It’s a strange thing to be seen in completely different ways by different people.

One person thinks you’re incredible—someone who has changed their life, someone they trust deeply. Another? Not so much. Maybe they think you’re difficult, disappointing, or not quite what they needed.

And both of those things exist at the same time.

It happens in therapy. One client walks away feeling deeply understood, while another decides they need someone else. It happens in friendships, too—one person holds you close, while another quietly fades. It happens in families, in work relationships, in all the little ways we show up in people’s lives.

And the contrast can be jarring.

Because a part of you might want to resolve it—so which one is true? Am I someone who matters? Someone who gets it right? Or am I someone who lets people down?

And if you’re anything like the rest of us, you probably want to cast your vote for the better version. (I’ll take “person who is deeply valued” for 500, please.)

But maybe the truth isn’t found in picking one over the other. Maybe it’s in holding them both.

And maybe it’s not just about how we hold these experiences, but how the other person’s experience of us is just as real for them as ours is for us.

It’s easy to assume that if someone experiences us as distant, hurtful, or not enough, then that must be the truth about us. But what if that’s just their truth? What if someone else, standing in the same moment, experienced us completely differently?

Which… is deeply inconvenient. Because we want clean lines. We want to know who we are. We want to be seen accurately—but what if there isn’t just one accurate version of us?

What if we are, inevitably, a slightly different person in every relationship? Not because we are changing, but because people meet us where they are, just as much as we meet them where we are.

Which means sometimes, when someone says, “You hurt me,” we might look at the same moment and say, “That’s not what happened.” Not because we’re denying their experience, but because we have a different truth of that moment.

And maybe that’s the hardest part—allowing space for both to exist.

So maybe the question isn’t Which one is true?

Maybe the question is: Can we hold the truth that we are both? Can we allow others to hold their truth, even when it doesn’t match ours?

And if we can—if we stop needing to be fully understood in just one way—maybe that’s where the real freedom is.

Embracing Shadows, Illuminating Hope,
Chelsey Fjeldheim, LCSW
Empowering Souls on the Path of Healing

Copyright © 2025 Chelsey Fjeldheim, Courage Speaks Counseling