We are all susceptible to putting our personal twist on events and issues, interpreting them from our unique perspectives. Distortion is not a negative but a fact of the human condition. Most of us are unaware of what we're doing. Our mind's eye, complete with a history of life experiences, causes us to assess, evaluate, and finally judge any given situation subjectively and objectively, simultaneously. Therefore, good communication and conflict management skills are totally dependent upon our ability to separate facts from the distortion of perception.
Distortion is part of the human psyche.
Consider factual eyewitness accounts of an accident. No two accounts are the same yet observers witnessed the same event. All will swear that what they observed is factual, citing others for distorting the facts. Indeed, police become suspicious if two testimonies are identical. It takes but a moment for witnesses to process in their minds' eye the sequence of events.