How Did Nobody Notice?

by Rebecca Bloom

There are moments when I look back and wonder how no one saw it. Not the teachers. Not the adults. Not the people who were meant to notice when a child is struggling. I understand why family did not see it. We became isolated. The walls closed in. There were fewer eyes. But school was different. Teachers were there every day. They saw me more than anyone else. And still nothing.

For years I thought the problem was me. I thought I hid too well. I thought I was not obvious enough. I thought I was the one who failed to signal that something was wrong. But the older I get, the more I understand the truth. I did not hide it as well as I think I did. They simply did not know how to see it.

I was the quiet child. The easy one. The one who never caused trouble. The one who finished her work and kept her head down. The one who smiled politely even when something hurt. Adults mistake that for coping. They do not see it as survival.

Teachers are taught to notice disruption. They are taught to respond to loud hurt. They are taught to intervene when a child acts out or falls behind. But the children who fold themselves into silence, who become small to stay safe, who disappear without leaving the room, those children are often overlooked. I was one of them.

Emotional neglect is invisible. There are no bruises. No dramatic scenes. No obvious signs that anything is wrong. A child can be clean, polite and well behaved while carrying an entire world of fear inside their chest. Adults see the surface and assume the inside matches it.

And the people who did notice something small, something subtle, something not quite right, maybe they talked themselves out of it. Maybe she is just shy. Maybe she is just quiet. Maybe she is just mature for her age. Maybe she is just tired. Maybe it is nothing. Adults minimise their instincts because believing a child is hurting is uncomfortable. Intervening feels risky. So they step back. They hesitate. They let it go.

I also learned to protect adults from my pain. I learned to smile when I wanted to cry. I learned to say I was fine before anyone asked. I learned to carry everything alone because I believed I had no other choice. When you grow up thinking your feelings are too much, you learn to hide them even from the people who might have helped.

But the truth is simple. They should have seen me. They should have asked questions. They should have wondered why a child was so quiet, so careful, so contained. They should have noticed the exhaustion in my eyes or the way I shrank from attention. They should have asked why I moved through the world like someone older than my age.

Children are not meant to survive in silence. They are meant to be noticed. They are meant to be understood. They are meant to be cared for.

I was not invisible. I was overlooked. And there is a difference.

Now I see myself more clearly than anyone ever did then. And part of my healing is refusing to question whether I deserved to be seen. I did. Every child does.

Rebecca Bloom