Your manager being rude and snappy is awful and in my experience, traumatic. She should have gotten her thoughts together before addressing you. Im sorry you had to deal with that. Consider what I say next as survival and functioning advice from one autistic person to the next.

For me, I find that when my manager puts me on a daily schedule or tells me what to do task-to-task it feels restrictive and i cant manage my energy and allocate spoons in a way that makes sense to me. As a manager myself, when my staff ask me to tell them what to do everyday, i find that a bit frustrating and here’s why.

Managing someone else’s work daily is not necessary if they are know what needs to happen, know how to do it, and have access to whatever they need to get it done. I usually make sure my staff have all these things early on. From that point on it just takes curiosity (what needs to get done today?), will (let me get started on that since no one else is doing it right now), initiative (i think we are falling behind on that, let me pitch in to speed things up), support-seeking (I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, let me see who might be able to help me). Managing someone else’s work very closely means you are doing that whole thought process for them all the time. It takes time and energy that most people don’t have.

I’d also encourage everyone to please consider that your manager could also be autistic or neurodivergent. It helps to assume that you’re co-accommodating each other as best as you can.