When people ask who inspires you, answer honestly and name names. It makes you more original, not less.

Hiding your sources makes you look self invented and actually makes you more derivative, because unexamined influence operates without your supervision. Saying plainly where something came from lets you see what you took and what you changed. The changes are where your own work lives, and you cannot find them if you will not look at the original.

Make a list of the people whose work shaped yours and say their names when asked. Then go further and identify exactly what you took from each. Knowing that precisely is what allows you to start taking different things, or to stop taking that one.