Today I got taken off a project at work because I’ve been “…too distracted and melancholy…” I can’t blame them. I was getting the work done but communicating about it was an issue.

When I go through PTS episodes I lose the ability to mask. My autistic traits become more pronounced. I do more fidgeting. I fixate more on facts and figures because people and emotions are so uncertain. Add to that the fact that this recent break up with M. has called into question everything that I thought I knew before. When someone tells you that you’re safe with them and then they discard you for you being you, it makes it feel unsafe to interact with anyone. Every interaction with every person feels like a potential land mine. Are they going to hear “a tone” in my voice and assume the worst? Is my vocal inflection sufficient to convey that this is sarcasm so that they get the cue for laughter instead of assuming that I’m mocking them maliciously? It’s so overwhelming that I just shrink into a corner and don’t want to risk being misunderstood. If someone who claimed to love me could misunderstand everything I was saying to her, what hope is there that I won’t be misunderstood by someone with zero emotional investment in our interactions?