32 and not a clue...

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You could start with looking what your core values are. I mean, freedom, friendship, hard work, these kind of things. Then do things that allow to follow the values. It is even natural to desire a bit of status or wealth, they are just not the thing that should be a primary motivation or an end in itself, as it leaves people burnt out.
I wanted also to be a good person. If I can't fake things, and can't replace friendliness with good manners, I have to be seriously like that not to hurt people. Investigating on how to be a better person for everybody around you leads to good developments. Also, for a while, focusing on other people instead of your problems - very hard for an aspie, but well, we can, for better or worse, do with the brain what we can't do with the instinct.
That will make your world wider, and thus you will see more options ahead.
(we had a funny meme going around lately on our internets, that went like that - go outside your house, maybe there are sorcerers beating the crap out of each other! )
Every city seems to have a peaceful district, so London wouldn't be that bad I suppose, but thing is that here you have your people, even if not too many.
Also, just don't regret stuff. You will always think "what would happen if...", but you don't know what would happen. Maybe you made best possible choices, given the moment.

Thanks, plushdisaster.

I only now realized how bad I am with solving my cognitive dissonances. You know, the lies one tells oneself to make things acceptable.
My lies have led me to make bad decisions, only for the lies then to collapse in on themselves.
I really wanted to have a career in London, and I tried hard to repeat to myself what was good about living and working there, and I made decisions that would allow me function.
I guess I stretched myself too far, and now I can't come back to the life I had before and undo my bad decisions. Currently I'm telling myself that I'm earning money and have people here, but really, I'm lonelier than ever before.
Just not regretting stuff is hard, when there's not much else to do. Anyway, as I'm trying to cobble together a life perspective, I'm realizing that most things I tried, I had a good reason to do them, until I could no longer lie to myself and had to accept that my reasons just weren't good enough to justify wanting things.

I'm very depressed these days, not the least because I have the feeling that all these things I've learned have little application anymore. Sure, if I had camcelled my MA and had come back and lived with my girlfriend, I would have been depressed about my career - even though, now I'm sort of okay with it, if only there was ANYTHING else in my life.

Also: London has quiet neighbourhoods (quiet is relative), but travelling to work/ my alma mater means travelling into the heart of tourism and entertainment. I hated it as a student, and tried to work from home a lot. The travel alone completely flooded my brain.
I can do that, for a while, months even, only to then suddenly develop panic attacks and depression.
You know, stretching myself, and then breaking.

If you break, you can always be glued together, and sometimes with the patches of gold like these little Japanese porcelain things. You can never come back to what you were, but I found that after a while the new me, with new awareness about the world, is pretty much the person I like. And the old person was good and funny, but at the same time she could not do some things I can.
If you start to think about the future, and you've gotten over just appreciating that you have food and bed, not caring about anything else (my psychological needs were really cut to minimum for a while after the return) it means that you already have done some healing.
But I think that you should talk extensively with either someone close, or a specialist, because this is a lot of problems, and conflicts of values, that won't get solved quickly over intenet advice.

apart from a sharp increase in awareness of how little people- me included- actually, truly understand anything about each other or themselves - and the sweet bliss that lay in the ignorance of that knowledge- I don't really feel I've gained new powers, or consider myself mended enough to apply that layer of gold to the lacquer-covered fractures.
I'm afraid you might be right about talking to a specialist.
I have a friend to talk to, who proved somewhat helpful. He went through somewhat similar phases, but much earlier in life, and therefore somewhat less profound, and had, it seems, a much simpler time adjusting his professional interests and overall life focus. And while he can relate to some extent, it's those 5 or so years difference that makes it impossible for me to fully appreciate his perspective.
so therapy it is, I guess.

thanks for your help.