Meditations on Paṭiccasamuppāda
When confusion persists, it's good to review basics.
An understanding of dependent origination requires an understanding of contact:

DN34:1.2.8: What one thing should be completely understood?
DN34:1.2.9: Contact, which is accompanied by defilements and is prone to being grasped.

You may be interested in DN1, which describes all the tangles involved in thinking about 'self'.

DN1:3.58.0: 4.3. Not Possible
DN1:3.70.1: Now, when those ascetics and brahmins theorize about the past and the future on these sixty-two grounds, it is not possible that they should experience these things without contact.
DN1:3.71.0: 4.4. Dependent Origination
DN1:3.71.12: Now, when those ascetics and brahmins theorize about the past and the future on these sixty-two grounds, all of them experience this by repeated contact through the six fields of contact. Their feeling is a condition for craving. Craving is a condition for grasping. Grasping is a condition for continued existence. Continued existence is a condition for rebirth. Rebirth is a condition for old age and death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, sadness, and distress to come to be.

Ultimately, the tangles are not so important as the escape.

DN1:3.72.0: 5. The End of the Round
DN1:3.72.1: When a mendicant truly understands the six fields of contacts’ origin, ending, gratification, drawback, and escape, they understand what lies beyond all these things.
DN1:3.72.2: All of these ascetics and brahmins who theorize about the past or the future are trapped in the net of these sixty-two grounds, so that wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.
DN1:3.72.3: Suppose a deft fisherman or his apprentice were to cast a fine-meshed net over a small pond. They’d think: ‘Any sizable creatures in this pond will be trapped in the net. Wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.’
DN1:3.72.4: In the same way, all of these ascetics and brahmins who theorize about the past or the future are trapped in the net of these sixty-two grounds, so that wherever they emerge they are caught and trapped in this very net.

Don't get caught in the net.