Who am I?

[Monachopia]

Maybe I'm lucky in a way, in a sense that, because I always felt 'different' at school it helped me not seek other peoples opinions on what I should do or how I should act. It's not to say that I didn't desperately try to fit in at one point or another, but it never worked. Now that I'm quite a bit older I have questioned 'Who I am' a lot more. In the end, the conclusion is that you are a sum of your experiences. You may have found needing other people's opinions on certain things, but at the end of the day, you wouldn't have accepted those if they were drastically wrong for you as an individual. You took away the important things and they shaped you as a person.
Deep down you also know you LIKE doing certain things or taking an interest in them. It's not even a question of whether it's because sometime 'told' you to like that thing. You chose to like it and they merely introduced you to it.

 

[Fade2black]

Now that I've isolated myself from most people who've influenced me previously, I've begun to question why I speak a certain way or why I chose that path or idea and everything has begun to crumble because it all comes back to the fact that someone told me to do it, say it, be like this. I don't know who I am or what my personality is, or who I'm meant to be.

There are some things I like, but I don't know if I like them or if someone told me to like them and it's just stuck because I've done it my whole life.

How do I figure out who I am?

This is a fascinating observation and I share the same feeling, I just hadn’t thought much about it until reading your post. Because I’ve never fit in socially, I’ve always looked to others for their comments about what I should do differently, and generally followed those recommendations.

I’m in my mid fifties and didn’t even know about Asperger’s until about five years ago. Although I’ve been self aware of my social deficiency since about 5 years old, I’d never even considered I’m on the scale until recently, when I was diagnosed a few years ago.

Now that I’ve been diagnosed, understand it, and know now that I’m not alone in all the idiosyncrasies of being an Aspie, I can look back at some of my current behaviors and remember when I began doing this, acting like that from making behavioral changes, as recommended by others, to fit in.

I have recently accepted who I am and that has been somewhat of a relief because I no longer feel the need to try to fit in. I suppose this is because I know now that I will never fit in. Getting back to your comments, I have been subconsciously undoing some of these learned behaviors and rediscovering myself. I’m just not fully sure that it’s the right thing, because I may be further isolating myself from normal social behavior.

 

[Bella Pines]

You choose who you want to be.

In real life, there is no magical journey of self discovery or a definitive answer. NTs are defined by their childhoods, social standing or wherever they happen to be, and they only seem to "know themselves", simply because they don't question anything.

Neurodiverse analyse and question things, and when you start questioning consciousness, you find that all we really are, simply boils down to the choices we make. Everything else is just learned behaviour, conditioning and the clever application of various scripts. If you still insist that there is an undiscovered "real you", then the answer will be nothing more than a manifested configuration of energy.