No, I Don’t Understand What You Have Been Through

But you don’t understand my past either

It’s a curious statement to me.

“You don’t understand what I’ve been through.”

I had someone say it to me recently. I hear it quite often. I read it quite often.

What bothered me was I was trying to understand. I knew much of her story, and her reactions weren’t in line with her goals. I’m a curious sort. I was trying to figure out what was driving her behavior away from her goal. I wanted to understand.

I suspect her frustration towards me came out because she didn’t have it sorted in her mind. She had opened the subject up and invited me into this part of her life. When I asked a hard question, she didn’t want to go there.

Not wanting to go there was possibly blocking her from working through the problem. I wasn’t trying to tread where she wasn’t ready to go but to raise a question if it was something she needed to explore. When she resisted, I stopped the conversation immediately. She was frustrated and felt misunderstood. I did, too.

As I thought about it later, though, I realized how often this is is a frustration among people. We believe people would understand us if they knew our whole story. Maybe they would; maybe they wouldn’t.

There also is an element of self-pity in the reaction. It’s normal. We all watch the world through our lens and process is based on our knowledge and experience. Nobody else sees it just the way we do. Even if we have been side-by-side all of our lives, we view the world from a slightly different angle.

We all have pasts. Even the pretty picture pasts could have been difficult for the person living them. Maybe even more difficult because we’re supposed to keep them shiny and unmarred.

Maybe it was idyllic on the outside, but our insides were different. What if we suffer from anxiety, depression, or any of a myriad of diseases that are agony inside, but unseen by the outside world?

Some people don’t appear to have the potential to realize we’ve got things going on beyond the surface. This friend I was talking about earlier has never indicated a particular interest in delving deep into my life. She appears to want me to know what she has been through, but discounts that I also have a history that impacts my life and our relationship and I sometimes need to talk about it.

I have had a good life. Some of that was because of great gifts. I had parents committed to raising me to be a good human and siblings that understand me better than anyone else in the world.

But the surface doesn’t tell the whole story. It doesn’t show the inner angst. The biological things that make me, me, and are somewhat beyond my control. It doesn’t show the ADHD and dyslexia, the anemia and hormonal imbalances I fought.

I felt left out at school often as the “new girl,” even though I attended schools in my county from first grade. The problem was other families had grown up here, their parents were friends from childhood, and they raised their children together. My family wasn’t in those circles.

The surface doesn’t show the battles I fought with my parents growing up because I was rebellious by nature and didn’t think anyone had the right to make decisions about my life. It doesn’t show the knock-down drag-outs with my siblings that got physical and mean. Many I know have cut their family off for less, but we worked through things or simply forgot them.

I was shy, introverted but with idealist views, so I often spoke up when it was not acceptable or wanted. I had an extreme view of justice even as a child. I am sure I may have been thought weird. (Some things never change.)

Still, I survived it. I learned conflict resolution skills. I’m reasonably well adjusted. I deal with most problems well. I still get crushed by idealism and sometimes have blinders on in matters of justice. I avoid life drama, though it can get dramatic on occasion with that justice bent.

I spend a lot of my time happy. I’ve worked for that happy. It doesn’t mean I never struggle. It’s a choice, and I won’t let a lot of other things get in my way.

The friend who I spoke about earlier loves me. I know that. She’s not able to see beyond the happy in my life, and sometimes she resents it. Happy usually takes work. Often happy hides a deep well of “stuff,” or comes after you jump that well and get to the other side.

No matter how someone looks on the outside, there’s probably a lot going on in the inside. Look beyond the surface. Notice you’re not the only one in the conversation. Know that every opinion, every thought, has traveled a path. Rarely are they there since birth. That’s what makes us interesting. That’s what makes us human.

“You don’t understand what I’ve been through.”

No, I can’t understand what anyone has been through, even if we share similarities in upbringing or have the same interests or views. Only you have experienced the world through your history, your eyes, your emotions, and your mind.

You don’t understand what I have been through either, and it is just as valid as your path. We’re all special, and yet insignificant, at the same time.

Kim McKinney enjoys a full life in North Carolina, listening to her friends’ stories and telling a few of her own. She yearns for the day when she can travel again and see more of the world. These days she can often be found wearing a mask. 😉her