I don’t have autism, but for a while I had a really bad relationship with my mom. She would repeatedly ask me: “well wouldn’t you think something was wrong if I did [whatever I’d done or not done]???” It was incredibly stressful because no. I wouldn’t think not smiling or whatever I hadn’t done was a problem if someone else had done it to me. But she’d get anxious, overthink it, and then start banging on my door to yell at me. She’d do it in other contexts too, like demanding to know why I hated doing X activity and why was I going even while driving there. I DID want to do the thing, it was just super early in the morning and I was too tired to talk much on the drive.

It was awful and I’m so glad I moved out. Definitely improved our relationship because I could put down boundaries calmly.