Why Do I Keep Trying? The Pain of Feeling Misunderstood by Family

You speak up. You try again. You extend grace, even when it isn’t returned. And still, your family doesn’t seem to understand you. Sometimes it’s subtle. Other times it’s painfully clear. Worse still, you may be left feeling like you are the problem for even trying.

If you’ve ever found yourself asking, “Why do I keep trying?” you’re not alone. There is a very real emotional toll that comes from being repeatedly misunderstood by the people who are supposed to know you best. That toll builds quietly over time. It shows up as exhaustion, self-doubt, and a deep sense of loneliness that can exist even when you’re surrounded by family.

Family is often described as a safe place. The people who see you, stand by you, and understand you even when words fail. But for many people, family becomes the place where they feel the least seen. Where their emotions are minimized, their differences misunderstood, and their attempts at connection quietly dismissed.

I’ve lived this myself. About a year before my dad died, he said something to me that has stayed with me ever since. He told me, “We just didn’t know what to do with you. You were… different.”

There was no cruelty in his voice. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. But the impact was still profound. In that moment, he put words to something I had felt my entire life — that sense of being slightly outside the circle. Not fully understood. Not quite fitting. It confirmed a long-held ache that I hadn’t always known how to name.

And yet, because it was my family, I kept trying. I wanted to be known. I wanted to be understood. I wanted connection. I still do. What hurts most is when that effort doesn’t bring closeness, but instead leaves you feeling more rejected than before.

There’s a particular kind of sting that comes from hearing a parent acknowledge that you were the “different one.” The unspoken message is that they didn’t know how to meet you, and maybe didn’t try very hard to learn. It can feel like being told, long after the fact, that you really were the ugly duckling — and that no one quite knew what to do with that.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about this in Women Who Run with the Wolves, using the duckling as a symbol of the wild nature that doesn’t always thrive in environments where it isn’t recognized or nurtured. She reminds us that endurance itself is a strength — that holding on, even awkwardly, even without grace, is sometimes an act of quiet bravery.

There is something important here, especially for parents. Loving children for who they are — even when you don’t understand them — matters deeply. Every child carries a soul unlike any other. When that soul is seen and tended, it learns to trust itself. When it isn’t, it learns to question its own instincts.

So why do we keep trying, even when it hurts?

Because the desire to be known is deeply human. Wanting your family to see the real you isn’t weakness — it’s wired into us. That longing doesn’t disappear just because it’s been painful. In fact, the longer it goes unmet, the more intense it can become.

But when we keep reaching out and meeting the same wall, something subtle begins to happen. We start to turn the pain inward. We begin to wonder if we’re asking for too much, if we’re too sensitive, too intense, too emotional, or simply too different. These thoughts don’t always arrive loudly. Often, they slip in quietly and settle over time.

Eventually, they can shape how we see ourselves. They can cause us to doubt our own emotional responses and second-guess what we feel. And when that happens, the relationship that suffers most isn’t always the one with our family — it’s the one we have with ourselves.

Rebuilding trust in yourself is often the first real step toward healing. When your feelings have been dismissed or misunderstood for years, it can feel disorienting to even ask yourself what you truly think or feel. You may have learned to override your instincts in order to keep the peace or avoid disappointment.

Part of rebuilding that trust begins with validating your own experience. You do not need anyone else’s agreement for your emotions to be real. If something hurt, it hurt. If something felt off, that matters. Learning to affirm your own inner voice, instead of silencing it, is a quiet but powerful shift.

You may also start to notice moments when you shrink yourself. Times when you edit what you say, soften your truth, or downplay your needs to avoid conflict. These moments are not failures. They are clues. They point to places where your trust in your own voice has been worn down. Simply noticing them — without judgment — is an act of care.

Safety matters, too. You don’t need everyone to understand you. One or two places where you feel emotionally safe can make a tremendous difference. That might be a trusted friend, a small group, or a confidential space where you’re reflected back to yourself with steadiness and kindness.

Over time, it helps to look for patterns rather than proof. If you are always the one doing the emotional work to reconnect, that’s a pattern. If you consistently feel worse after opening up to certain family members, that’s a pattern. Trusting yourself means noticing these trends and letting them inform how much access someone has to you — rather than waiting for a moment that finally makes everything clear.

It also means allowing love to start with you. The compassion and understanding you’ve been hoping to receive from others can begin internally. This isn’t about self-sufficiency or shutting people out. It’s about no longer withholding kindness from yourself while you wait for someone else to offer it.

If you’ve ever been told you’re too sensitive, too much, or too emotional, please hear this clearly: you are not too much. More often than not, you were simply surrounded by people who didn’t have the capacity to hold your full emotional world.

That doesn’t mean you have to cut ties. But it does mean you are allowed to stop contorting yourself to fit spaces that cannot meet you. You’re allowed to stop trying so hard. And you’re allowed to try something new — trusting yourself.

You get to decide what kind of relationships you want in your life. You get to build safety and connection in ways that may not have been available to you growing up. And you get to grow into a version of yourself that no longer apologizes for being emotionally aware, thoughtful, and complex.

If you’re tired of feeling like your family doesn’t get it — and even more tired of how that makes you feel about yourself — you deserve a space where you don’t have to explain, defend, or justify who you are.

That’s what HOLD offers. A confidential, judgment-free listening space where you can speak freely, hear yourself clearly, and begin rebuilding trust in your own voice.

Because the first step in healing from being misunderstood
is being understood.

You can book a confidential listening appointment whenever you’re ready.