Why do we need to feel understood?

Because no one wants to feel alone.

Do we?

I dunno, sometimes it can be the opposite. Some people like to feel misunderstood and claim that no one can relate to them. So they can feel unique.

But that mostly just applies to hormonal teenagers.

Because we need to communicate. If you don’t feel that you are understood, you are not able to communicate.

Sometimes, though, we don’t.
Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes when I feel like absolute shit and somebody’s trying to tell me “Oh, I understand. I know what you’re going through,” it makes me even angrier because there’s that little voice in the back of your head saying “No, you don’t!”

@lawlipop beat me to it.
I must be a hormonal teenager.

Because we feel it means that no one is listening. If we feel that no one is listening, then we feel that no one cares about our thoughts. If we feel that no one cares about our thoughts, then we feel alone.

@squidcake I guess I was too quick to generalize. Hah.

@lawlipop
Don’t worry about it. I technically still am a teen.

When we are misunderstood, we feel our vulnerability before others.

point of view. We all have a point of view and we want people to feel it. to realize it.
To say, your point of view counts. Your opinion matters.

we all want to matter.

If I take your question literally, I have ample experience of not being understood. I live in a country where I barely speak the language, and subsequently feel like I’m imprisoned in my own bubble. I cannot speak with the person behind the counter in a shop, I cannot exchange idle chit-chat with a nieghbour in the elevator, I cannot understand the daily message written for me by my son’s daycare teacher, and they can’t read what I write back to them. When I go out with friends, they make an effort to speak English to me, but inevitably slip back into their native tongue as the conversation flows. I sometimes have the gist of a conversation, but cannot contribute. It’s exhausting.

Not being able to communicate easily with others denies you a basic life force, and I end up feeling drained. I’m like some kind of mute zombie stumbling around, pitied and feared by others. Basic communication is what drives us as human beings. Without it life is empty of joy.

Because we are social creatures.

I don’t mind it one bit. If someone doesn’t understand me or disagrees, I don’t really care to argue – so I say… okay, fine. And leave it at that.
Arguing until youre blue in the face is ridiculous. Its taken me too long to understand this.

Apparently that’s not a universal need:

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

@CyanoticWasp What’s not clear about that?

Because we are social creatures. A social creature that cannot be understood is isolated from the group. Your brain knows this, and that being isolated is a Bad Thing. So, in its fumbling way, it tells you that you need to be understood.