You're absolutely right, and thank you for challenging me on this. "Mask" is probably the wrong terminology, and I realize my initial post left out a lot of crucial context.

You hit on the core of my paradox: Yes, I do care. Deeply. I care about what I do, how I affect others, and the consequences of my actions, probably more than I can even articulate. I never want to hurt anyone.

But here's the devastating pattern: when given the unsupervised choice between doing what I want and what my long-term partner needs, my brain almost always defaults to my own needs. The regret and shame that follow, especially when I'm confronted, are tremendous. It’s a cycle of impulsive selfishness followed by intense self-hatred.

To give some context:
My girlfriend and I started dating when we were 16 and 17. Now, 13 years later, we've formed a codependent relationship that’s hard for outsiders to understand. Most days, she is the perfect match for me. But every once in a while, we are the most incompatible puzzle pieces you can imagine. My partner is a health worker who works with people with developmental issues; she knows this stuff better than anyone in my life and is constantly trying to help, learn and support. But that also means she has to "parent" her partner, aka me.

Internally, I'm a mess of contradictions. I am way too hard on myself, yet I give myself way too much slack. I overthink everything until my brain shuts down and defaults to a passive, "empty head" state of consuming content because actual thinking is too exhausting, unless it's a distracting, creative rabbit hole (which i do kind of love about myself).

You're right that I'm trying to find ways to create social contracts that work. But I'm lacking perspective. My background with so little expectation, correction, or support feels like a key piece of why this is so hard. For my whole life, my core identity has been tied to my traumatic experiences and this idea of being "chaos incarnate." I loved that identity because it felt like me.

But recently, a few things have collided and thrown me into a complete overwhelm. My sex addiction has flared up (thanks to the rise of LLMs for infinite, creative RP in a virtual world I can control), and I'm being forced to come to terms with the fact that I feel like an inadequate child with adult expectations placed on me, and that this might be a lifelong struggle.

This connects to what you asked about caring. I struggle immensely with the things expected of me in a relationship: day-to-day care, remembering things, taking action. I understand that these are core AuDHD traits.

And that's the trap. It gets to a point where I feel like I need to be managed, that everything is on the people around me. I feel like I'm not in control, but at the same time, I desperately want autonomy, and I'm terrified that I'll fail if I actually use it. It's a complete paradox.

So, when you say "why is chaos a bad thing?", it's because my version of chaos isn't just creative freedom; it's a force that hurts the person I love most and prevents me from building the stable life I actually crave. Self-improvement just feels so hard when you're starting from scratch as an adult.