read their mind.

they feel like your inability to understand their horrible communication is a fault entirely in you and has nothing to do with themselves.

or more accurately, they just want you to emotionally validate them and tell them what they want to hear.

also, even if they did tell you what to do explicitly, and you do it, they will 100% come back at you 'BUT NOT LIKE THAT'.

because now it's not about communicating, it's about abusing/confusing you to feel like they have control over you, to see how how much bullshit they can get away with before you tell them to f off.

They say that because the listener is so focused on exactly what is said, likely adding non-relevant context or missing context, and dragging out things instead of understanding the message that is being conveyed.

For example, when I say pick up trash to mean things to throw away and the kiddo focuses on whether she considers something that should be thrown away to be trash she is focused on what I am saying but not what I am telling her. "It isn't trash, I just don't need it." Then just throw it away!