At home, being the youngest often felt less like being the baby of the family and more like being in the way of everyone else’s already full lives. My parents were busy working, and my older siblings, teenagers or young adults at the time, were suddenly placed in a semi-parental role they hadn’t chosen.

I wasn’t a quiet child. I had big emotions, lots to say, and what I now understand as undiagnosed ADHD. There were many tantrums, many tears, and a strong sense that things were unfair, especially when I compared my family with my friends’ families and how listened to they seemed.

What I often experienced was being told to calm down, being shut down, or being told I was “playing the victim”. Over time, that shapes something very deep: the feeling that your emotions are inconvenient, or that you have to fight to be heard at all.

So active listening is something I only really learned in adulthood, through counselling training and later through understanding my own neurodivergence.

For a long time, I thought listening simply meant not talking. But real listening is about staying emotionally present, not rehearsing your reply, not comparing experiences, and not rushing in to fix or advise.

And if I’m honest, I still don’t always feel listened to by the people closest to me.

There are moments when what I’m saying feels quickly overtaken by something more important, more urgent, or more interesting. Or my experience gets met with “that happened to me too”, and suddenly the focus shifts. It can leave me feeling invisible, as if my experience doesn’t quite matter enough to hold the space on its own.

Before we think about how we listen to others, it can be helpful to pause and reflect on our own experience of being listened to.

When was the last time you felt truly heard by someone?

What happened in that moment?

What did the other person do while you were speaking?

Did they interrupt, give advice, change the subject, or stay with you?

Did you feel rushed, compared, or understood?

Often, we recognise real listening not just by what is said, but by how it feels in the body. There may be a sense of settling, of breathing more easily, of not needing to justify or defend yourself.

What Happens in the Nervous System When We’re Not Heard

When we don’t feel listened to, it’s not just emotionally disappointing, it affects the nervous system.

Our bodies are wired for connection and safety. When we feel understood, the nervous system can settle. When we feel dismissed, interrupted, or ignored, the body can shift into protection: fight, flight, freeze, or shutdown.

Over time, this can show up as:

•anxiety or emotional overwhelm

•irritability or defensiveness

•withdrawing from closeness

•or feeling “too much” for having needs at all

These are not personality flaws. They are nervous system responses shaped by repeated experiences of not feeling safe enough to fully express ourselves.

Attachment and the Need to Be Taken Seriously

From an attachment perspective, being listened to helps build a sense of emotional safety in relationships.

When someone stays present, reflects what we’re saying, and doesn’t compete for attention, the message we receive is:

You matter. Your inner world is important. You don’t have to rush or perform to be worth listening to.

When that experience is inconsistent or missing, people may grow up:

•over-explaining

•doubting their own feelings

•prioritising others’ emotions over their own

•or avoiding vulnerability altogether

These patterns are not choices we make consciously. They are adaptations: ways we learned to stay connected in environments where emotional space felt limited.

Trauma, Emotional Memory and Being Witnessed

Not all trauma is about dramatic events. Much of what affects us later in life is relational and emotional like experiences of feeling unseen, unheard, or misunderstood when we most needed connection.

The body remembers these moments, even when the mind has long moved on.

This is why in adult relationships, small moments of interruption or dismissal can sometimes feel disproportionately painful. They can activate much older emotional memories stored in the nervous system.

Being deeply listened to can be a powerful corrective experience. It allows emotions to be felt and processed without being rushed, challenged, or redirected.

Often, people don’t need advice. They need to be witnessed.

How This Shapes My Work as a Therapist

Because of my own experiences and through years of clinical practice, I am especially attentive to moments when people feel interrupted, overlooked, or unsure whether what they are saying really matters.

In my work, active listening means slowing things down and allowing clients to set the pace. It means staying with what feels important to them, even when it might seem small or hard to put into words. It also means being aware of how easily people can feel judged, misunderstood, or rushed, especially if that has been part of their earlier relationships.

I work in a trauma-informed and attachment-based way, paying attention not only to what is said, but also to what is happening in the nervous system in the room, after all, the body keeps the score. Sometimes what is most healing is not finding solutions, but creating enough safety for emotions to be felt and understood.

Many clients tell me they are not used to being given this kind of space. Over time, this experience can help them feel more confident expressing themselves outside of therapy too, not because they have learned scripts, but because their body has learned that it is safer to speak and to take up emotional space.

If you often feel unheard in your relationships, it doesn’t mean you are too sensitive. It may mean your nervous system is responding to a very real and very human need for connection and validation.

Feeling heard is not a luxury. It is part of how we regulate, attach, and heal. And it deserves space.