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I wish I could scream. I HAVE NO IDEA WHO I AM. I can assimilate perfectly to what anyone wants me to be, but who am I underneath? I would say my authentic self is trapped beneath the surface, but at this point, I don& #39;t even know if I have an authentic self. Help, please. 
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I& #39;ve been trying to be #1 in everyone else& #39;s worlds for almost my entire life, to the point where I have zero conceptualization of my own autonomous worth or purpose. It& #39;s almost as if I don& #39;t even have my own identity - I& #39;m just a composite mirror of other people& #39;s identities.
One example: almost every single time when I& #39;ve thought I& #39;ve had a genuine passion for something, I& #39;ve realized in hindsight that it actually stemmed from someone else projecting THEIR passion for that thing on to me.
These "someone elses" were invariably people with whom I craved meaningful connections. (The reasoning behind my deeply ingrained desire & search for these connections is a personal story that I won& #39;t publicly tell, but I& #39;ll leave it at this: it was rooted in my childhood.)
Naturally, my first question always became, "How do I become important in this person& #39;s world?" The answer was immediate: I drop everything I am to become everything they like and everything they want. Because if I am their version of perfect, then they will love me.
The sheer number of times that my interests, passions, values, and personality has changed - in an often subconscious attempt to garner love, affection, and respect from the people whom I thought could fill my emotional voids - is astounding.
And this relentless shape-shifting became a self-perpetuating cycle, based entirely on a fear that had been instilled and reinforced within my psyche since I was 6 years old: that if I wasn& #39;t "perfect" (by whomever& #39;s definition I happened to currently rely on), I was a failure.
What did failure mean? Failure meant abandonment. Failure meant being unloved, misunderstood, and alone, just as I had felt for far too much of my life. I did everything in my power to avoid that, but everything was never enough. It couldn& #39;t be, when it was born out of fear.
Because fear is unquenchable and never-ending. It& #39;s a motivation that can produce seemingly beautiful, flawless results. It commands you to masquerade as a perfect puppet by day when everyone& #39;s watching, but by night, when you& #39;re all alone, it threatens to eat you alive.
When it all becomes too much, it feels like you& #39;re drowning in emptiness. If that sounds paradoxical, it& #39;s because your entire existence hinges on dichotomies: You& #39;re there for others but not for yourself. You feel everything, but you feel nothing.
You want others to understand you but don& #39;t understand yourself. You don& #39;t want to live, but you don& #39;t want to die. The list is endless, but the result is ubiquitous: no matter where you go, you& #39;re trapped, because your inner freedom has always been contingent on outside forces.
I& #39;m too emotionally depleted to find a sensible way to end this thread, so here& #39;s an excerpt of a poem I wrote the other day.
(P.S. "All I wanted to do was the most" references the line "All I wanna do is the most" from the song Jet Fuel by Mac Miller.)
