For as long as I can remember, I've been told that my tone is "off."
Too blunt. Too cold. Too serious. Too something. And often, I didn't even know what I'd done wrong. Just that someone felt hurt or rubbed the wrong way by how I sounded, not what I actually said.
At one point, I got so anxious about this that I stopped sending emails at work without having a co-worker read them first. Not because I didn't know how to write clearly, but because I was afraid I'd sound rude without realizing it. I'd rewrite and rephrase over and over, trying to find that magical version of the sentence that wouldn't get misread.
It wasn't just emails, either. I used to practice conversations before having them. Rehearse my tone, my voice inflection, my facial expression. Just to make sure I didn't come off as mean or disinterested. I'd run through what I wanted to say like I was memorizing lines for a performance. And it was exhausting. Every single time.
Now? I'm at a point in my life where I'm just done.
I don't have the energy to script every interaction. I don't have the energy to fix my "tone" just to make someone else more comfortable. I hope people still understand me anyway. I hope they know I don't mean to sound harsh. I'm not angry. I'm not heartless. I'm just blunt and tired.
The truth is: I'm Autistic. That affects how I express myself and how I interpret others. Tone, inflection, implied meaning. These things don't always land for me the way they do for neurotypicals. Especially when I'm tired, masking less, or just trying to be efficient. My tone gets "worse" then, if by worse you mean even more straightforward and even less sugarcoated.
It still shows up in my relationships. Romantic and platonic. I'll say something with zero malice, and suddenly I'm in damage control because it was heard as cold or aggressive. I've had to explain that my calm voice isn't detachment. My short sentence isn't anger. My silence doesn't mean I don't care.
At the end of the day, tone is a social construct. It's shaped by culture, context, and a million invisible rules that weren't built with neurodivergent people in mind. And I'm learning, slowly, that I don't have to contort myself to fit every expectation.
I'm allowed to be clear. I'm allowed to be tired. I'm allowed to be me.
And if my tone is "off" sometimes? So be it. My heart isn't.