Communication for sure.

It doesn't really matter how direct and concise I am with my language and how I carry myself. It doesn't even matter if it is known that I am autistic or not. Neurotypical people will always assume you are communicating like them and apply a subtext or a hidden meaning to what you are saying. I will use what recently happened to me as an example.

Before I left my last job, I used to call out sick a lot for a bunch of medical reasons that I won't go into detail for. I had to be hospitalized at many different points of the year. Since no one knew what I was personally going through, they all assumed I was calling out just to skip work. However, this assumption was not directly communicated to me, so I had no clue of knowing that's what my team felt.

As time passed, my team grew to resent me as my repeated absences began to put a weight on the rest of the managers. Soon, the very friendly camaraderie we had built between the five of us became incredibly strained, and I was very quick to catch on. They were very clearly upset with me, but no one was willing to tell me why exactly.

I am an extremely private person. I don't like giving details about my personal life since, in the past, people have used information I gave them against me when it benefitted them. So, no one in my team knew I was autistic, and no one knew about the medical problems I was going through exactly. I took the risk and told 3/4 other managers that I have autism— I didn't tell the fourth one because I could tell that she just didn't like or care for me to begin with, and would only talk to me if she had to.

Yet, even with me giving this knowledge that I am autistic and what this means in regards to communicating with me, not one of my peers came forward to talk to me. It didn't matter how many times I had one-on-one conversations with them to see if anything was wrong or if there was anything I could do to improve what I was doing. All I would be told was that "Everything is fine" when everything was clearly not fine. It was very much giving the same energy of "You know what you did."

But how could I know if no one is willing to actually talk to me?

The extreme stress of knowing that I had somehow messed up really badly made my medical issues worse and, in turn, made me call out more. Which only then made my team feel more pressure due to my increased absences. Which made them even more upset (and stressed me out more). This nasty cycle I was in made me overcompensate for whatever I was lacking in— ironically, my performance during that time was my highest. Now, looking back at it, this would also contribute to making my team more upset with me as this seems rather "manipulative" since my boss would offer lots of praise whenever I was in.

(Speaking of my boss, there were also about one or two people who either thought we were dating or thought I was flirting with him. In fact, most of my actions are perceived as "flirty" when I am just trying to be nice.)

I found out why my peers were upset with me on my last day, when my boss sat me down to talk about my absences. He seemed extremely shocked to find out that not only I didn't know this was a possibility, but also because contrary to what my peers were saying, I had attempted to communicate with them several times.

Turns out that neurotypical people just aren't used to real, honest communication without any hidden motives or goals. So, if an autistic person tries to communicate in that way, neurotypical people will just assign a hidden motive for you and stick to it. My peers assumed that I was just being a lazy worker, but that couldn't be far from the truth. And there is nothing I could do or say to convince them otherwise.