Don’t tell me how I feel.
Don’t tell me how I think.
Don’t take your lens, polish it with your history, and press it over my eyes like it’s supposed to fit.

That’s not empathy.
That’s a mirror you’re holding up and calling it a window. You say, “I know exactly what you’re going through,” but your “exactly” is built from your bones, your bruises, your blueprint not mine.

You can’t stand in my body and say you know how the floor feels under my feet. You can’t wear my nervous system like a jacket and claim you understand the chill.

When you project, you don’t see me.
You see a version of yourself walking around in my name which makes me small.
It makes me quiet. It makes me explain my own pain to someone who’s already decided what it’s supposed to look like.

I don’t need your story…. I need you to put your eyes on my face. Look at what you’d feel, but at what’s actually there. Don’t ask “Why are you like this?” But, “What is this like for you?”

Because when you project, you take away my reality and replace it with your guess, and a guess, no matter how kind, is still a wall.
I’m not asking you to live my life.

I’m asking you to stop pretending you already have.

Take your lens off my eyes and wear mine!
Then maybe you’ll understand how your words land, how your assumptions weigh, how your “I know” can feel like “I don’t see you at all.”