Cognitive Dissonance

When what you’re told and what you see don’t match, believe what you see.

He says he’ll change. Nothing changes.

She says she’s happy for you. She hasn’t asked one question about it.

They say the door is always open. You knocked twice and nobody came.

Somebody says “we’re fine,” and you’re lying awake at two in the morning doing math on a life that doesn’t add up.

And underneath all of it, a low grinding in your chest. Two things that cannot both be true, running at the same time.

Hear me on this. That grinding is not anxiety. It’s not oversensitivity. It’s not you being difficult.

It’s you knowing something.

The only question, the one this whole piece turns on, is what you do with what you know.

What It Actually Is

Cognitive dissonance is a psychologist’s phrase for something you already know by feel. The discomfort of holding two contradicting things at once.

What I was told versus what I saw.