Please don't take this the wrong way--nothing against you--but I am SICK. TO. FUCKING. DEATH.
of the aUtIsM being pushed/suggested everywhere. It's the !!!!!!ALL NEW!!!!!!! ADHD. We need to knock this off YESTERDAY. I used to teach high school SPED, both in self contained and mainstreamed kids. I am a case manager. I work with all kinds of people including cognitively and developmentally challenged.
Sometimes a pipe is just a pipe. Or, in Anna's case, she's just a piece of shit person and nothing more. Please do not give miss medical misinformation another COVETED excuse.
It is really interesting because I have to deal with someone with narcissistic personality disorder on an ongoing basis. One time, I distinctly remember venting to someone who just didn’t understand Cluster Bs at all, and that person suggested I treat them like they had autism. Terrible idea but now, I kind of get where the mistake is.
What I think is confusion is, is that autistic people can lack a solid theory of mind, so they miss social cues and have trouble socializing.
With Narcissists, they often assume others have the same grandiose opinion of them that they have of themselves. They also do not care what is going on in other people’s minds. They’re the star, the only one that matters. This causes breakdowns in human relations for obvious reasons. In the locker note example, teenage Anna of course thought the other girl would see her as the beautiful tragedy queen worthy of joining the Cool Girls Club, of course she would graciously extend her help to Anna. Plus, as MissBigBack said, she thought she had a right to use the most popular girl at her school like a tool for social climbing.
Narcs sometimes genuinely act like retarded aliens. But, rather than “missing social cues” , It actually tends to be a self-serving and self-centered DISREGARD for boundaries and societal norms. They have a theory of mind but it’s underdeveloped since they must protect their egos at all costs.
Anna does not have comorbid autism either. I’ve met people who have both NPD and autism - in the year of our lord 2025 they are ALL troons or pooners. She would definitely at least have shown genuine interest in Sonic the Hedgehog or trains and posted neopronouns in the bio at some point
Anyway, Anna’s gums are horrifying. It unlocked a new terror about gum disease. Doesn’t that hurt??