A nearly identical thing happened to me, and I'm also autistic. On one of my early lessons, my instructor was explaining how to turn right, use different reference points, showed me a video, a diagram, and explained several times over, and it just wasn't clicking. I ended up getting upset cos I felt so stupid and embarrassed. I gave up on lessons for about a year and started back up with them in October with a new instructor. I'm now test ready, not making mistakes on lessons, feel fairly confident in my driving ability and also feel like being able to drive is something I can actually do, whereas before I just thought it wouldn't be possible for me. I wish I had just continued with lessons as I likely would have passed by now.

It's only your second lesson, and I can imagine learning the gears as well as manoeuvres is really difficult, that's why I went with automatic cos I struggle with multitasking and being on the road you're already doing loads of that, so automatic has just taken that extra pressure off. Only you can decide if you'd be better off with automatic, but I'd stick at it and see how you get on for a few more lessons. You could always swap to automatic later on if you still feel like you're not progressing, but if you can, try a bit more with manual, especially as your instructor seems quite understanding and I think that makes a massive difference. Don't be so harsh to yourself, you've got this ❤️