The Ache of Not Being Heard

Does anyone hear me?

Ignored

The Ache of Not Being Heard

Not long ago, I wrote that I had finally learned how to listen. After years of reacting, withdrawing, or holding on to anger, I now try to listen with more patience, softness, and presence. And I meant it. I listen in ways I never could before and more fully, more deeply, and with more love.

But here's the truth I need to say now: I don't feel listened to, even though I've learned to listen. And it hurts.

This feeling didn't begin in old age. It started in childhood. I was just a boy, and I tried, in my own way, to share how I felt to say I was bored, or lonely, or upset. But no one really heard me. My mother and my grandfather, uncle, and brother were working. I was home alone during the day with my grandmother, a woman who didn't believe children's feelings mattered. If I said I was bored, she'd snap, "Well, go knock your head against the wall." If I tried to say something more, she'd throw out one of her strange sayings, like "I'll hire you a brass band," and leave me confused, silenced, dismissed. I learned early that it wasn't safe to speak my truth. I learned that my feelings would be misunderstood or, worse, rejected.

One memory stands out so clearly. I must have been around eight or nine years old. My grandmother took me on one of her walks to the bank, where she made her regular deposits. On our way home, I spotted a pile of deposit slips on the sidewalk. I ran back, picked them up, and ran to catch up with her. I was excited and said, "Grandma, look what I found!" Instead of thanking me or even acknowledging what I had done, she immediately accused me of stealing them from the bank. She refused to believe I had found them on the ground, and with a stern voice, she said, "Wait till your mother gets home."

When my mother came home, my grandmother told her what had happened. And just like that, my mother believed it, too. I had done nothing wrong, yet I was treated like I had. Out of desperation, I said, "God saw me. God knows I found them on the sidewalk." But even that was met with laughter, as though my appeal to something greater, something honest, was just a joke. They didn't seem to realize how deeply that cut me. I couldn't make them believe me. No one would listen. That moment has never left me. It became one of many that taught me what speaking and not being heard meant.

And that pattern followed me. Even now, at eighty-two, I'm still trying to be heard.

One person in my life heard me, and that was Pat, my wife. Even when we argued, she understood the person I was inside. She didn't push me away. She listened, truly listened, and because of that, I felt known. Since her passing, there's been an emptiness I haven't been able to fill.

Many people feel this, even if they don't say it.

I try not to close off. I try not to go quiet, even when it feels like no one is listening. I remind myself that listening is something I can still give. I can still offer others the very thing I've longed for most.

But I hope, too, that we can all slow down and look around us. Someone close to us, someone young or old, is trying to speak. Not loudly. Not angrily. Just honestly. And if we're quiet enough and kind enough, we'll hear it.

And in hearing it, we might just heal something in them. And in ourselves.