Cognitive Dissonance

One definition of cognitive dissonance is a feeling derived from holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time. It's a discomfort arising from the inconsistency, the logical gap in reality.

I feel it now between my internal interpretation of an experience vs how others interpreted that same experience. You felt one thing, but then someone felt something completely different. It makes you question that original feeling. You believe it, you know it was real, but you also believe their experience to be valid. How do you reconcile that?

It feels uncomfortable. Your brain can't make sense of it. You start questioning every moment you can remember and wondering if you tricked yourself somehow. How could their interpretation be so different? I must have imagined things. I must have embellished the details to suit my agenda.

But there's no way to know for sure. Experiences are subjective. And subjected to our personal circumstances and biases. Time is an important factor too. The same experience in two different moments can feel vastly different. Maybe your moments weren't aligned. If the experience was a key, a different door was unlocked in that moment for each of you.

There's no reconciling that. You can never know another's experience, and words only convey so much. All you can do is accept the distance between your subjective realities as unknowable.