I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time wishing someone would truly understand me. Not just the surface-level stuff—likes, dislikes, pet peeves—but the real, messy, layered parts. The contradictions, the hidden wounds, the tangled thoughts that even I struggle to sort through.
And for a while, I believed that if I could just explain myself better, if I could find the right words, the right person, the right moment—then someone would finally see me for who I am. Completely. Without distortion. Without misinterpretation. Without me having to clarify, “No, that’s not what I meant.”
But no matter how well I articulated my feelings, no matter how deeply I dissected my own patterns, no matter how much effort I put into understanding others (hoping they’d return the favor)—the ache remained.
Because here’s the inconvenient truth: No one will ever see me exactly as I see myself. And expecting otherwise is a guaranteed way to feel perpetually unseen.
That’s a hard pill to swallow when your entire existence has been shaped by the unspoken hope that one day, someone will just get it. Without explanation. Without effort. Just pure, effortless understanding.
But that’s not how this works.
Even the people who love me the most will filter me through their own experiences, biases, and perceptions. They’ll miss things. They’ll misinterpret things. And that’s not a sign that they don’t care—it’s just the reality of being human.
So what now? Do I resign myself to feeling unseen forever? Do I stop trying to connect?
No. But I do stop waiting for external validation to confirm my existence. I stop outsourcing my wholeness to the hope that someone else will finally understand me in a way that makes me feel complete.
Instead, I do the work of understanding myself.
I see my own complexities. I acknowledge my own contradictions. I give myself the validation I’ve been chasing. And in doing so, I free myself from the endless, exhausting search for an external witness to my inner world.
The irony? The more I do this, the more I attract people who meet me with depth. Maybe not perfect understanding, but something close enough. And suddenly, the ache isn’t so unbearable anymore.
Leave a Reply