I think you maintain your professional relationships by being trustworthy: do what you say you will do; communicating openly about the projects you are working on and keeping your supervisor in the know; and not sharing personal information.

I know you want to know how to make friends at work, but work is not a place to make friends. They are co-workers. The only thing you share in common is that you both work for the same employer. It's not a social club. I would not share your diagnosis with anyone because they won't know how to deal with it. Being polite, be cordial, take part in small talk about the weather or local football team, but don't talk politics or religion, and not about your personal life. Work is not the place to air out and solve personal problems.

I wouldn't quit your current job or go back to your old line of work as a 20k pay cut is huge. What you could do is communicate with your supervisor that you recognize the culture is or has shifted and you would like to know if they have any feedback on how you can improve your communication skills on those calls.

One thing you haven't really mentioned is how your work is perceived. You say the supervisor has grown distant, but has there been any complaint about your work or making deadlines or anything? Also, you mention a moment of awkwardness after you speak on a call; is it possible that because you are a developer that they do indeed have to consider what you said before responding because it's a little over their heads? When I used to sit in senior leadership meetings and our lead tech guy used to update us, I would never understand what he was saying and would ask a million questions so I could make sure that his projects on the server, CMS, or website weren't going to affect my projects.

So if the other people on the call aren't techies, they may indeed be trying to figure out what exactly you're telling them...which isn't an insult, it's just that they don't understand the technical aspects and are trying to keep up. It could help to try and explain things in laymen's terms for them.

Another thing could be that while you think you are sharing pertinent information, maybe it's not as relevant as you think? I used to do this a lot because of my OCD. My brain would take an element of the discussion and tangentally connect it to something else and it would physically hurt not to share that connection, even if it wasn't totally relevant. To me it seemed absolutely relevant. So I started questioning if my contribution to the discussion was really relevant or just a side note.

If you are uncomfortable discussing with your supervisor, maybe find someone approachable in your division that you would feel comfortable asking them for feedback? The only way you will improve in those areas is to get some feedback.

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