narcissistic personality and autism

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While the two things are very different, to others they can APPEAR much the same, which is unfortunate for us.

If you're an NT dealing with someone who is secretive and emotionally withdrawn, who ignores your body language, hints and other social cues, but is obviously intelligent and can be obsessive about their personal interests, though sometimes embarrassingly blunt, and who will argue about things that don't matter long after they should have stopped.... well it's easy to make the wrong assumptions.

Too many of the differences are wrapped up in intent, and in how things work:- not what the end results are. To understand that someone has ASD it's first necessary to understand how they are thinking and why they do things the way they do. But very often NTs are scared off long before this might be possible. It's also quite likely it won't occur to them to ask the right questions to gain this knowledge anyway, as they're used to people who volunteer information much more freely.

Things get really messy when we get into areas such as Pathological Demand Avoidance, which is quite confrontational and reactive, and therefore inconsistent. I spent many years thinking I had Borderline Personality Disorder, and I also tick a lot of the Narcissism boxes. But I'm not actually bothered about self-promotion, and I know I am flawed, and my controlling / manipulative instincts come from insecurity and defensiveness not ego. At the same time I am very contradictory and hypocritical and easily angered, but seemingly powerless to do much about it. I want the world to be a better place, but I also generally want people to f**k off and leave me alone. Oh and my emotional awareness (and self-awareness) is so poor that my genuine reactions are often massively delayed, only rising to the surface weeks or even months after an event, which means it's easy for NTs to think I'm completely "cold".

So I'm not a Narcissist but I'm not really surprised when others think I might be, and take avoiding action.

I can definitely see how the two can intertwine. I have a friend with a Cluster B personality disorder.

Often only thinking about one's own life, the need for everything to fit into one's on scope of view, talking to other people exclusively from point of one's life, talking to people only to solve personal issues. - I don't think it's common because NPD implies intentional manipulation, but the hypothetical patterns are very blatant.

Usually I find most NTs like this. Some more than others. Some people are just absorbed in their own lives and like everything to be about them. It's not uncommon. I can be like it, although I can relate to and understand the other person's perspective on things I still kind of bring myself into it but not in a bigheaded way. Like if someone says they don't like something, I usually respond with "I don't like that either" or "I like that" (unless it's something that isn't appropriate to like). It's just my communication style. I don't sit and talk about myself the whole time though but I do desire to be known and understood and remembered.