tl;dr… I bolded important details (but I think it's all important?) if you don't want to read.
I'm desperate. Please help me out for right now and moving forward. I’m in MO.
I'm a young contract employee for a hospital. I've had issues with my company picking on me for a bit. It's a small non-profit with 20 people in my role scattered in the area at different sites, and most of them are 40s-60s. I notice my coworkers doing things that are very comparable to things I do, but it's only wrong when I do it. Or somehow finding a way to blame me for a situation. My boss has always said I'm great at the job, but [insert some issue with my personality or humor or word choice]. Let me try to summarize issues from even the last three weeks.
I asked about accommodations (~2 weeks ago) after recently being diagnosed with autism. I had to ask my manager and boss to meet because we haven't had an HR since they left in October, and they pushed the meeting to after a work retreat we had scheduled. At the work retreat, a manager (not mine) grabbed me by my wrist and dragged me into another room to show me something. I'm working on stating boundaries and also wanted to bring it to her attention in case she didn't realize, so I texted her basically saying she crossed a boundary and made me uncomfortable, please don't do it again. I said I wanted to keep it between us because it was what I considered a now resolved interpersonal conflict.
The “meeting about accommodations” started as them denying every accommodation suggestion I had as not being feasible for [insert excuse]. It shifted halfway through. It came up that the manager had told them about me texting her. My boss said that the manager crossed my own personal boundary, but expressed that it was my fault for having that boundary and I didn't sound friendly in the text. Additionally, I had a tragedy months ago that's still having things come up that everyone at work is aware of, and I was discussing an update with my coworkers (who are outside friends) when my manager came by and sat down, and she often asks for updates about the situation, so I explained. My boss said that was far too personal to bring up at work (after they insisted this retreat wasn't work)… meanwhile, that same retreat, a coworker had mentioned her whole family thinks she's Muslim but she isn't, a manager stated she was pregnant via reciprocal IVF, and my one coworker discussed being newly single/divorced. So, double standard. Sidenote: the day after a coworker asked me if my mother was dead, lol.
My boss had asked me to describe how my autism came up in my life earlier in the meeting, and I had mentioned being misinterpreted and also misinterpreting other people as a symptom, but clarified I tend to be misinterpreted because people read into behaviors or habits when I communicate at face value. The meeting ended with her telling me that I claimed misinterpretation as a symptom, but that she feels I act like I expect everyone to conform for me, even though I've been working on reading and understanding communication habits and it's why I try to be literal and to the point: it doesn't leave room for guessing what I mean (but apparently they still are going to guess incorrectly what I mean). They now have booked meetings every other week to “discuss accommodations.”
I'm at a mental breaking point, but I need to pay my bills. And, I'm worried it looks bad when I ask them not to contact my manager when I submit applications. I don't want to burn bridges because it will fall on me as the “younger, insubordinate, ungrateful kid who doesn't want to work”, but I don't know if that's possible, regardless of what I do. I don’t know where to go.
My goal isn’t legal, I can’t afford that. My goal is just a clean exit or how to survive however much longer.