The moral puzzle of my PDD-NOS adulthood

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I've felt this off and on for a while but I've had something change recently, ie. a neurological supplement that's healed massive stress damage, that has brightened my eyes to it all the more painfully.

Where I'm at, at 38 right now, is the sense that I'm a reliable adult in body only. Can I do good work for an employer? Yes. Can I be counted on to do the right thing when it's put to me? Yes.

What would be the problem then?

I think it's noticing how I act in the world and all the negatives - ie. all the things I don't do for other people. As of right now I'm trying to collect a new neurological homeostasis and I realize it's fragile business. If I go out to grab breakfast or lunch and don't make eye contact or show weak or separating body language I'm doing it because I know that if I stress myself out over it I'll be right back to square one.

What I'm mostly concerned about though is what happens when I ask myself - what have I done for society lately? What do I do for kids who are having a hard time the way I was? What do I do to improve the problems that I see around me? Have I worked in a soup kitchen lately? Have I volunteered at a hospital or Humane Society? The answer seems to be no - I've been quite self absorbed and, aside from donating to some folks on Patreon when the message moved me (which is a mouse click - zero personal effort) I've been more than a little self-absorbed. I've never put myself in harms way for another person, I've never served my country, in fact in most ways I've really lived like an adolescent.

With my own experiences of PDD-NOS it seems to work like this. Society tells you to f' off, that you're not wanted, and whatever you need to do to stay alive do it somewhere else because we don't want to see you. If you've already taken a lot of beating you do just that - ie. try to establish your inner world in a way that makes sense and where you can survive significant droughts of love, companionship, sympathy, comradery, or whatever else. Even if you do have loving family and a few unshakably close friends your development is still getting stunted if you're not pressed to do the things that makes an agile and responsive social being and having friends will just make up for maybe half of it. If you have a spouse (I don't), I could see this translating into codependency.

I'm not going to say that all aspies or auties are like I am. I've met plenty of guys who are much more brash, daring, and virile than myself - in the best ways. I remember a few people telling me in my 20's that I looked like a stereotypical hotel bell-hop or a soft rock fan, ie. even if I might have a fair amount of psychological toughness I really have to throw myself out of balance in order to look intimidating, show people I command respect, etc.. As of present I end up usually walking into a take out restaurant or a coffee shop looking like I'm in my own world or bubble, I stay in a very tight swim-lane in terms of what my eyes look at, I at least look around on level and try to keep a semi-quaint expression on my face to show that I'm not anxious, but I've noticed there've been plenty of times where I still give people a chill when they like the way I look (particularly cashiers) and I block em - knowing that my expressions in following wherever they want to go, the things I'll say, etc. will fail the absolute conformity test and they're quite likely to go from thinking well of me to having it register that there's something wrong with me.

On one hand I have hope - ie. that as I keep taking this supplement my brain will get enough framework up and running that while it still might be difficult this will be less of a problem and I'll be able to act more boldly in the world. As of right now I understand the motto of most NT's - ie. that it's scary to put your foot out socially but you have to, it's the only way to get better, and if you don't it amounts to cowardice. The problem is - if you have to jump between two buildings and you know the high likelihood that there's an invesible net that will stop you cold and assure your fall, and you've encountered that net constantly from experience, you know that you're more likely than anything to do harm to yourself by taking yet another John Wayne swimming lesson.


I apologize for how long that was but it's a complex issue.

Have any of you been able to find away round the secondary and tertiary adaptive strategies that you've picked up with your ASD in order to do the kinds of service that you'd consider incumbent on a moral adult?