When No One Believed You
And Why It Matters So Much That Someone Finally Does….
There’s a particular kind of pain that lingers long after the trauma itself.
It’s the pain of not being believed.
I see it every day in my work — in the hesitant words, the trembling voices, the eyes that flicker to the floor when the story starts to surface.
Clients often come to me carrying not just the weight of what happened to them, but also the heavy, invisible burden of what happened afterwards:
being dismissed, denied, blamed, silenced.
And that disbelief can sometimes hurt just as much as the trauma itself.
The Hidden Wound of Disbelief
When you experience abuse, violence, neglect or betrayal — it turns your world upside down.
But when you tell someone, and they don’t believe you, it can break something even deeper.
You start to question your reality.
Was it really that bad?
Did it actually happen like I remember?
Maybe it’s my fault?
Maybe I misunderstood?
When the people you trust — family, partners, friends, professionals — reject your truth, it can leave you stranded in your pain.
Isolated.
Ashamed.
Disconnected from your own story.
This disbelief teaches you something dangerous: that your voice doesn’t matter.
That your feelings are wrong.
That your experience is too messy, too inconvenient, too uncomfortable for the world to hold.
And so, many survivors stay silent.
Or tell a carefully edited, watered-down version of the truth.
Or bury it so deep inside that even they start to forget it happened.
But the body remembers.
The nervous system remembers.
The heart remembers.
Even if no one else did.
I Know What That Feels Like
Part of why this matters so much to me as a therapist is because I know this feeling personally.
I know what it’s like to have something painful, real, and deeply affecting happen — and then to have people look away.
To have your words doubted.
To be made to feel like you’re overreacting, too sensitive, attention-seeking.
I know the kind of loneliness that leaves.
The kind that eats away at your sense of safety in the world, and in yourself.
And that’s why, when you walk into my room,
whether you whisper it,
shout it,
write it down,
or just let it hang unspoken in the space between us —
I believe you.
Why Believing Matters in Healing
Healing from trauma isn’t just about what happened.
It’s also about everything that happened next.
The people who stayed silent.
The ones who denied it.
The systems that failed you.
The moments you swallowed your truth just to survive.
And one of the first steps to healing is having someone genuinely witness your pain, without judgment or disbelief.
To be believed is to be seen.
To be heard.
To be validated.
To be safe.
It allows you to stop fighting yourself.
It begins to loosen the grip of shame.
It makes space for grief, anger, mourning, remembering, and eventually — for reclaiming your life on your terms.
Believing someone isn’t just a kind gesture — it’s an act of repair.
A restoration of dignity.
A sacred promise:
"Your pain is real. You are not making this up. What happened to you mattered. And you matter."
Walking Alongside You
It is one of the deepest privileges of my life to sit beside people as they untangle these wounds.
To hear what no one else wanted to hear.
To hold what others pushed away.
To watch someone move from barely being able to whisper what happened — to standing taller in their truth.
I won’t rush you.
I won’t ask you for details you aren’t ready to share.
I won’t turn away from the uncomfortable parts.
I will stay with you in the thick of it.
And when you doubt yourself, I’ll remind you:
I believe you.
I always will.
Because you deserve to finally be believed.
And it’s not too late.
Take gentle care
Louise x
I Believe You
By Louise Malyan
There are words
I wish you had heard
a long, long time ago.
I believe you.
Not because you need to prove it.
Not because you owe me the details.
Not because you have to relive it here in this room.
I believe you
because your body remembers.
Because your eyes say what your mouth sometimes cannot.
Because the silence between your words
is heavy enough to fill the whole room.
I believe you
when you tell me what they did,
or when you can't.
When you try to explain,
then backtrack,
then apologise for taking up space.
I believe you when your voice shakes.
I believe you when you go quiet.
I believe you when you laugh it off
like it was nothing,
and especially when it was everything.
I believe you
because I know what it costs
to carry a story no one wanted to hear.
To be told
it wasn’t that bad.
That you made it up.
That it didn’t happen like you remember.
That you’re too sensitive.
Too dramatic.
Too much.
And yet —
here you are.
I want you to know
it is the deepest, quietest privilege
to hold these truths with you.
Not to take them,
but to help you lay them down,
bit by bit,
piece by piece,
until they feel less like chains
and more like chapters.
This is not easy work.
You have carried this
for far too long.
In your bones,
in your skin,
in the way you flinch at kindness,
or question your worth.
And still —
you keep showing up.
I am not here to judge you.
Not now,
not ever.
I am here to believe you,
to hold space
for all the parts of your story
that were once dismissed,
denied,
and buried.
You deserve that.
You always did.
And if no one told you before —
if no one stayed,
or softened,
or simply said,
“I believe you”
without conditions —
know that I will.
In this space,
in this work we do together,
your truth matters.
You matter.
And it is my greatest honour
to walk beside you
as you begin
to reclaim what was taken,
to grieve what was stolen,
and to remember
who you were
before the world
tried to silence you.
I believe you.
I always will.
