You're probably right. For all my life I've felt like I can't quite measure up. Not like I'm a total screw-up, who at least could beg for help, but high-functioning enough that people expect a lot from me, more than I feel capable of.
Probably because my parents spent the first ten years of my life telling me I was smart and talented and wonderful, then spent the next ten years telling me I wasn't good enough. They built up my self-esteem and then crushed it. My mom more than my dad. I always felt like my dad wanted me to do well, but even if he was disappointed he still loved me, and it wasn't a big deal. "You win some, you lose some" seemed to be his philosophy, while my mom demanded perfection. She would pay me $20 per A on my report card. But a B was ignored, in the best case scenario. Worst case, she'd tell me I should have gotten an A. She was especially baffled when I got low grades in art class from time to time. Effort is all that's required, right? Except I was already so set in my habit of perfectionism that I just wouldn't turn in any work I wasn't satisfied with, hence the low grades.

I think maybe the reason I see my inner self as a child like this is because I've always needed approval. Once I grew up and didn't have the life my mom imagined for me -- getting a degree after high school and going straight into a career, like she did, amassing herself $100k in student loan debt -- I gave up on getting approval from her. Actually I think I may have given up earlier, after my father died when I was 14. Despite my irrational feeling that everyone has to like me, I realize that's not possible. So it seems I attach myself to one person or group, and as long as I have approval from them, I'm alright. That could be why I have dependent tendencies. If all my sense of self-worth comes from only one source, I have to cling to it. To lose that person would be to lose myself. That's how it feels to me.