By Pattie Mihalik

My daughter made a comment this week about trying to help a friend see “a different reality” from the one she put in her head.

In other words, sometimes what we believe to be true is just our perception. It’s not reality.

I was pleased to see my daughter understands that concept.

Just because we think it’s true doesn’t mean it is.

It’s a simple concept, but it’s one we sometimes fail to understand.

Few of us question whether our beliefs about a person or a situation are accurate. We just assure they are, because, they are OUR version of reality.

I’ve seen that happen so many times over the years.

Here’s a simple example. A woman who turned out to be one of my best friends said our friendship almost didn’t happen because she had an negative impression of me. When she saw me walk into a meeting, she said I walked in like I owned the place and she immediately decided she disliked me based on how she perceived the way I walk. We only got to be friends because our daughters were close friends.

The first time I drove my daughter for a play date with her child she was absolutely frigid toward me.

But the more we talked, she said the more she realized her first impression was not on the mark.

We ended up sharing decades of a close friendship we wouldn’t have enjoyed if she stuck to her version of reality.

On a deeper level, I lost years of good feelings because I fell victim to believing a false reality about the woman I loved most in this world — my own mother.

Sadly, I thought my mother had no regard for me. A decade later, It still hurts to remember how I failed to see the true reality of what was going on with my mother instead of the one I put in my mind.

It started when she stopped calling me.

From the time I moved two hours away we had a wonderful ritual of talking on the phone every Saturday morning. She always called me very early. Mom always believed in an early start to the day.

There were times when the ringing of the phone got me out of bed. But when she would ask if she woke me, I would say, Oh, no. I’m just making coffee. Then, so I wouldn’t be telling a lie, I would make coffee as we talked.

It was a great time for us to share what was going on in our lives.

But then, her phone calls stopped. When I would call her I never came right out and said, “Why aren’t you calling me?”

I just assumed she was too busy for her daughter.

I also detected a change in her feelings toward me. I thought she was distant with me.

That was especially true when I drove two hours to take her to a family funeral. I held her arm as we walked through the cemetery, trying to rekindle the closeness we once shared.

When a relative came up to my mom to ask how many children she had, my mom answered, “Two. Richard and Cindy.” There was no mention of me, her firstborn.

I retorted by saying, “Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?”

She said, “Oh, I forgot about you.”

All that translated in my mind to the fact that my mother didn’t care at all about me.

Sadly, I built up a case for it in my mind. No phone calls, no warmth from her, then a complete denial that I was her daughter put me into a pathetic state of feeling unloved by my own beloved mother.

If I would have been thinking rationally I would have realized the woman who sacrificed for me and took care of me all her life through thick and thin always showered me in love.

I should have realized something I didn’t understand was going on.

But no, I didn’t do it. I just lived with my own sad version of reality.

It wasn’t until my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease that I was hit with the truth.

My mother stopped telephoning me because she no longer knew how to use the telephone.

She never had to call my brother and sister because they lived close to her. My sister thought Mom only had memory problems because of the aftereffect of surgery.

Mom was able to hide so much — until she got so bad she could no longer hide it.

A decade later my heart still aches with regret. While she must have been frightened by all that was happening to her, I wasn’t there for her.

Instead I was nursing my hurt, caught up in my version of reality that had nothing to do with what was really happening.

I’m very careful now to give people the benefit of the doubt. I always think something could be going on in their life that has nothing to do with me.

I learned that lesson the hard way.

It’s painful to share this with you. I do so in the hope that it may help someone avoid making wrong assumptions.

Ask yourself is it reality, or is it just our faulty perception of the situation?

In many instances, that’s a question worth asking.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.