Dealing with judgemental "why haven't you...by now" phrases

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So, how do you guys deal with those judgemental "BY NOW" statements, e.g. "Why haven't you...by now?" or "You should have...blablabla...BY NOW."

Funny thing is, we still tend to get these even when we tell them that autism or ASD is a developmental disability or disorder. I suppose this is part of the "double empathy problem", where neurodivergent folk give neurotypical folk the honest answer to why our situation is the way it is; but they just disregard it as if we'd never said it - simply because it doesn't make sense from their perspective.

It's also part of the "spiky profile" of people on the autism spectrum, which some of you may have heard of - basically where we're really good at just a couple of things, but struggle to maintain a mid-level of competency on several other things that NTs are fairly decent at, e.g. art and drawing, certain motor skill tasks, sports...

What I absolutely detest about these awful patronizing "BY NOW" queries is that they insinuate that somehow we're negligent or have character flaws or something completely untrue (I suppose in some instances they might think we're being indirectly defiant or passive-aggressive - which is imposing an NT template / lens on witnessed behaviours, using simple heuristics).

Thankfully, I haven't gotten these comments in years, as I've worked in a stable CS/IT career and my NT wife (who's more introverted) seems to have tacitly accepted my residual idiosyncrasies (as the result of me masking / rehearsing / reflecting over many years), although she did pose a couple of "by now" interrogations in years past.

What I found was the best response to any "by now" interrogations (which are largely rhetorical and based on anger and frustration, which we probably didn't pick up on early in life) was something to the point like this, something to narrow it down or rule out suspected causes: "Well, it's not due to lack of effort or lack of concern - just the opposite." (You could even substantiate this by adding "Nor is it due to any character flaws or lack of confidence."

That seems to have been a more well-received response in the past, where my "interrogator" acknowledged the truth of what I was saying, telling me that I've got the right attitude and positive qualities - yet struggle involuntarily. Not that it's a vivid memory for me, but I'm sure I got some dismissive retort to that at times like "Well, it should come naturally to you by now...you shouldn't need to try so hard." (sigh)

Again, part of that double empathy problem. NTs are, by and large, too obtuse to want to view things through a neurodivergent lens.

In my late teens and early 20s, back in the '90s, I can recall working a series of crap jobs where I got this sort of comment (pre-diagnosis, the shrinks just told me I had ADHD combined with social anxiety disorder), where the bosses would cut my hours and when I'd asked them about it, I'd get some B.S. excuse that they "needed to bring the new employees up to speed" and thus give them more hours...yet not even a month ago they'd shame me by saying that "so-and-so who just started a couple of months ago is already more on the ball than you are who's been here six months" - I understand this sort of thing has been a VERY common experience for autistic folk, and our first rude awakening that capitalism is built by NT folk, solely for NT folk.

I had that as a child with my reading. When I was 8 or 9 I was still reading books aimed at preschoolers and the schools really pushed reading on to children in those days and they were like "you should be able to read age-appropriate material by now". But I wasn't really that much into reading.

I've heard this a bit from my mom when I was a teen & in my 20s. It was more related to me having various disabilities besides autism & my mom was extremely frustrated with me being dependent on her at my age. In my 20s it was related to me still living at home unemployed except for about 38 months. My mom felt I was refusing to grow up due to laziness, selfishness, & narcissism. In reality it was more due me not having any other viable options, no support system in my area, along with our area being rural with no real public transportation system & me not being able to drive due to low vision. Mom's method of reliving her frustration sometimes was making insulting rhetorical comments or jokes that sometimes turned into major arguments & triggered me into having bad meltdowns & mom threatening to kick me out & such.

Very luckily I haven't heard those comments since I moved in with my current girlfriend at 30. Cass is on the spectrum as well & has various other disabilities some of which we have in common. A lot of her family members are disabled & they have been better about accepting her being disabled than my parents have. In my parents defense, they've done a lot more for me than their parents did for their adult kids(& probably more than the majority of parents in general) but my mom wanted to make sure I was aware of that. My parents are NT(though my dad has a few Aspie traits/comorbids other than autism). My parents worked very hard all their lives & did not have any major disabilities & no one in my extended family did either.

My favourite response to give is, "Listen to I'm Not Like Everybody Else, by The Kinks and than get back to me."