My guess -- and I'm just guessing, using some theories and ideas I've read about in the past and trying to match that up with experience and intuition that I'm having now -- is that it's something to do with what is called the sense of self, or healthy ego. Something that I suspect got derailed in my development, but it seems also to still exist, in potential, if it can get jump-started (I think and feel and hope I am that far along, at least, but who can tell because there are no objective criteria) and then develop somewhat organically in a supportive but natural social environment. If it exists in potential then it wants to engage with other people, that's its nature, even though it doesn't know how and got hurt and has defenses. Hence we get sucked in -- and it needs to be developed before we can cognitively see the dangers of getting sucked in.

Therapy might help to overcome the blockages and the derailments, but did not, for me, provide what I needed for the thing to grow. The "healthy ego" or sense of self seems to me -- paying attention to my intuition, maybe that's a small "observing ego"? -- to be both a cognitive and social/emotional thing. I suspect it seems just like normal life to anyone who has it. They probably can't imagine life without it. Hopefully I may know that side of the coin better someday, though with it all developing so late in my life, if it is, it will probably never be quite "normal", never be what it might have been. But then, whose is?