Feeling like no one listens to you is usually not about volume or how often you speak. It tends to come from being heard only in the role people expect from you, so the part of you that is struggling never quite lands. The fix is partly practical, saying it in a way that cannot be skimmed, and partly finding at least one place where the real version is allowed.
You can be surrounded by people and still feel unheard. The common thread is that people respond to the version of you they already have. If you are the capable one, the funny one or the one who copes, anything that does not fit gets translated back into that shape. You say you are exhausted; they hear that you are busy.
It also happens when you have learned to say hard things lightly. A joke, a shrug, a 'but I'm fine really' at the end. People take the exit you offered them.
Where it happens changes what helps.
Ask for the kind of listening you want before you start. 'I do not need advice, I just need you to hear this' changes what the other person is listening for.
Drop the softeners. Say the plain sentence, then stop talking and wait through the pause. The silence after a hard sentence is where people actually take it in.
Pick a moment that is not competing with something. Not in the car on the way somewhere, not while they are on their phone.
Sometimes the honest answer is that there is no one around who can hear it right now. That is not a verdict on you. In the meantime, the words still need somewhere to go. You can write the unedited version here on drift with no name attached, and other people who have felt it can mark that they did.
And if not being heard has turned into feeling worthless or wanting to disappear, please talk to someone trained to listen. In the UK, Samaritans are free on 116 123, or text SHOUT to 85258. If you are being controlled or hurt, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247. Elsewhere, findahelpline.com lists free services.
Often because people respond to the role they expect from you rather than what you are actually saying, or because you soften hard things so much that people take the easy way out. It can also reflect a pattern where you are regularly talked over or dismissed.
Say what kind of listening you need before you start, use the plain sentence without softeners, and pause after it. If it keeps happening with the same people, it is fair to name the pattern directly.
Put your points in writing before or after meetings so they are recorded in your name, ask a colleague you trust to back you up in the room, and raise it with your manager if ideas are repeatedly credited to someone else.
Very. Most people feel it at some point. It becomes something to act on when it is constant, when it comes with being dismissed or corrected about your own experience, or when it starts to make you feel worthless.
If you want a person, Samaritans listen without judging, free on 116 123 in the UK. If you just need it out, you can write it anonymously on drift, where other people can mark that they felt the same.
Say the thing nobody heard. It lands here.
Drift in →