An autistic adult in Austria. Eleven years on record.

My name is Mohamad Sakkal. I'm 31, Syrian, and I've been in Austria since 2015. I created this site because I have no other way to share my experience.

What follows is a record of eleven years inside a system that did not know what to do with someone like me. Each section documents what was tried, what the response was, and where things stand now.

Vienna: you are simply not wanted

Vienna is where I live, and the social texture here makes autism harder. The standard is not strict, it is contradictory. Write too much, you write too much; write too little, you are not engaged. Be too nice and you are rejected for being too nice; be neutral and it is read as rude. Contact can run warmly for weeks, and one misread sentence, often on a day the other person themselves is not feeling well, is enough to close the door without warning. The same pattern repeats outside dating: agreements get unmade the moment someone has a better friend to call, money already paid is returned with an apology, what was settled an hour ago is reversed without ceremony. The message, again and again, is that you are simply not wanted. Not for your character, not for what you did. Just not wanted. And wantedness only appears when the other side is desperate. I cannot simply leave. Leaving needs money, recognized status, somewhere to land, and none of that is open to me.

Why social connection is difficult to build

For me, almost no social connection has formed in eleven years. Autism alone makes connection hard. When it stacks with no work, no stable residency, no peer cohort, no family in the country, and a city that defaults to distance, nothing builds. The structural trap is this: interactions in Vienna are evaluated on the first one or two exchanges, but the eleven-year context that would explain my presentation (the seriousness, the careful pacing) cannot be delivered in those first two exchanges. So I look off-putting before there is any opening to say why. I have tried in person, on apps, through events; the pattern is consistent across each.

I had to stop studying. I was exhausted.

I studied computer science for five years. I understood the material. What I could not survive was a system that assumed everyone processes information the same way. When I misunderstood a question because of how my brain works, it was treated as my failure. When rules changed and no one told me, that was also my failure. After five years there was nothing left to try.

No professional chance: 542 rejections, no answer

I have applied to over 542 jobs in eleven years. I speak German, English, and Arabic. I taught myself to code. I walk into interviews, do the tests, get told I did well. Then nothing. No email, no call, no reason. The only thing that does not change across 542 applications is my name on the form.

Residency refused: no income

Without income, my residency was refused. I submitted everything: medical reports, study records, a hospital report stating my conditions cause significant limitations in all areas of life. Getting into and staying in an Austrian university for five years was itself effort against the same layered conditions that closed every other door. In the same Bescheid that acknowledged my limitations, the authority wrote: if you can study, why can't you work? They took the thing I tried hardest at and turned it into the reason to refuse me.

Disability refused three times, despite overwhelming evidence

A neurologist specialized in epilepsy and Parkinson's assessed me for 25 minutes, noted that I speak German well, and overruled the written report from the hospital that has treated me for ten years, which says all treatment options are exhausted. Three rejections, including at court level. Each one written as if looking functional is the same as not being disabled.

No organization helps. Go here, go there, nothing.

I contacted ZARA, BIZEPS, the City of Vienna, Caritas, advocacy organizations, and media outlets. I sent a separate two-month outreach to a long list of bodies whose mandates are fairness, inclusion, diversity, and human rights, every one with a slogan. None took the case. There is no public story attached to my name, no funding, no campaign, and that, more than anything else, is what decides who gets help and who doesn't. There are organizations for everything in this country. For my case there is nothing.

If the city did not recognize it, no one else will

This connects the two halves of the case. The disability process has rejected me four times. The integration office has agreed in writing that the system has gaps, then refused to act on them. A neurologist saw me for 25 minutes and overruled a hospital that has treated me for ten years. These are the people whose job is to recognize what is happening, with full access to the file, with the training, with the mandate. They did not. Then I walk into a workplace, a date, a casual interaction, and meet someone with no training, no documents, no obligation. They have no chance of recognizing what the trained system itself refused to recognize. The institutional "no" trains the social "no." The colleague, the date, the neighbor get to defer to a verdict that was already written, without ever reading a page of it.

What's left: the same loop, with nothing changing

I have tried what I was supposed to try. I have done what was asked. Every path that should work in a normal life is closed for me, and most of the people I asked for help agreed something was wrong but could not or would not act. What's left is the same loop, repeated, with nothing changing. The institutions that should have moved already declined to. This site is what is left of asking.

Why no single layer explains it

The layers do not replace each other. They multiply. The autism layer alone breaks first-impression-based hiring. The origin layer alone has been documented in Austrian correspondence audits to produce sharply lower callback rates for names coded as Syrian, Afghan, or Turkish, no matter the CV. Stack those on each other, and on residency status, on no income, on no peer cohort, on a city that closes the door without warning, and no individual layer is the explanation.

The missing resources are produced by the same structure that then uses their absence against me. "You should have a lawyer" requires money I cannot earn. "You should have a degree" required accommodation I could not get. "You should have a network" required social access Vienna closes off. The system removes the resource, then names its absence as the next reason to refuse.

And every appeal is made alone. No second voice in the room, no advocate, no person to read the Bescheid alongside me. The energy to keep showing up to all of this is treated as free, by every system that wants me to keep applying, keep contacting, keep documenting. It is the resource the system is using up, and the only one no decision counts.

A reply from Innsbruck, April 2026

I sent the case to a research group at the University of Innsbruck. The reply said that no Austrian organization or person came to mind that works at this intersection, and no scientific literature either.

That is what the academic side has been able to say so far. It does not solve anything. It is on the site because it is the only piece of academic feedback this case has received in eleven years.

Articles

What these eleven years have been from the inside, and what institutions did with the case from the outside.

This didn't start in Vienna. It started in childhood.

The mismatch did not start when I crossed a border. It started when I was a child, when the differences in how I worked were already there: the way I held memory, the way approaching people was never automatic. Adults around me named it “shy” or “social anxiety.” Since 2008 I've been on antidepressants for a condition no one ever named correctly. Austria did not cause the mismatch. It made the consequences unsurvivable.

How unexpected damage happens when you're neurodivergent in a neurotypical world.

The medications I take to stay functional are also damaging my body. In the last two months: over €5,000 in dental work from acid reflux caused by the regimen I built alone. Damage shows up in places you don't expect (the teeth, the gut, the surface that holds until it doesn't) because the world isn't built to accommodate the people inside it.

Every organization has a slogan. Not one answered.

Two months. A long list of organizations for fairness, inclusion, diversity, human rights. Every one of them has a slogan. I wrote to all of them. From most: nothing. From some: not responsible, try somewhere else. The diversity work that is funded and celebrated in this country is real, with budgets and campaigns and career paths inside it. The categories it celebrates are pre-selected: neurotypical-coded difference, difference from the right kinds of countries, difference that fits a campaign photo. Mine does not. Neurodivergent. Syrian. Muslim. Eleven years in the country with a documented case. Outside the brand they are paid to celebrate.

Not a single organization can help. Or wants to.

I contacted ZARA, BIZEPS, the City of Vienna, Caritas, media outlets, advocacy organizations. Every single one read my case. Some of them agreed the system is broken. Then they all said it's not their job. I've been in this cycle for years. Go here. Go there. We wish you all the best. Every door opens, looks at me, says sorry, and closes again. Even the one specialist organization I paid 140 euros to (membership fee plus application fee) delivered the same result in the end: another rejection. There are organizations for everything in this country. But for my case, there is nothing.

Social life: impossible to build from here.

Autistic, in a city where the first impression is everything, as a Syrian, with no job, no income, no residency, no family, no degree. Every path by which a social life normally forms is closed or too expensive to keep trying. And the hardest part isn't the absence itself. It's watching, every day, ordinary connection performed effortlessly by everyone around me, and knowing I was never allowed inside.

Official recognition of my struggles: rejected. Three times.

A neurologist who specializes in epilepsy and Parkinson's assessed me for 25 minutes. She tested my reflexes and noted that I speak German well. My hospital, where I've been in treatment for ten years, says all treatment options are exhausted. She had that report in front of her. She overruled it. Because I looked fine. Because I've spent my entire life learning to look fine. Three rejections. Including at court level.

I had to stop studying. I was exhausted.

Five years of computer science. I understood the material. My brain just processed it differently and not a single person at the university adjusted anything. When I misunderstood a question because of how my brain works, it was my fault. When rules changed and nobody told me, it was my fault. During COVID everyone got flexibility. For ASD? Nothing. After five years there was nothing left to try.

Residency rejected: no source of income.

No job means no residency. No residency means no stability. I submitted everything. Medical reports. Study records. A hospital report saying my conditions cause significant limitations in all areas of life. They read it. In the same document where they acknowledged my limitations, they wrote: if you can study, why can't you work? They took the one thing I tried hardest at and turned it into a reason to reject me.

Jobs door is closed: over 542 rejections over the years.

"Unfortunately we found someone else." "We were really impressed, but..." I speak German, English, and Arabic. I taught myself to code. I walk into interviews, do the tests, answer the questions. They tell me I did well. Then nothing. No email. No call. No reason. The only thing that never changes across 542 applications is my name on the form.

What you can actually do

If you've read this and want to turn that into something concrete, three things matter, in this order:

Send the link to one specific person.

Not to your timeline. One person whose work touches what's documented here: a journalist, a researcher, a lawyer, an autistic adult who would recognize themselves, someone inside an Austrian institution. One targeted forward beats fifty broadcast shares.

Amplify in a community you're already in.

Autism communities (r/AutisticAdults, ActuallyAutistic on Bluesky, late-diagnosed adult spaces), disability advocacy networks, Syrian-Austrian networks, anything Vienna disability or migration adjacent. The diagram and the articles screenshot cleanly. Visibility through peer communities is the lane that hasn't been tried at scale.

Get in touch.

contact@msakkal.me. If you've been in a similar situation. If you know someone in autism research, journalism, strategic litigation, an autism-specialized therapist who works in Austria, anyone practical. Email me. Even one sentence.

If none of these fit, the highest-leverage action that costs nothing is the first one: one targeted forward.