Do you ever feel like you're trapped inside yourself??

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i would much prefer to be securely locked in my own being rather than being outside myself and not able to get back in.

it is cold outside of my warm being, so i always stay inside myself.

yes. lack of integration with the world / other people and lack of integration with my body.

i have used similar metaphors (bubble, glass wall) when describing to others.

As a kid I felt like this a LOT. We always knew something wasn't working with me and there was a lot of frustration surrounding the issues. My parents took me to the best doctors they could and asked the right questions, requested the right tests, but didn't get the answers they should have. I wasn't hyper and I was a girl therefore I couldn't have ADHD, according to the wisdom of the time. In my forties I got dx'd with ADHD when my kids were getting diagnosed and started taking Concerta for it. It was like a light going on. Part of it is that the Concerta takes the edge off so I can focus better and I'm more in control so I'm more myself. I used to catch myself talking too much and saying "why can't I stop!" A big part of my current happiness is that I just plain understand myself better. I know why my brain moves in twelve directions at once, and why that can actually be useful.

What you've described totally makes sense to me. In my case, it was a metaphorical glass wall that I'd constructed, due to many reasons...some of them sensory issues, sometimes because my nerves felt like they were right up on the surface of my skin which (which would make me feel like a stripped-open wire)...sometimes because I knew I was different, feeling like I was inside a suit of some sort, or as if I were searching some large manual in my mind to understand how to relate and interact with people.

The glass wall is slowly coming down. I don't know if it will be ever down all the way, but some of it disappearing is better than having myself encased inside of it.

In my case, I often feel like my body does the interactions, but I'm looking from within.

I've lived with that feeling too -- some days (or years of it) have been much more noticeable or acute than others.

I refer to it as that "brick wall" in my life -- I think all humans are born with it, but we just have different ways of noticing it or dealing with the fact of it being there.

Seems like a lot of folks here have felt the same.

i felt like this a lot in high school. i had a lot of problems joining into a conversation. if i did join in then it would be like an awkward word or two. my mind and body felt two different entities sometimes.
i also get like this when i'm overstimulated.

I would add something, but if you composited what everyone has written so far, that would be the way I'd describe it.

Typing is my only way out of my mind. I love it.

Then I wonder if we build up these walls/find ourselves stuck inside ourselves because we find the outside world overwhelming in varying degrees. Maybe for some of us, we do this unconsciously because we find it a good way to cope, at least for the moment. I'm not passing a value judgment...this is just my own observation based on the responses I've read so far.

Like, you can't project who you really are.
And you can forget who you are.. (Haha, Simbaaa remember who you are) when you're around other people, or like you said, you go inside yourself and just don't act like yourself so you adapt to each person.
And you aren't entirely aware of it until you're alone and with your thoughts, just reflecting on something.
Am a different person at school, at home (although - that's who I believe I really am) and just generally with different people.
Have this one friend and I'm not sure she really knows who I am - I always act so much worse around her, more giggly and naive and dumb - but am unable to act in a different manner.
Am not sure if this is true for all people - but just about everybody seems to act the themselves regardless of the circumstance - even online which is a wonderful, true and honest way of expressing one's self.

AHA!! !! So THAT'S how you describe it!

That is EXACTLY how I've felt all me life!

Sometimes I look at my hand and I think:"Why can I move this hand? It is not me."

It is like driving a car. I can control it and experience what is happening to it, but I know it is not me.

I am inside sending and receiving signals. This way, my body is my prison, and all I can do is making the stay here as comfortable as possible.

Nobody can touch me. If they reach out, they will at best touch my body, and I will get the signals. I am alone when somebody gives my body a hug, they can not reach me that way.

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I'm not sure if I'm taking the right meaning from the OP question, but from how I understand it, I do feel this way often.

At least, they way I take "trapped inside yourself" is that when I'm around other people, or even on my own, I feel like there is this huge personality swirling around inside me. Whole conversations, pieces of information, things I want to say or do, and I just can't figure out how to get them out. When I talk to people, I'll have this huge amount of dialogue I want to get out, but when I open my mouth, nothing happens, and I end up contributing some lame response.
It's very frustrating. It's as though my speech center is not properly wired or something. Ugh.

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Definitely yes, but in a slightly different way, I felt my whole life like I was very near to get what I wanted but for some reason never could get it, like in the following image of touching fingers