Listener question: Can we ever know another?

Listener question: 

I suddenly had an awareness of my mother as a young mother, and saw that her bursts of anger came from her anxiety and self doubt as a parent (she's spoken to me often as an adult about the self-doubt she had, but I'd never connected it to her anger).  I don't think that I've ever realised how early on that experience was there for her, and I have the deepest compassion for her, knowing how locked into her reality she must have been from such early days - without the hint of a different space to live from. Can this "knowing" be true?  Or is it at the level of the self identity?    it seems to me that it bypasses the self - how could it be at the level of self if there's nothing to protect or seek comfort for?