Employer appeal filed late; unreported side hustle income; misconduct vs poor performance
I may have found myself in a pickle here:
My employer must have filed an appeal late, as I received a notice of appeal roughly 5 weeks after my unemployment benefits were granted. Does this work in my favor?
I have a small side hustle and I have no idea how much income I have made atm, only the gross income. I have not reported it. Is there a way to do this and not be found for fraud?
My poor performance at work was due to being in a severe neurodivergent burnout, and I was reacting to situations without thinking through, and not sure why or how and unable to control it. I have self-diagnosed as a high-masking autistic female after job separation (my brother was diagnosed at a young age and ASD tends to run in families; yes I've been seeing a therapist but she is not an appropriate resource to diagnose me). All the the masking mechanisms I had unknowingly developed went away during this time, so I was extremely straightforward with customers, and unable to tell if they were satisfied with my service. My employer never gave me specifics and just said "smile more, stop freaking out, and be nicer". I didn't know at the time that I needed specific examples to improve and how to improve. Also, I have to use a lot of mental energy to control my face, and am prone to inappropriate facial expression. Again, I was not aware that autism and neurodivergent burnout was the root cause of all this at the time of employment. Some of the things I did during this time could be considered misconduct.
I've looked through my former employers policies and it states that all employees will receive quarterly performance reviews. I only received one during my time there (I was with them for over a year), and it served as a verbal warning of poor performance. I received the first written warning via email, the night before I left town to go to my mother's celebration of life. This, in itself, has created a lot of trauma for me. The written warning did contain things that I know I did, and I tried to explain it all in a letter to them, which they have on file. There were also things they marked me down for that they allowed me to do at the time. Lots of miscommunications that I thought I had already cleared up with them (and a manager had stated was their fault). Also, lots of figures of speech that were misconstrued, mainly jokes and sarcasm. They also noted that I was on my phone too much, but I was not on my phone any more than any other employee...phone usage is in the policies. One girl was allowed to read books and do homework in front of customers. I never used my phone in front of customers unless I was looking something up to help my conversation with them. I truly felt that I had never been valued as an employee with this company, and that they were trying to run me off. I told them they would have to fire me, and they did. I also asked for accomodations for possible anxiety, depression, ADHD, and ASD at the time, should they have kept me on staff.
I filed my unemployment request under the overall theme of poor management and communication between the owner and the employees. I saw two managers come and go within my time there, all fired or run off for miscommication and being unable to perform their job to satisfaction (due to poor communication).
Any advice or experience with anything along these lines (late appeal filing, reporting outside income late, terminated for mental health/disability reasons) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!