u/AbsoluteClarity_

Ever since i turned thirteen, i found that mimicking the traits or interests of my older cousin helped me gain attention and validation among my friends and being the socially unsuccessful kid i thought that this is what i want to do. I started spending more time with that cousin extracting every bit of his personality for years, i became fairly known among my class batch and in a vicious cycle i started paying attention to even tinier details of his persona in order to become more like him (i'm a naturally observant person). My social life became well but in few years my cousin moved out, he became busy in his own life and we started talking less but i did not stop i knew some other people in my school who were quite similar to him and so i even started copying them (befriending them, stalking their socials and learning about their interests etc), I used to spend time enhancing my observational skills and trying to deduce how can i naturally become like them because i was never them, whatever interests they had i never had a natural inclination towards those interests. I was so desperate for attention that i used to shape shift whenever I was with someone in order to please them, mirror their behaviour, saying what they wanted to hear and not what I wanted to say, i did this all till the start of this year and something just clicked in me I started questioning who i am and gained this like consciousness asking myself what's the point of this social success or popularity if I am not getting it for "being myself", i realized that the prime years that I could have spend building my personality i lost it to being someone else, i was confused I took personality tests, my mind used to become blank during these tests cause I was not able to pick an option because of years of mimicking behavior i had a mix of every person i knew in my personality, i engaged in more conversations hoping it would help awaken my true self but i realized that due to years of impersonation i used to carefully choose what words to say or what personality to embody with which person. So here i am in my late teens with no idea of who i am, what my interests are, what my worldview is, what my values are .All i am left with is a blend of every person i want to be which I could never be, The saddest part is that my level of observation have sharpened to such a keen edge that in any conversation with a stranger i can easily pierce the veil and reveal their authentic core yet i remain blind to my own.