What was your worst communication/misunderstanding disaster?

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Aspergers has led to numerous misunderstandings with other people over my life. Both small and large.

The worst was when I was 9 years old. The mother of a girl in my class at school had died. The teacher had pre-warned us kids about it before the girl came back to class. Some of her friends comforted her in various ways. At one point I was alone with her and she was very sad. I don't remember what words I said to her, I was probably wanting to cheer her up or make her laugh and probably said something incredibly tactless - like finding something positive to say about the death of her mother. The result was like a bombshell. She burst into tears and ran to her friends. She must have related what I'd said and they all turned and stared at me with hatred in their eyes. A few days later her older brother attacked me. It all just added to my social isolation at school.

To this day I don't remember what I said, but 9 year old Aspie boys aren't noted for their tact or social skills - especially regarding such events. I'm always wary about talking about highly emotional issues with people since then... just in case I unintentionally put my foot in it.

What other big misunderstandings / disasters have others had dealing with others?

Well I had a horrific misunderstanding at the group this summer. This lady starts talking and she says her dad was horrible and did abuse and then she starts talking about how parents don't accept their autistic kids. I thought she was discussing two different things and didn't agree about parents not accepting their autistic kids when they do therapy so when I spoke up saying I disagree with her somewhat, she blows up at me and tells me what her dad did to her and does that make me happy. It upset me and I couldn't understand why she expect me to know that about her if I never knew about it. So then I eventually thought she wanted to attack me and she picked me as her target because if she were truely abused, wouldn't she not have expected me to know about it and would have told me nicely about her past? I have never had anyone blow up at me like that for not knowing about their history because they knew I didn't know about it so of course they wouldn't expect me to know. Someone at my old job in Montana told me she was raped when she was 14 because I wouldn't believe how can she possibly know someone is behind her or walking closer to her if she can't hear their footsteps.

Then two months later we run into each other and I find out that the reason why she thought I knew about her past was because she wrote about it at a forum we both went to and I don't ever recall seeing them there and I don't read every single thing online. I also don't recall seeing them in her blogs too because I have never read everything in hers. So yeah we're cool now about the conflict but had to have my friend help me resolve it. Then I noticed how much better I did in class the next day because I felt more focused. I had no idea the conflict was effecting my brain and my thinking. Bad situations can do that but I try and live my life normal and still do my job despite bad things that have happened.

One the rare occasions that people "blow up" at me I'm usually so stunned that I can't say a word or I say the wrong thing making matters worse. I tend to dwell on the incident and it disturbs me for a long time. Especially if I get accused of doing something I haven't done or have been misunderstood as saying.

Another childhood incident, was when I was around 10 or 11 years old. I went on a school camping trip. I didn't like some of the food and the head teacher noticed my plate didn't have much on it. He was very stern and not much liked by anyone. Anyway he started laying into me verbally demanding why I wasn't eating much. He towered over me looking angry. I just said I didn't like the food. He then demanded what I ate at home. I felt so intimidated no words came out of my mouth. He grew more insistent "Well! What do you eat at home!" glaring at me like he was going to attack me. Finally I mumbled "chips... cucumber" intending to reel off a long list of food items but my mouth froze and I couldn't speak any more. The head teacher stormed off shaking his head. A week after the camping trip I was hauled into the headmasters study at school - my parents were there - being interrogated about their child that was only fed only on "chips and cucumber!". I got told off by my parents for lying. Told off by the headmaster. All this aggression over nothing going in my direction just overwhelmed me. My parents never did forget being summoned to school over the bizarre incident. Sometimes events just blow up out of nothing leaving me baffled and hurt in the process.