Yeah you're right. It WOULD be pretty fucked up if you were a swan but you were raised by ducks and you grew up never seeing another swan or even knowing that such a thing as a swan even existed so you just thought you were a duck with something super wrong with it.
This is the English word I want to get tattooed on my wrist. It means “to keep breathing even though the water rises all around you.” English is such a mystical exotic language. They can fit so much meaning into so small a word.