Why does Buddhism insist you don't "really" exist?

I had a revelation. I finally understood what that "ego doesn't exist" thing is all about.

I remembered that years ago I had read a woman's description of how she was raped. I don't remember her exact words, of course, but the idea was this: when her violator fondled, say, her right breast, she mentally gave her right breast away. That is, she forced herself to think that that breast wasn't really a part of her. And when he fondled her left breast, she mentally gave that away. And so on. Every new body part which her assailant violated, she mentally gave away, pretended it wasn't really her. That was her way of coping with the unspeakable rage and disgust caused by having her body bared and touched and penetrated without her consent.

Yesterday evening it suddenly occurred to me that the way she mentally gave away her body parts one after another sounds a lot like the Buddhist authors telling you how this part of yourself isn't actually real, and that part of yourself isn't actually real, and end up suggesting that nothing you are used to thinking of as belonging to your personality is actually real, so there is really nothing that is you, so no abuse you may be subjected to actually matters, so all your perceived suffering is actually illusory.

Do you see a similar psychological self-defence mechanism in those two cases?

Rape – the way a criminal stronger than you treats your body and destroys your dignity is unbearable, so in order to avoid going crazy with despair, you begin to pretend that parts of your body are not actually you.

Buddhism – the way people more powerful than you treat you and destroy your dignity is unbearable, so in order to avoid going crazy with despair, you begin to pretend that aspects of your personality are not actually you.

Don't forget that Buddhism was created for dirt-poor East Asian peasants in a primitive feudal society. They were completely at the whim of landlords, soldiers, bandits and whatnot. The society was hierarchical, with peasants actually considered inferior beings rather than proper humans. Remember one of the most important Buddhist credos: "pain is inevitable, suffering is optional". That's what Buddhism is all about – pain is inevitable. Buddhism is essentially a way of coping with an unbearable life full of abuse. Buddhism teaches that you can't do anything about the abuse and all you can do is to diminish your suffering by training yourself not to care about being abused.

But that was ancient India, China, Japan. We live in a different society. We are not powerless. We are not doomed to poverty, misery and hopelessness. We can influence things. Maybe not as much as the Constitution says we can, but we certainly don't have to go through life thinking: pain is inevitable, pain is inevitable, pain is inevitable. Those days are long gone.

Buddhism has many good ideas, but the Buddhist authors of today need to realise you can't just take teachings from feudal East Asia and transfer them into a modern democratic society word for word.