I don’t know you, and I am not medically qualified, so I am simply going by what you say and how you say it, and how you define some of your own challenges. You may or may not have autism. I simply recognise a lot of what you’re saying from the experiences of multiple neurodivergent people in my life.
Also, as a result of my own ND profile, my psychiatrist (and in fact my own executive coach) identified a strong capacity for pattern recognition. Because of that, reading all of your posts is like multiple lightbulbs going off for me, but if you don’t put all of these things together you might not see it.
So yes, of course I could be wrong, but from what I am reading, it sounds to me like you might be neurodivergent.
You struggle to communicate both verbally and in writing, and how you describe your difficulties in terms of finding words, decoding messages etc is consistent with dyslexia and possibly anomia (the latter isn’t a sign of autism but lots of autistic people have anomia-like challenges).
Bear in mind there is a huge comorbidity between dyslexia and other conditions such as speech and language problems, ADHD, executive functioning disorder etc.
Some of the challenges you describe appear to possibly indicate an impairment to your working memory and / or processing speed so you should look into executive functioning disorders. Potentially you are quite inattentive too which might tick some adhd boxes.
You say you have low self esteem and find it difficult to know where and when you should get involved at work. The lack of a sense of self can be typical in ND people.
Your approach to tasks seems to be quite orderly, literal and rigid, and when you don’t have time to organise your thoughts and plan, this seems to be where you struggle.
The fact that you are wondering how you can teach yourself how to have spontaneous conversation whereas usually you need to plan for this type of interaction is also consistent with neurodivergence. (Particularly highly masking ND women) (and btw that was me - I didn’t even realise I was masking for the first 40 years of my life - I just wanted to look normal, fit in, act as other people do ).
As I say, I am not medical and I may well be wrong. But I am in my 40s and am currently obsessed with consuming information and knowledge about ND in females, because I feel strongly that women shouldn’t be left behind when there is support and interventions that could help them.
There is a woman working in my department who sounds very similar to you. I don’t know whether she is ND or not but in the background, I have implemented some inclusive ways of working to benefit her (and everyone actually) even if she maybe doesn’t even recognise this in herself.
So again, apologies if I am overstepping here - my intention is just to plant a seed which might result in you looking into this and maybe even ruling it out. But it’s better to know what to consider, so you’ve explored all options.
Sorry if my comments have offended or worried you.