The place you escaped and the place someone else dreams of reaching can share the same ZIP code.

The place you were desperate to leave is somewhere else’s aspiration, and both readings are honest. Your experience of it was shaped by what happened to you there, and someone else’s by what they lacked. Neither of you is wrong, and remembering that keeps you from either dismissing a place entirely or romanticising it.

When you talk about where you came from, separate what happened to you from what the place is. Your account is a true account of your life there. It is not the whole description.