Have you ever heard the phrase "I may not be much, but I'm all I think about."

your mother finding you weird and usually wrong seems to provide the explanation of why you feel a continuing sense of wrongness. As a human, like it or not, the feedback your mother gave you about your basic nature shaped your self-perception. This is basic attachment theory. Your self-perception has already been deformed by a warped attachment relationship with your mom. How could it not make sense to you that the amelioration of your self-perception then would also lie in attachment? So you can have the corrective experience which you've no doubt read about? And since experience did the bulk of the damage, experience is necessary for the bulk of repair. Mere information is insufficient.