Even though I'm a 25yo male, I can empathize with you. Especially the comment about what you "do" mattering opposed to your "self."

I've had moments that move me to tears when someone, sometimes a complete stranger, genuinely expresses to me how much I've meant to them or how much something I've done means to them. Usually it's when I least expect it or after I've done something I didn't even fathom could "mean" something to anyone. -- I find this pretty strange since I work in healthcare and "helping people" is the nature of the job. You'd think that job setting would desensitize me or something haha!

But I've realized, through the last several months of therapy, that my struggle lies with meaning something to myself. What I mean is, for one example, I know what holding my family together for the past 3 years has meant to keeping a "family unit" existing in general. What it's mean outwardly - as a perception or reflection of it. What it means to actually have it. But what does it mean to me apart from all of that? What would it mean, to me, to not have it? What do I mean to myself outside of these "roles" I play? That's the tough part.