Some people just don’t get it, and autistics are forced to accommodate them–instead of the other way around

I’ve been transferred to a different veterinary facility while waiting for the new doctor’s hiring to be completed at my home clinic. At this different place, the receptionist and the other tech are delightful.

The doctor is not. Although I’ve expressed that I’m autistic, she doesn’t know what that means, and, I suspect, wouldn’t care if she did.

I’m filling in for a tech on maternity leave. I originally felt lucky that they needed me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be working at all right now. But I’m not feeling lucky anymore. The doctor is dry, emotionless. She asks deadpan rhetorical questions that read as insults. (Even I can read them, which should tell you something right there.) She never seems satisfied with what I’m doing, and it keeps throwing me off. Each of those little remarks cuts into my fragile self-esteem like a surgical blade, leaving me at a loss as to whether or not it was me that said or did the wrong thing.

The first couple of weeks I tried so hard to please her that I grew nervous and flustered and started making mistakes that I never make normally. I knew I wasn’t doing what she wanted, and kept asking and asking for her to tell me what that was, but she wouldn’t give me anything.

Then, after my third week, I received an email from our boss. It listed every single mistake I had made in detail over the last three weeks and threatened that if I didn’t fix them all, I wouldn’t be able to continue work at that facility.

My stomach dropped and my eyes filled with tears. I hadn’t been told. I didn’t know. Again. Again. All the times I asked her to help me help her she never said anything. I had no way of figuring out what was wrong. That is, until she revealed that she had been taking detailed notes in her head this whole time and unloaded them all on our boss, who had no choice but to relay them to me.

I felt defeated. No, more that that. Really, really upset and really, really, really angry. Once again, my autism had placed my employment in doubt. Once again, all the work I was doing to hide said autism and figure out what someone needed was unnoticed or ignored.

I am extremely good at being a vet tech, but performance anxiety shreds my concentration. None of these mistakes would have happened if she had just told me what was wrong and how to fix it. But she kept me in the dark while I fell apart, committing more and more mistakes as I tried in vain to please her. Then she laid them out at my boss’s feet as though I was the problem and it had nothing to do with her.

I, on the other hand, had been running myself ragged trying to figure out what was going on. Then this email dropped and in one swipe, all of my feelings of insecurity and self-doubt flooded to the surface, eventually leading to a full-blown meltdown, my first in months. I screamed and sobbed and despite my husband’s herculean efforts, I remain upset even now, a full night’s sleep later.

Even though I’m the one with disability, once again I’m the one who has to make special accommodations, not the other way around.

I appreciated the feedback and said so, and thanked my boss and the doctor with a smile on my face, all while struggling with a heavy resentment for them perceiving me as sloppy even though I am the opposite of sloppy; I’m a perfectionist. I just happen to be an easily-flustered autistic one. Clearly, the doctor has some lurking emotional and self-esteem issues of her own. But, as always, I have to be the smiling receptacle thereof just to keep from getting fired.

I can count the number of jobs where this wasn’t the case on one hand. One of them was my home facility, where I never had any of these problems. I would ask what I was doing wrong and they would tell me and tell me how to fix it. No accusations. No threats about being fired. In fact, my receptiveness to feedback was appreciated and we got along wonderfully. I was lulled into the idea that I could be open about my autism anywhere and still be considered a valued employee.

But, no, I guess not. And I’m furious that this is all happening over email, because I wish I could convey how hard I’ve been working and how difficult this has been for me without seeming petty and oversensitive. But because the doctor struck first, I know anything other than total acquiescence would come across as defensive.

Ironically, I’m really good with people. I’ve talked countless clients out of their displeasure by using techniques I’ve perfected over years of careful observance and memorization. I’ve carefully watched how people defuse challenging situations and absorbed their methods. But I can only do this if I know why someone is upset and what they need. If they won’t tell me and I can’t figure it out, I’m useless.

So it really pisses me off when someone who is bad with people but not autistic is allowed to keep being a passive aggressive jerk while I have to just accept it. Even though I’m the one with disability, once again, I’m the one who has to make special accommodations, not the other way around. I wish I was the kind of person who could tell her off, explain that I had been doing this since she was in high school and that my talent and experience should be respected, not picked apart by someone behind my back when they never gave me a chance to do what they wanted in the first place.

But that’s not me. I never do that. I can never be sure if it’s the right time or place, so I err on the side of not at all. But it still stings. And I’m still angry. And while I love everything else about this clinic, it will be a relief when I get to go back to my original quirky workplace and leave this horrible person and all her crap behind me.

Because I do deserve better, even though she doesn’t acknowledge it. I could make her job easier, but she prefers to think of me as the problem and not the solution. And nothing I do or say will change it, and she will get to keep acting like offended party for as long as she likes.

Again.