A person who is merely mistaken about you can be corrected; you show them the evidence, they update their view, and the misunderstanding resolves.

I spent decades treating my family as though they were mistaken — as though, if I could only assemble a compelling enough case, present enough achievements, prove myself clearly enough, they would finally see me accurately.

It never worked, not once, and for years I concluded that I had simply not yet achieved enough, and tried harder.

What I could not see was that my family was not mistaken about me.

They were committed to me — committed to a specific version of me, the failure, the disappointment, the black sheep, because that version served a purpose in the household that had nothing to do with the facts of my life.