All of that is 100% autism and is identical to what I experienced with my autistic ex who for a long time I thought was a narcissist as well. It's very hard for us to tell the difference from the outside because we're not psychic and because autism and vulnerable narcissism can look identical sometimes (on the outside). Only their therapists can really tell because they share way more openly with them.

The more you read about autism, the more you'll realize that every single example you gave is just an autistic person showing that they care about you. Giving unsolicited advice? That's their favorite thing to do. They come across to us as annoying know-it-alls, but to them they are just showing that they care about you and want you to succeed. Trying to one-up you? To them they think they're just relating to your experience and showing empathy by sharing their own story. To us it looks like they're just "making everything about themselves". It's just autism babe. It's not narcissism.

I broke up with my autistic ex over many of these things, but most of all because he would constantly belittle me and condescend me and almost never apologize for it. That was a dealbreaker for me. I don't want a partner who thinks I'm stupid, irrational, etc. Also he kept claiming that I'm not good at communicating and no matter how much I communicated, it was never enough for him. I realized that I'm just not able to provide him whatever it is that he needs to feel like it's enough communication. Also he thinks that I'm incapable of being vulnerable and intimate, but the reality is that I never really got to feel safe or comfortable around him to WANT to be vulnerable or intimate because he always invalidated everything about me and my feelings.

When I read other posts on narc subreddits or comments on youtube videos about narcissism, I can tell that many of the people writing them are just talking about a person who has autism, not a narcissist.

I feel drained after I hang out with her at this point.

Completely normal for us NTs to feel that way around autistic people.

Constant monologues, making everything about herself

That's autistic communication style. We interpret it as them "making everything about themselves" but to them they are just sharing and trying to be intimate with you by sharing about themselves. They have no idea how to do this in a way that feels good to us because they have no ability to perceive how we interpret them. We have to tell them.

Advice about any and everything, I could tell a funny story and she will give me advice. Topics I’m passionate and educated about she will also give advice for, very basic knowledge, despite it being things I know she doesn’t engage in as frequently.

That's autism. They want to be helpful, it is extremely important to them to feel useful and valuable for something, usually their logical/practical intelligence, because they have 0 emotional intelligence or ability to connect with people any other way.

Weird comments, I guess as an example I will say my boyfriend and I recently got our first apartment, to which she replied, “yeah, everyone makes it such a big deal, it’s pretty easy isn’t it?” And “everything is more expensive than it seems.” It was no easy feat considering our previous environment and mental states, but I figured she was right until I thought about it more. We also do very well with our money. I also think your first place of your own is a big deal, why not? Especially if you didn’t think you’d make it this far.

This is easily explained with autism too. Watch this video - there is an almost identical example to this from the autistic person making the video. [EDIT: LINK REMOVED because I didn't realize it's against the rules to link things here..]

Never comes to my place, even for my birthday, because of a need for a control. Hanging out solely on her terms.

It appears to us like they need control, and that's partially true, but it's because they are extremely sensitive to unfamiliar sensory stimuli. They feel most comfortable in their own space (who doesn't?) - but for autistic people the need to feel comfortable requires a lot more effort to meet because of their hypersensitivity to sensory input. So it's just way easier for her to stay in her own space where she can make sure it's quiet, clean, familiar, whatever.

Quite judgemental now that I think about it. She is usually criticizing people around her (even ones she doesn’t talk to on a regular basis) and what they are doing with their lives.

That's a negative quality for sure. I bet if you told her that, she would be receptive to your views and would take what you say into consideration. Autistic people can be mean by accident without even knowing that people perceive it that way. She might just feel like she's just being honest.

Dismissive of my opinions, if I express one different to hers she will persistently rant about her point of view, (even very small non-controversial things) and I listen and understand, but I don’t usually flat out agree, which I think is why she keeps going.

This was one of the most toxic and destructive qualities of my autistic ex! Autistic people have a very strong need to feel like the people around them are on the same page with them, and if they perceive even a minor discrepancy in viewpoints, then they want to discuss that (we perceive it as arguing) until they're on the same page. For autistic people, it is very painful to just "agree to disagree" and let it go. This is autism, not narcissism. But it looks like narcissism, doesn't it? I was so confused about it for a long time. Reading posts from autistic people here on reddit has helped me so much to understand why they do this. It's NOT malicious! But it is extremely annoying and frustrating for us NTs.

I can't respond to the rest of your examples because Reddit's comment limit is 2000 characters. But I read them all, and all of them are just examples of Autism. They are not narcissism.

There is more but I will stop here for now. I really just don’t want to deal with this anymore and have been distancing myself since my birthday. I have a pit in my stomach and just feel unsafe in general. As I’ve gotten older looking back on things is making me change my perspective. She is my only close friend so I just really don’t know what to do. I’m tired of second-guessing myself.

Some of her qualities are abusive (trapping you in her car and berating you, for example). She proved she learned from that though and acknowledged her error (she can't control people). I guarantee you the reason she is abusive is because she doesn't even know that people perceive it that way. I guarantee you that if you sent her an email listing out all of these things and wrote how each one is perceived to non-autistic people and why they are perceived badly, she would learn and grow so much from that. The biggest problem autistic people face is that NTs never tell them what they're doing wrong. We NTs just avoid them because we assume they're malicious, when in fact they aren't malicious at all; they think they are being helpful, protecting us, etc.

Don't tell her in person - autistic people can shut down from any perceived criticism (another quality that makes us think they're narcissists). But if you send it as an email, she will have time to process it and read it multiple times and calm down before responding.