“Well I feel the same way about you,” I said to a pal. “Nobody seems to know who you are. Your family for example. Why don’t they know you? I mean, they do know you but the things they know are not the important things. They don’t know any of the things that count.”
“That’s right.”
“Yeah, I think it is. They do know some things. They know how to hurt you and how to make you feel bad. They know what’s wrong with you and can tell you all about it but none of this is important. It has no bearing on anything that matters and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the person I know,” I said.
“They don’t know what is good about me,” she said.
“No, so how is that? Why can’t they see you? Why don’t they want to know you? This seems like a waste. It is a waste of a perfectly good person who they could know.”
I was talking to a Pisces but I wonder. Does your family know who you are?
Hmm…good question.
Thanks, Elsa, for giving me the opportunity to comment on this, because it has been bothering me quite a bit recently–to the point of cutting my visit short with my family because of the self-consciousness and emotional discomfort I feel.
My personal opinion (as someone who has tons of Pisces friends and as someone who has moon, mars and s. node in pisces) is this:
*Pisces naturally falls into a victim/martyr position, and is laid open to all kinds of emotional assaults and impressions. It seems to be one of the most prominent shadow-sides of Pisces. The role of misunderstood doormat is one that comes up again and again,and the Pisces themselves recycles this and manifests it if he/she is not careful!
*Because Pisces is so self-effacing and self-immolating, a large part of them wants to ‘improve’ or be ‘of help’ so what happens as a result of this is that they allow criticism and commentary to occur, whereas other people may not let that happen. If someone says ‘your shoes are ugly, go buy new ones’, they might internalize this information a lot more readily than others.
*Additionally (and I hate to say this, but) Pisces tend to want to follow–unless there are other things in their chart that belie this, of course. So even if someone is giving them negative feedback or bad direction, they are willing to follow because they think the person knows better (or worse) they think that they don’t deserve any better (deep down, sometimes it’s not that apparent in the conscious mind). I think self esteem figures into it quite a bit from what I have gathered.
*Pisces also seems to hide a lot, probably because of the intensity of feeling, or just because of escapism. Pisces may be suffering or playing the role of martyr very well but they are not being honest with themselves or others about what their needs are. I have had a handful of Pisces friends (and myself) who will complain at length to someone else of how badly they are treated, but are loathe to tell their attackers, or perceived attackers. They won’t always communicate directly, or if they do, they are inconsistent or vague, or even contradict themselves. There is a confusion to the Pisces position–and that is appropriately symbolized by the fish swimming in opposite directions. It’s almost as if it cancels itself out. The energy of Pisces is very ambivalent. It feels hot/cold/hot again. There is passion about something one minute, then complete meltdown of that, rearranging, then a change of heart a lot of times. Sometimes I am surprised at myself when I see myself doing this! ehe…
So…in light of all of these things (and I am sure there are many, many other factors to consider), I don’t wonder at all why people can be confused by Pisces. I don’t wonder why Pisces is confused, too! Or why they suffer. It’s a lot of strong and confusing impulses which come from inside, outside and all around.
Finally, I want to cut and paste something my husband wrote to me in an e-mail yesterday. I’m down visiting my family and with all my Pisces I am constantly worried about what others think of it (obviously and especially the bad things). I think it will be helpful for some of my fellow Piscean types to read this and even put it on your refrigerator!
“Sorry about all of your tension both seen and unseen. I know you know this already and it’s another of those easier said than done things, but… you shouldn’t let your fear of what people think of you drive you so much. If you do then not only do you have to deal with your own stress then you’ll find you’re trying to twist yourself in knots in an attempt to accommodate all the stresses and fears of someone else. Take your mom. Just as a totally hypothetical example say that ideally you see your mom’s use of only cloth diapers as a positive coherent decision. So you bend over backwards to try and do the same around her because you’re afraid of what she’ll say or think of you if you don’t. But what if under all that justification she’s got some sort of unnatural fear of disposable diapers for whatever reason. Maybe she is afraid of what others would think of her about the waste or maybe she’s is afraid of the manufacturing process or whatever (you don’t have to defend her, I swear this was just a hypothetical scenario). What I’m trying to say is that people do and believe what they believe because of a WIDE variety of factors. You can’t try and mold and bend yourself so everyone will like you. Not only won’t it work when you do that you are ironically projecting the message that you DON’T have it all together since you seem to constantly be in flux. Not to mention the mental and emotion toll of trying to constantly read people and try and anticipate what you should do based on whatever data you are pulling in from others. It just doesn’t work as a lifestyle choice. You cannot be everything to everyone, so just try and concentrate on being the person that YOU need you to be.”
Thanks for letting me rant about this-it was very therapeutic.
XOXO,
Hannah the Aqua-Ram
(Sun, Merc in Aries)
(Moon, Mars, S. Node in Pisces)
My family often tells me in passing that I don’t tell them much; or that they don’t know anything about my life. That sort of thing. But I think this is their way of telling me that they want ‘more’ of me, because some of the most astute observations that have been made of my character have been made by family members. I am trying not to worry too much what any of them say anymore (meaning: that which I don’t like). It gets much easier to not worry at all, with each passing day it seems.
No Pisces at all, but I do have a 12th house Neptune.
Not one bit. They have absolutely no idea who I am.And I don’t even have any Pisces.Maybe it’s the Neptune opposing/squaring my Sun/Ascendant.
And it’s a shame they don’t know, I’m pretty freaking awesome 😉 (end of shameless self-promo) ;-0
pisces midheaven here (also sun, mercury, venus & jupiter progressed in pisces, eeep!)
people ASSUME i am “this or that” before i say a word – so i sometimes go with the flow of what they say and shock them later on (natal uranus square midheaven). i have been told i look very deep in thought, but really i was probably spacing out.
my family doesn’t know me at all, even whilst i was going through some heavy, turgid shit in my life (severe depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies) – they assume it’s part of my personality. a lady my mom knows asked why i always appear so “sad” and my mom replied that “it’s just how she is”. they are always confused what to tell relatives and family friends what their college drop out of a daughter is up to and sort of “make things up” or are reluctant to answer. they also act passive-aggressive with me ; they know i could be doing something, but i don’t feel encouraged at all – i hate being called “useless” and i hate the words, “i wish you haven’t been born” by my own mother. all my life, i tried to do everything i could to impress my parents (in school, mostly) and in the end, i gave up. believe me, i know they are afraid of what others might think.
eh, i don’t think i mentioned how i belong to an asian family. gah.
also, thanks to hannah for that last paragraph; i agree wholeheartedly!
I don’t think so, and I work hard to keep it that way. For me, it’s nothing to do with Pisces though. I think it’s the Virgo rising paired with Sun, Merc, and Venus in 8th house Aries. I don’t trust any of them, so I try hard to keep them at arm’s length.
Yay Hannah! I liked that post. I don’t mind so much anymore that my family doesn’t know me. In fact, I value my internal life so much that I can honestly say that there are very few people who ‘really know me.’ They may make observations, but those, like my actual presence, is fleeting. I am who I am because of my family. I feel this so strongly, even about the family members who are dead and gone and the ones I’ve never met.
I am sorry, dt, about such cruel words being sent your way by a person who is supposed to protect and nurture you. It really does sound like your Mother doesn’t know you.
In fact, it’s as though she doesn’t recognize you–this is something I like to think of when someone projects heavy-handedly.
“She doesn’t recognize me.” As her daughter, or as another human. But there are people who do. I’m not sure how closely tied to the family-idea you are, within your asian family, but it may be that you don’t recognize that concept, either–especially if they hurt you like that.
Oh, and here’s some good vibes coming your way 🙂
I’m not exactly sure what my family thinks about me — they know that I am smart and talented, but these are surface things: they know also that I am highly opinionated and … well, basically what you were saying: they know my faults, they know what I should be doing and what I’m not, and so forth.
But you know what? I don’t think they have any idea how to make me laugh.
I have a Pisces moon.
My family doesn’t know me. I think they want to, but they are so emotionally repressed that it would take a lot of self-work for them to be able to have a real relationship with me.
I feel uncomfortable around them, like the weight of their unlived lives is pressing down on me. I do love them, but I have no desire to replicate their lifestyle or worldview, so it makes it a bit awkward sometimes.
They are good people, and I hope they manage to get what they want out of life…
Jupiter in Pisces and stellium in the 12th, but not sun in Pisces. Agree completely with kashmiri who says ” I value my internal life so much that I can honestly say that there are very few people who ‘really know me.’ “
Nice comments.
That’s somehow comforting to read about all of your personal experiences (or even lack of experiences) with the Pisces energy. Sometimes it frustrates me to have it in my chart, but other times, the creative and elusive energies are interesting. I think there needs to be some kind of balance, release, some sort of stress management in the emotional life of Pisceans to stay sane and grounded. Especially if they don’t have earth in their chart or whatnot (I have very little earth in my chart).
Have a lovely weekend, y’all…
p.s. I think there’s also a fear of being known, too–I think that I feel deep down that if people really knew me they wouldn’t like me. I told my husband that (back before we were married) his parents wouldn’t like me if they knew me. I felt like I was projecting something that they might like, but if they knew me better they wouldn’t accept me. I think that in reality this is a huge exaggeration and most people aren’t so cruel as to cut you out of their life because of your idiosyncrasies.
great comments here, and i enjoyed reading them, they’re very helpful.
No pisces at all, but Neptune conjunct Ascendant in Scorpio. People just go ahead and project whatever they want to see on me. I just let them do it because it’s easier than putting myself out there. I feel like my parents, my spouse, and only a handful of close friends really get me at all.
I have PISCES ASCENDANT and some days I don’t even know who I god-damned am.
This Pluto transit on my midheaven is horrid.Help.
Blessings–MADDIE
Thanks Hannah for the input, very helpfull.
i’m pisces sun, mercury and south node. my familly doesn’t know me, we don’t have much contact actually nowadays. I identify with much of what other people have said here. When saturn transited my 5th house the fact that nobody really knew me on this planet came to my attention and I decided I should start a blog about me to change this, and so I did, and it was a very good experience. eventually I erased it, because it was too personal and I felt exposed.
I had never connected the piscean energy to the dificulty in letting myself be known, it makes total sense. It’s very frustrating to see my friends don’t understand me, and because it takes too much self analysis to understand myself in terms I could explain to other people, most of the times it’s not worth the trouble. This post helps me to accept this. I think it takes a pisces to know a pisces.
I’m a leo and my family knows me and I know them. We all try and work at it and make it a priority. I talk to my mom and sis near daily, my aunt/uncle dad at least once/month and all the time via email. I love them so much it’s nuts. I also love my pisces SO incredibly and hope that we can learn from each other in our partnership. I am not going to place him in the role of pisces…he’s just more than that. And I do intrinsically feel he is hard to know deeply inside, but I think mosy of us are like that. I truly feel that me just being who I am he will learn to trust, believe and know me but we’ll just have to see what happens. He just deserves goodness. He so deserves it. He does :).
Oh and a nice quote:
All things come out good in the end and if it’s not good it’s because it’s not the end.
Cheers all!
Much like your example person, my family knows what’s wrong with me very well…other than that, no idea, really. I’m too different from the rest of them, and they wanted a clone, hence the problem.
In my experience, Piscean energy is difficult for some cold hearted people to digest. They truly have no clue, so they choose to ignore instead of inquire and learn. But the Piscean often becomes a convenient pincushion for their anxiety when some form of emotion is released.
The Virgo/Pisces saviour/victim axis in action.
Yeah, I got a packed Pisces 7th house, so I KNOW.
Noone in my family knows who I am except the youngest. What is worse I live with the 2 that know me the least. And I know I am invisible to them….consequently the world doesn’t see me either so I am constantly having to fight for small things.
so appropriate today: neptunian weirdness alert– I just had two aries’, born within days of each other, from different parts of the country, tell me some very pointed (positive) things about me, referencing a time period 23 years ago. I would have sworn neither of them noticed me at all. WEIRD.
I have a pisces moon, and I often feel invisible. I can’t tell you how many times people have literally tried to run me off the road because ‘they never saw me’. It happens all the freakin time.
Most people also see me as something I am so not. In fact, the only people who’ve seen me for who I really am are either psychic or I’ve seen the worst of them already and accepted them.
No, they don’t really know me, what makes me tick. I guess it’s coming at the tail end of a big family- they kind of forget you’re there, or they’re so relaxed about it all by the last kid they don’t pay much attention. None of my siblings were interested in me either, still aren’t.
That’s alright- They are all boring white sheep and I am the pink sheep and proud of it. 😉
My family has hidden people for sure. Not that any of us want to be invisible it just turned out that way. In fact I believe all of us in our family are hidden people. I believe it comes from how you are raised. My parents god rest their souls were workaholics. Mother was Cap with Libra rising and a Aries Moon. When I was 5 she held 2 jobs. My father was a Cap with a Leo rising and a Aqua Moon. He had 3 jobs for the majority of his working life. He started working at the young age of 6 years old selling magazines door to door his older sister who was age 10 went along to make change for him. He did this until he was age 9 years when he had a nearly deadly form of the flu and complications would give him kidney problems for the next 80 years. However he was back working at age 10 and up from there. Now that you have the basic of the workaholic parents. They loved each of us children deeply and dearly.
They were not the best judges of child care people up and including family members who cared for us children. Oh and we children are spread out in ages there is 8 years between my sister and I and 17 years between my brother and I. My mother treated us like we were only children each. At age 5 the women who cared for me was having an affair with her husbands uncle. Great I new all about it but no one would listen to a 5 year old kid (duh). Once that came out My Oldest sister who is my fathers adopted child and 12 years older than me a new mother who was not ready to be a mother take care of me. I didn’t make it to Kindergarten most days she couldn’t get out of bed. I took care of my nephew most of the time while she slept we fought ( can you believe that).
When I was age 10 and my sister was age 2 years old our great Aunt came to live with us she was my material grandmothers sister who has never had children of her own. My mother when back to work. The summer before my 6th grade year my material grandmother also came to live with us and she took over the childcare duties what this meant to for my parents is that now they could work 70 hours a week each. Yeah for them right. What that meant for my sister and I is we were to be seen and not heard period. My grandmother and her sister grew up in a time when child abuse was encourage as long as it didn’t get out of hand yanno. My grandmother had favourites and I certainly was not one of them so I came into most of the verbal and mental abuse. My parents thought they had curbed her tenancies towards physical abuse. When you are gone there is no one to keep bad things from happening yanno.
However I was old enough and strong willed enough that she couldn’t ignore me totally. My sister became nearly invisible and prefers it like that and is always afraid. Which is exactly how my grandmother wanted it. I on the other hand have very few fears. I refuse to be invisible hence you can see the problem. None of my children are invisible nor is my younger brothers son. My sisters children on the other hand are as ghost like as their mother most especially her youngest son. My oldest daughter is currently staying with my sister. This is a mutual help both ways one of the things she is doing is drawing my sisters kids into the light. This is unsettling to my sister as she doesn’t really know how to deal with it.
I think the saddest thing is people who have grown up invisible is that they tend to choose partners that are extremely abusive. Yes I believe that men as well as women can and are abused.
Wow, so many interesting responses. I’m a Pisces Sun and Mercury with Neptune in the 7th house. I feel like it’s my cloak of invisibility (whether I want it or not). Sometimes I hide because I feel too exposed. I have to work hard to maintain good boundaries because people will project all their crap onto me if I let them.
Honestly, in my family, pisces are seen and understood at least by the fellow fish in the family. But then we have a lot of fishy types in the family. My grandfather and great-grandmother both had birthdays within days of my birthday. I am the oldest grandchild and the oldest great-grandchild shared my birthday. As does my second daughter.
As for disappearing acts, as a kid, I would actually leave. Walk to town, hide out in the woods, crawl to the back of the closet. We are very good at disappearing.
No. They do not have the slightest idea.
Mine doesn’t want to know and would be very unhappy if they did!
I have so much I could say about this, but I’ve come back to it several times and it puts a lump in my throat.
Do I see truth here? Definitely. Am I feeling brave enough to expand on that? Not at the moment.
We feel too much< and we also make others uncomfortable with our gaze~ sorry about that but we travel to places you will never see. We usually are sent to a family to teach just remember that fellow Pisces .
It used to bother me a lot more when I was younger, but now I realize they need me to play this empty container sort of role and I no longer mind as I leave time to do this. Truth is, I’m viewed as a different person at home than I am outside, but it’s sometimes a good thing as I have learned to find my way through different situations.
Is it painful? Yes, sometimes, but I no longer ask for people to see the world the way I do. They see what they want to see, and I just let it be. I’ll make my point if needed, but I don’t try to change their minds not because I want to be liked – I have no control over that – but to comfort people in their myopia.
Poignant comments.
Not really, but then they don’t know themselves, IMO. And I was really different; no ‘natural’ knowing. Saturn in Pisces family.
I.e., what Ocean said.
I don’t know if it’s a Pisces thing (I read somewhere that is it) but I tend to take on the personality of whoever I’m with… not intentionally… so I think maybe I change from day to day which makes it hard to know the real me.
Do you think house position factors in? Pisces is in my 6th and I have Chiron there as well. I am most wounded that my family has no understanding of my career nor do they know how closely my identity/happiness is tied to my career. My reputation/sucess is invisible to them. My sister also has Pisces in her sixth house but she has Saturn there. Her career is a burden and work is something she does for money only. Her work life is invisible to me–and most likely invisible to everyone else in our family–but I doubt whether this bothers her.
My youngest brother has Pisces in the 3rd house. I’ve never met any of his friends or neighbours although I know he has an active social life. Looking at his Facebook photos is a complete shock as he is clearly a very different person (outgoing, sports-loving, gregarious, funny, a great host) outside the family. We know him as a quiet and intelligent family man.
Not really. I have Pisces on the IC. My moon is in Virgo. I never bonded emotionally with my family. Of course I love my parents but and they love me, but there is almost an ethereal quality. My father, a Pisces, adored me when I was a baby but as I grew up, he kind of was hands off, so never really got to know me as I grew up even though I was right in front of him. My mother really enjoyed being a mother, but didn’t always enjoy me. There were phases in our life that we were close, both individually with my parents and as a unit, but they never understood me most of the time. And when I morphed into a variety of identities (Sun in the 12th)they either thought I was odd, or made fun of me or critizied me. I always thought I had been adopted. I always felt like a thing they showed off, or alternately wanted to run from because I wasn’t like other daughters. I am having to take care of them both now, as they are in their 80’s and am trying to get to know them before they go. It’s not about me anymore but how we can play out our family before we don’t have one anymore.
No, they don’t know me. 12th house Sun
Huh…wow. Strikes a chord…
Nope. My family has absolutely no clue who I really am. Chiron in Aries… my individuality was squashed from the very beginning. It even took ME a very long time to figure out who I am. I’m still not entirely sure I know me completely, but I’m diligently working on it! 🙂
lots of love to the pisces folk.
cap sun, jupiter, mean and true node in 12th house. only a few see me. i wonder if they see me as a piscean…
You get a bit older, and you get a bit of perspective. Rats ass! I could care less what they think of me in the family dynamic: (we’re all different and a wee bit crazy). I don’t tiptoe and if I don’t want to agree with you, I may not comment, but I won’t be cowed. I am a grown up living mt own life. If you don’t like the way I am, stay away!
My family is heavily scorpionic- they are all crazy, vindictive, backstabbin’ beeches! I used to be willing to walk over glass for any one of my 5 sisters, but at age 50, I have drawn a line in the sand. I have had enough meddling and flat out lying about me.
I used to take my 5 year old to my sister’s every Sunday, and when I divorced, her and her husband wrote horrible petty letters to the court supporting my ex! I would not have wasted years of letting my child get to know them if I had known what vile people they truly were.
My Mom is a Pisces, and she originated a lot of the creepiest stuff.
We’re sort of a DADT bunch. Maybe it’s something that was brought over and instilled from the homeland where sharing hope & dreams isn’t part of our day-to-day relationship dynamic.
Mom & I are both Pisces so the matriarch and the baby are living in the “cloud” you described above where those closest to us don’t know us. Meanwhile my sibling and dad both have busy 8th houses so they’re out and thriving and involved in other operations unintentionally learning about us .
Never thought about this but it certainly applies to me & mom.
omg this explains a lot with me and my kids – I could have had this same conversation with you Elsa. I have Neptune nearly everywhere in my chart. Touches every angle and planet except Venus and Jupiter.
You asked in another post about my relationship to this you and the blog… and it’s posts like this that bring me back time and again. You articulate and explain something in a way that I would have never thought on my own, but explains so much.
<3
My family really didn’t know me very well and there was a lack of emotional closeness, together with abuse. I have Neptune square Ascendant and can say, though, that hardly anyone actually sees me…
Just found out my Pisces grandfather committed suicide by hanging and that he was Jewish. No one in my family ever spoke of him or even knew who he was. My grandmother never married and he was the unspoken secret in the family. I’m trying to bring him out into the light. My mom claims she never cared to know who her father was.
No I have no pisces, but neptune is in capricorn squaring my sun and people have no idea of who i am… my family and closest friends included
I have a full 12house, which commences in Pisces (Placidus). Tge planets in early Aries are Venus rx and Merc, squared by no other than Neptune. No one can tell me the exact time I was born which puts my sun either ahead of behind my Taurus AC. So maybe even the sun, which tries neptune, could be in the 12th.
I have to say I detest this. The more I explain myself the more I’m misconstrued. Few people even care that I’m a human being. I’m only good as long as I fit in their box. Guess what? that neptune not only trines my sun exactly, but also pulls Pluto with an exact sextile. Guess who’s NOT gonna fit in that box…like…ever… 🤣🤣🤣
PS: solar eclipse in October will hit my pluto… uh-oh…
Interestingly enough, I think pisces tend to see me better than anyone lately, at least in work environment. But relationships-wise, I better not pursue though. It’s way too foggy and slippery one direction or the other. Perhaps both 🤔