The Difference Between Causality and Dependent Origination

In dependent origination, I'm often thinking about causality as opposed to conditionality. In the Buddhist view, that causal understanding in the Buddhist view is kind of backwards. It's not that there is a pre-existing self, which is offended by the text. But at the end of this process, an offended self arises in response to another situation. And then it's kind of like a backwards inference to say, well, there must have been a self there. If now there's a disturbance, there must be something before that had been disturbed.