Protags are easier to write when they are not a slightly blurred version of the writer.
If you read a comment section on an “issue” piece of any kind, you can identify the characters represented there as if the usernames were “DelusionalMRA”, “MyFeelingsAreFacts” and “YouFoolishPeasants”.
You understand everything about those people immediately. You know what their problem is and how they could change to be better people.
That’s how you want to know your characters, especially your protag. Not necessarily as the kind of people who shout raw, unprocessed dogma at each other in comments sections, but as sharply defined people who fully reveal themselves on the page every time they speak.