I have autism and all my life I thought people saw me as weird, but my manager just said something that left me speechless.

My manager sent me a message this morning out of the blue and said: '(My name), I just wanted to say thank you for always making me laugh. You're genuinely one of the highlights of my day.'

I work from home, so our whole team communicates through Slack. Honestly, being able to work from home has been amazing for my career. It's a strange thing, but I feel so much more confident when I'm not under people's eyes. And that little bit of extra confidence makes me want to interact with my team and try to make them happy.

Apparently, it's been working. I genuinely never imagined that people found me funny. I always thought they saw me as the weird one in the group. That's the feeling I've gotten my whole life. Of course, being autistic comes with its difficulties. I often feel like people don't see me the way I want to be seen. So that message from him honestly made my whole week.

Social stuff is not easy for me at all. When I work from home, I barely think about it, unlike when I'm in the office. And that is unbelievably comforting.