Hi folks,

One of the hardest lessons in life is to learn that people see life through different eyes from our own. It's comforting to believe that others, especially our friends and family, see the world in the way that we ourselves see the world. It's lonely to realise that they might not.

Here are a couple of examples; one amusing and one rather less so.

A friend took his wife and young family on a campervan tour of the US. They saw some spectacular sites, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, all that kind of stuff. They camped in the open air, and saw all sorts of wildlife. When they got back, my friend asked his two little children what they had liked best about the trip. They said "The Simpsons". He was dumbstruck. He said "What?". They said, "There was a little TV in the back of the camper and we watched TV while you were driving along".

My friend didn't understand that sightseeing and long drives are an adult interest, and these kids would have been bored rigid without the little TV that must have saved the holiday for them. He couldn't see the situation through their eyes.

Another example, rather sadder. On the night my father died, my mother and brother were present. After he had passed away, we were in the living room, talking uncomfortably. I said that, during the last few days,I had finally managed to speak to my father about all the painful bullying and tormenting that he had put me through.

My brother said, "I liked it when he was doing that, for I knew that he was enjoying himself". I must have looked horrified, for he added "Oh, I didn't like it that he was arguing with you."

I realised that my brother had watched all the years of misery, including physical violence, from a completely different perspective to me, and oddly enough, I could understand that he might have empathised with my father and not with me. It was a very lonely feeling, I was gutted.

Later that night, my mother said to me, "Your father left a lot of casualties behind him." In the early hours of the morning, I left the house, and there has been no communication with my brother since that night. My mother died the next year, I saw my brother briefly at her funeral, and then nothing.

Sometimes we are lucky to see things 'eye to eye' with another person, and many times we are not. Just because we are members of the same family doesn't change the psychology.

As I have mentioned on PC before, it is too late for my birth family, the damage was done and now it's history. It just has to be viewed as a natural disaster I guess.

I didn't make the same mistake with my own daughter, now grown up, and we are the best of friends, sharing 'in jokes' and always enjoying each other's company. It is so good when it's good, when we can see 'eye to eye' with another person. It's my feeling that we can't make people see the world through our eyes, but we can make it easier for them to share something with us. It's a delicate process, as all relationships are, and it is so good when it happens.

I wonder how other's have found this feature of life? I'm thinking that it must be a very large part of the therapists working day!

Cheers, M