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We all have different experiences and paths in our lives. Even the exact same moment can be experienced very differently from one person to the next. Some people face enormous challenges in their lives some far fewer. Some people sadly experience egregious trauma while others live their lives relatively unscathed. The two truths which hold consistent through all are that we will always be impacted most powerfully by our own experiences, joyous or painful, and that we all experience pain in our lives even if our definitions of pain can differ profoundly.
Our experiences shape our perceptions thus the more potent and impactful the experience the more it will shape and potentially dominate our perceptions of the world around us. Someone who spends their life surrounded by loving and trustworthy people will approach the world with that as their baseline, whereas someone whose formative experiences have been ones of anger and betrayal and abuse will view the same world from a very different starting point. The same room full of people can simultaneously seem to one person open and inviting while to another deceitful and latently malevolent depending on whose eyes it is being viewed through.
This disparity of perspectives is a core part of the struggles for those who are outside societal norms or cultural…