Why is employment so painful for autistic people?

[Answered on Quora.com by Aaliceinw]

In my case, I come across as a “normal” functioning person who has the most amazing solutions (in their minds) to complex problems. So my bosses want to promote me and put me in leadership positions - and then I am expected to lead others.

They then ask my opinion about some other strategic issue and I either give a perfectly accurate but wrong response about a detail in the strategy - or I freeze. Or, I give a very truthful but embarrassing response for either myself or one of the bosses.

I start to get excluded: first from the strategic meetings, then from general team meetings, and then from all meetings.

Or I can produce exceptionally high-quality presentations or reports in a very short time, so they keep throwing more of them at me. I either become overwhelmed because there are too many, or because they are sending me stuff I don’t have a clue about. They keep forgetting I need more time to process information, and that I need clear instructions.

I go into shutdown, or I burn out.

In 9 days, I will be celebrating my first year in my new job. I have thought I was going to be fired at least once a month. I have been recognised unofficially and officially for what I am contributing, but most the time, I am not sure if what I am doing is what they want.

Once a week, at least, I wake up feeling sick, because I’m sure I’ve stuffed up.

Getting talked-over in meetings is a common occurrence - and having someone say the exact thing I’ve just said as if I wasn’t even in the room is also common.

Employment for me is difficult because I feel that everytime I learn the language they are speaking, they change it.

Even though I wear less masks than I ever have before in the workplace, I still have to put them on at least 40% of the time. It is still tiring. And scary when almost everyday, I worry that I have misunderstood the brief - and it is even worse when I simply cannot understand what everyone else can.