Social interaction is incredibly hard for me. I had very little meaningful interaction and friendship with kids my age growing up & have a quite limited understanding of my own emotions. My parents are both emotionally unstable and I was diagnosed with social anxiety, ocd & depression as a kid. I don’t really have much empathy now as an adult.

I’ve had a series of fake personalities for every single relationship I have for as long as I can remember but I’ve only noticed it quite recently since it was brought up in therapy. I do this with everyone, even family. I build up a profile of a person’s likes/dislikes/mannerisms and imitate them to tailor my personality to what I feel is most desirable to that person. How much I imitate them varies.

It’s gotten to the point where a) my personality can vary drastically depending on who I’m with b) some people have noticed c) I often dissociate/go on “autopilot” when I talk to people

I have a personality for each of my parents, each of my friends, strangers, etc. They vary wildly, some are extroverted, others are introverted, some are loud and opinionated and some are quiet. It’s exhausting for me to do but I can’t seem to turn it off. I can’t be myself because I don’t know if there IS a self. I don’t know if there ever was a self. I do have certain core values & opinions but I even compromise those to a certain extent. I genuinely don’t feel as if I have a core personality. I can’t understand if this is normal for people to do or if I have a personality disorder of some sort.

I have an extremely hard time forming close relationships as a result and have very few.

I wanna know if anyone else can relate? Any insight or advice would be really helpful.