The idea of the true/false self really resonates with me. If I describe my experiences, could you tell me if it gels with how you feel at all?

I always had a little voice narrating things as I truly saw them but I never expressed it. I feel so sad thinking back over all of those years alone, trapped inside myself. It was only after the age of 16 that I developed some relationships where I could start to open up and connect with people but it's still so hard.

I do have a sense of identity - I have certain things that I Iove, certain songs, foods, art, the sciences. They're undeniable in that I get such a positive feeling from them. However I feel I have to keep them secret and separate from other people or else other people's subjective opinions drown them out. I feel like I have to agree with other people. That they're more "correct" in their opinion than I am. That I'm missing some knowledge and everyone else knows it. I think this is what attracts me to narcissistic people (and vice versa) because they give off the vibe that they know "the thing". It's comforting that they seem so assured. But I have some narcissistic traits myself too so... What I mean by that is I feel so resentful of the world intruding on my subjective ground that I decide the world is rubbish and my opinions and thoughts are actually the best. It's quite a transparent defence mechanism really but it got me through many years of solitude.

I am entirely absent of motivation/the ability to identify things I might like to do. I generally only do anything if people I know have already planned it. I will enthusiastically go along with other people's plans and have a good time (eg. going on a night out, going on a holiday, joining a class), but I cannot organise anything like that myself. If I try, I think I must be making a mistake somehow. This is especially bad now that I really ought to be launching a career but I'm hopeless. I want some god-like figure to tell me what to do and then I'll do it but without that, everything seems like a mistake.

I suspect most of what I've described is a result of spending the first 16 years of my life as my mother's marionette.