I've not put in a trigger warning before so I'm going to err on the side of caution and write this in addition to the post icon. There's one line in here that I am addressing for severe childhood abuse. Once you get past that line, there is nothing else to be concerned about.

Something I've clarified somewhat in the latter part of this thread is that the more anxiety I feel, the more my responses become extremely literal. Besides the ASD, I suffered severe early childhood abuse (hence the DID). Here's that trigger warning line before I skip to a new paragraph: I was smothered by my mother three times before I was a year old and my heart stopped each of those times before I was brought back.

As I got older, I found that one thing could protect me where nothing else would. If I did exactly what she told me to do, when she told me to do it, it would save me from her wrath even if it is not what she meant. If she told me to take the garbage outside for instance, there was always a chance she would go ballistic on me when I brought the garbage can back inside because it dripped something on her floor, or because it was a millimeter off where it went, or whatever...but, if I took it outside and left the garbage can there, she would explode verbally - but if I explained that she told me to take it outside but didn't mention anything about bringing it back inside, she would internalize her rage and it wouldn't become physical.

I have a tendency to take things too literally anyway due to the ASD, but doing so also became a survival tool exacerbating that inherent tendency. The more threatened I feel, the more pronounced that tendency becomes.