as a personal attack. Constructive is key.

When I did freelance writing, I enjoyed the feedback I received. It was usually helpful and I usually agreed with it.

I do have issues with other kinds of criticism. My niece likes to criticize me for really inane things, and her criticism is not helpful so much as condescending, insulting, and hypocritical.

For me when I get Good feedback, I can't tell if they really mean it and bad feedback isn't great because they just don't appreciate my work. So I lose both ways.

I think as aspies. We are more sensitive to criticism because of are lack of social connectivity. And as a result of that. We tent to overreact more in a criticizing situation because we may not know exactly what we did wrong at first.

It's like we don't want to "Rock the boat" and if the boat does get rocked, It feels like it flipped over.

In my experience most people, regardless of the neurotype, are very sensitive to criticism. Unless you word your criticism very carefully, the criticizee takes it personally as if it were an unnecessary attack or something with a malicious intent behind. One of my ex-colleagues made ridiculously many mistakes in her work. When I nicely pointed out just one of her tens of mistakes, she got really upset as if it were an insult. I don't think she could be autistic. People often don't realize how bad they are in various ways. Many people are in denial.

Having said that, for us autistic people, the poor people/communication skills might make it even harder to take the criticism. Between two people who have good people skills, even such messages as criticism could be conveyed in the least painful ways.