I'm not sure if my therapist gets how it was, whether she thinks it was worse or less worse than I do, but I do believe she gets how it is for me now because she sees when I have meltdowns. Even so, I have no way of knowing how things look to her. I do think most people experience their own life more acutely than a person on the outside would, but then again, she has used terms that I think overstate the severity of some things. It's kind of a muddle. Overall, I think you just have to know if your therapist is generally in the ballpark.