I’ve seen a sentiment expressed before in gifted and neurodivergent spaces I flit about in online.

Not always directly expressed, but sometimes so. In the quest to find their tribe, or in issues with friends or family who don’t share their differences, or in the hopes of finding a romantic partner with the same traits – it appears. 

It is the belief is that in order for relationships to be really fulfilling, and for love to be sincere and deep, the other person must understand you.

The lament contains two underlying paradoxes. 

Paradox One: If you’re not understood fully, you’ll eventually end up feeling lonely. For anyone to understand you, you have to unmask. But if you stop masking, you might be rejected.

Paradox Two: You’re a complex, intense, and completely unique outlier. But in order to be loved completely you need to be understood completely. So as a unique outlier, the chances of anyone actually being able to comprehend you are marginal.

So you must choose between one of two paths. The first is a grim reality where you mask forever to the pits of exhaustion, and resign yourself to never being fully understood. The second is to unmask, risk rejection, and then embark on a futile hunt for an impossible unicorn who will understand you 100% in all your complex glory.

Both paths suck. 

For a long time, I thought these were the only two options. But over the course of many years I’ve come to understand…

There is a third path.

Come with me on a bit of a journey down the path, and look at how TPD (and life) evolved my thinking on relationships over time.

The Dam

Many of us with OE spend years building a dam of masking. Stone by learnt stone. To hold back the torrent of intensity. 

We learn that we are too much. Too sensitive. Too intense. Too emotional. Too imaginative. Too curious. Too deep.

So we learn to build a dam to contain our flow. We learn which parts of ourselves are acceptable and which parts are best kept hidden. The problem is that dams require constant maintenance. And they’re gigantic structures. Holding back an entire river is exhausting.

Then one day we discover overexcitabilities, giftedness, or neurodivergence. Suddenly we realise the river was a natural watercourse that was always meant to flow! Inevitably, the dam bursts, and it’s such a relief.

But what often follows isn’t balance. It’s a fucking flash flood. 

Years of accumulated pressure rushes outward all at once. OE exploding all over the place. That’s because we spent so long concentrating on how to hold the river back, we never learned how to live with it.

The Unicorn Trap

Years ago, I made a video about the triangle of loneliness. A viewer asked me for my take on loneliness, and it made me stop and examine myself. 

One of the recurring themes in gifted and neurodivergent communities is the feeling of being misunderstood because you are different. And at the time I made the video, I knew that feeling all too well.

I spoke about the fact that nobody really understood me. Nobody seemed to see the world the way I did, or follow me all the way into the strange corners of my mind. 

The knowledge that I wasn’t broken helped a little, but while I had realised “different doesn’t equal defective”, I could still never reach that unicorn place of perfect understanding – the perceived nirvana of real love.

What I didn’t realise at the time was that in the video I was starting to pick at the seams of my misconceptions on the way to the truth – starting a long process of unlinking three very different things I had previously meshed together: Understanding. Acceptance. Love.

Years before the video, I had unconsciously decided that if people didn’t fully understand me, they couldn’t truly accept me. And if they couldn’t truly accept me, they couldn’t truly love me. Therefore I was unloveable.

By the time I made the video, that thinking was already fraying at the edges. I thought compromising through partial solutions was the answer. The unspoken undercurrent was that it wouldn’t be unicorn nirvana, but good enough was still good enough. I was still in the process of transitioning my viewpoint via a compromise, but it was a step in the right direction.

Problem was, I was still focussed on the wrong gap.

I wasn’t anywhere near “there yet” when I made that triangle, but that initial small pivot started to change everything.

Three Misconceptions

Over time, I’ve noticed three assumptions which underpin the first two paths. The uncomfortable confession? I’ve held all three myself. 

And they all lead to a greater and deeper root cause. So hold on to your butts, because we’re going all the way to the centre of the sticky reality as I’ve progressively learnt it. 

There’s zero judgement here. But be warned as we sail these waters: Here there be Mirror Monsters. Some of these assumptions might resonate – less like a friendly warble, and more like Godzilla on a tear through Tokyo. 

Assumption 1: People Must Understand Me Completely to Love Me

This misconception is (pardon the pun) completely understandable. Being understood feels good. Being misunderstood hurts. We equate that good feeling, and the perceived closeness of recognition, with love. We equate the bad feeling, and the cognitive disconnect, with isolation.

But as we’ve already discussed, complete understanding is an impossible standard. A fucking mystical unicorn. 

For starters it’s really unfair to expect someone to do what I can’t. I don’t even fully understand myself. So how the fuck was I expecting another human being to?

Even among ‘your tribe’ understanding can be difficult. I joke in our AWO group about being “scattergraph unicorns”, pointing out that one OE person (being an outlier) might be a completely different type of outlier to another OE person. In fact they might be more different from each other, than they are from the average.

But at any rate, it’s not the real issue at hand. 

Dabrowski wrote:

“Growth of empathy is one of the most powerful developmental dynamics … Self-perfection is not possible in a vacuum but grows out of a sense of relatedness with others.”

Notice the key? Empathy. This points to an emotional understanding, not a cognitive one. 

This is the underlying problem. When we talk about the word “understanding” (particularly in gifted and neurodivergent spaces) our first lens is often “the way the brain is wired”. And we talk about how we’re misunderstood in a neurotypical world. So we think understanding means brain to brain. But Dabrowski is telling us real understanding in the context of relationship starts with the heart.

See what I mean when I said that the triangle was focussed on the wrong gap?

The stable concrete of cognitive recognition, and the rich emotional soil in which the seeds of love grow, are two very different things. But we often mistake which one is really necessary in a relationship. So we end up trying to pave over our garden bed, and wondering what happened to the flowers.

Think about it this way – Universal love (for all of humanity) would be impossible if complete cognitive understanding were required first. None of us can fully know every human being. Yet we can still care about them. Respect them. Act compassionately toward them. Acceptance and empathy are the real drivers towards the kind of understanding which actually matters.

Now I realise I sustained my own loneliness not only by holding an impossible expectation, but because I was looking in the wrong place for a solution.

Assumption 2: I Already Understand Them

This one is harder to spot, and much harder to own up to.

Many gifted and neurodivergent people spend years studying the people around them. We learn social rules, analyse behaviour, and often become skilled observers. More than that, we’re made acutely aware of our differences. Generally, it’s a heap of effort in an attempt to fit in.

But sometimes, because of that work, we can start to feel like experts on “normal people”. And it creates a very dangerous blind spot.

Many of us are frustrated when others reduce us to labels. We want people to see beyond the category. Want them to recognise that being gifted, autistic, ADHD, twice exceptional, OE, or highly sensitive is not the whole story. 

We want to be treated as unique individuals. Yet do we extend the same courtesy to others?

How often do people talk about “the neurotypicals” or “the non-gifted” as though they are all fundamentally the same? Pigeon hole them. Homogenise them.

(The ironic flip side is we also do it to ourselves – assuming familiarity with someone because of shared labels. But I digress…)

How often do we reduce a human being to a label, while simultaneously asking not to be reduced to one ourselves? 

It’s not that simple. No one is that simple. 

Dabrowski wrote:

“The sense of one’s own uniqueness and personal identity requires that others be treated as autonomous, authentic and inviolable individuals.”

That idea challenges me in a good way every time I think of it. Encourages me to see more. But it’s a slap every time I don’t do it. 

Genuine recognition of my own uniqueness should increase my awareness of the uniqueness of others. And if every individual possesses uniqueness, then nobody is a category. 

Yet it’s so easy to just slap a label on. Particularly if that label represents something which traumatised or hurt me in the past. I have to remind myself…

Nobody is “just” <label>.

The moment we believe we already understand people, curiosity stops. And relationship stops growing.

I have baby boomer parents who went through some wild stuff over the last year. I had spent over four decades thinking I knew them – people who raised me, taught me, and with whom I shared genetic traits. 

But then the pressure comes, and an unknown story slips out. Or a family secret which had been hiding all this time. Or an unnamed fear previously unexpressed in an effort to ‘protect me’. Or a little hidden treasure from a storage box I never knew existed. Or they react to a crisis in a way I never anticipated. Or they’re suddenly vulnerable in a way I hadn’t seen before.

The previously unseen aspects of people you have known for a long time have a habit of rising up to challenge all your assumptions, often accompanied by a sense of shock and un-realness. But that shock is only shocking when you have convinced yourself you already know everything.

People change. I’ve changed. They’ve changed. Everything and everyone is dynamic and complex and rich, and changing over a timeline. And importantly, at any given point in time, what we know about another person is just the tip of the iceberg. The last thing I should be is shocked. 

Bald truth is we never really know anyone. And yet we can love them. 

I looked in the Monster Mirror and learned: I love my parents deeply, and yet I have probably never understood shit-all about them this entire time.

And this, friends, is the harsh flip side of the previous coin. The uncomfortable reverse twin of the first assumption. 

If you can accept you don’t really know anyone, and yet you can love them completely… Love them so much it hurts to see them suffer. Love them so much the thought of losing them rips you apart…

Then why can’t you open up to the possibility that they love you the same way?

Assumption 3: Authenticity Means Expressing Myself Without Restraint

This one is quite common. And you bet your ass I’ve held it. 

In the triangle video and you’ll see it lingering. I told people they should just gradually unmask a little bit. I didn’t account for the dam bursting effect, or make any differentiation between unmasking and authenticity.

People often confuse authenticity with acting on their first reaction. They assume that if something is genuine, it should be expressed. If I feel angry, I should say it. When I feel hurt, I should unload it. Whenever I think something, I should voice it.

Parallel to that, I’ve even seen a concern that changing so much as your tone and vocabulary between audiences (e.g. home and work) is a form of masking or self-erasure. 

But that is not how Dabrowski describes authenticity. Authenticity is not the absence of filters, and it is not acting on instinct, or giving in to emotional impulsivity.

Authenticity is conscious alignment with values.

Dabrowski wrote:

“The conscious choice of definite values and the direction of one’s actions dominates over compulsive behaviour.”

Development is not the freedom of impulse. Quite the opposite. It is the ability to step back from impulse and evaluate it. Subject-object in oneself. Self-awareness. Self-control. Reflection. Choice.

People often speak as though authenticity means expressing whatever is inside them. Just “be yourself”. But that behaviour only factors in “what is” and forgets the “what ought to be”. It takes focus off the personality ideal.

Dabrowski’s concept of authenticity is far more demanding:

“Authentism involves conscious activity in accordance with one’s ‘inner truth’ … achieved through autonomous developmental transformations of one’s own hierarchy of values and aims.”

The developmental question is not “What do I really feel?” Rather it is “Given what I really feel, what do my values call me to do?”

Sometimes authenticity means speaking and living our inner truth as it stands. But sometimes authenticity means remaining silent, compromise, and consideration of others. 

For me, even when I write my blogs, there’s an element of compromise founded in my relationships. Sometimes authenticity means sharing, but other times authenticity means protecting someone else’s privacy, and recognising the skeleton in the closet isn’t just mine. 

The question is not whether a feeling is real, but whether our actions align with the person we are trying to become. 

So I’ve reached the conclusion of late that unmasked and authentic are not the same. Especially in the beginning – the flash flood is often far from the true shape of the river as it should flow. 

The critical difference between unmasking and authenticity, in the context of relationships, is how we show up for other people.

Because one only requires us to consider our immediate needs, where the other requires something else entirely – which leads me to the sticky root cause of everything…

The Missing Person(s) in the Conversation

What ties all three misconceptions together?

(You’re gonna hate reading this…)

I think they all come when we place ourselves at the centre.

My longing to be understood. My understanding of others. My expression. My feelings. My needs.

And yet relationships contain another person. A second, whole-ass human. A fact so damned obvious it almost makes you bristle with indignation at being reminded of something so simple. But it’s incredibly easy (and human) to lose sight of the fact, especially when we’re in pain.

Ask me how I know.

Go ahead and ask how many friendships eroded in the past because I couldn’t see beyond my own suffering to see their needs. Ask about the distance I put between me and my family for my comfort, without questioning how it made them feel. Enquire about how many shitty things I did because I felt afraid, helpless, and pressured at the time, and I didn’t know any fucking better.

Then ask me how could I have done all that, and still have fallen into people pleaser mode. Served toxic narcissists, fawned in the face of abuse, and forgotten myself entirely. Ask why I still struggle with boundaries to this day.

Your needs are important, as are your boundaries. Absolutely, no questions asked.

So relationships require balance. One that can be difficult to maintain sometimes, but is still very important to attempt.

But there’s a third person missing from this conversation who is just as critical – your personality ideal. 

Not you as you are now, but you as you “ought to be”. 

Not Emma as I am now, but Emma as she should be. If I forget about Future Emma, I am stopping my own development in its tracks. She is the one who, by Dabrowski’s definition of authenticity, is the one who I should be consciously creating. But I’ll never create her if I only ever serve the immediate needs of who I am today. 

So really there are three people in this whole balancing act: the other person, me, and Future Emma. And all three of them have different needs, and form part of any relationship.

Values and development

Future Emma’s well being, as well as mine and the other person’s, rest in my values. 

Values are fundamentally relational. Dabrowski describes higher values built on such foundations: Honesty. Compassion. Justice. Kindness. Loyalty. And of course, Love.

Think about it – If you were the last person on Earth, most values would become largely useless. There would be nobody left to impact with your behaviour, besides yourself. Positive or negative. Yes, you’d still have yourself, the earth, and the cosmos, but given the highly social nature of humans, and the specific qualities of those human outward relationships, there would be a giant gap in our lives.

So values are fundamentally relational, and because personality development is the conscious organisation of our lives around those values, development itself is relational.

Dabrowski describes many dynamisms which necessitate other people – guilt, empathy, shame, self-control, responsibility, positive maladjustment, and subject-object reflection. But in the last person on Earth scenario, with no one else around to relate to, most of those dynamisms would not actually be possible, let alone necessary.

For example, you couldn’t consider others as unique individuals and observe them subjectively (with the aiming of seeing which of their finer qualities you could embody in your personality ideal), because there’s no one to observe. Positive Maladjustment becomes a moot point because there is no society to be maladjusted to. Growth would be unnecessary (because there’s no one to impact relationally but yourself) and it would also be mostly unachievable. 

Development asks us to become conscious participants in relationship. And in that participation, give life to our values and our personality ideal.

The Third Path

A third path resolves for me the problems of the first two.

It is not building a dam of masking, nor a catastrophic flooding. Neither is it abandoning myself for the sake of relationships, nor abandoning relationships for the sake of self. It does not rely on cognitive understanding, or force me to bridge all the gaps. It does not concrete over the soil of emotional connection, or prevent the seeds of love from thriving.

The third path simply asks: what is truly authentic and aligns with my values? 

Mutual adaptation. Collaborative curiosity. Partnered communication. Embodied empathy. Mindfulness of all the needs. And keeping an eye on who it is that Future Emma “ought to be”.

You do not need to hide who you are. They do not need to understand you completely. Just keep making sure nobody gets left out of the conversation. And remember that it does take conscious, value-based action, and recognition that the type of understanding you should be seeking is relational and emotional. 

Learning the River

I no longer believe complete understanding is the requirement for love.

There will always be gaps. Gaps in cognitive understanding, perspective, and experience.

The goal is not to eliminate every gap. The goal is to keep crossing the right kind of gaps. Not because the other gaps don’t matter. But because relationship matters more. Values matter more. 

My feelings of loneliness, and my perception that love was a scarcity, was never going to be resolved with abolishing all misunderstanding. I know now that love is actually what allows me to keep meeting others in the middle despite it. 

Life called me to step up to the plate and exercise compassion, conscious action, acceptance and empathy, all at the same time, while not masking or compromising my own boundaries and needs. It also made me actively think about who I wanted to be when I showed up for people I cared about. 

It showed me love was always there, even when I couldn’t see it for myself.

And I realised how little cognitive understanding actually matters when the chips are down. How much empathetic understanding matters more, and how conscious understanding of my personality ideal helped me show up in all the ways I needed to, without forgetting myself in the equation.

Now I’ve moved beyond that three sided triangle, and onto the third path. And Dabrowski’s definition of authenticity is the key to keeping myself on that path. 

Not masking. Not flooding. And no unicorn hunts. But learning how to let the river flow, keep an eye upstream to navigate to better waters of ought to be, and take care of the landscape I share with other unique individuals.