How to tell real independence from the performance of it: independence is often a denial of our own slavishness. Men deny 'the big lie upon which their whole conscious lives were based: the lie of self-sufficiency, of free self-determination, of independent judgment and choice.' The person who insists loudly on their independence may be the one most terrified of how suggestible they actually are. The tell is the vehemence of the claim — the louder the insistence, the deeper the denial.

— In our words · Source: The Denial of Death (Ernest Becker)