Nobody Knows Me

Bias, kindness, and the courage to listen with an open mind.

In 2003 Madonna created a song called “Nobody knows me.” It’s lyrics always stayed with me; part defiance, part truth. Because no-one person knows the complete story of anyone do they? They see fragments, make judgements, and build whole narratives out of their own projections.  I’ve lived most of my adult life in that uncomfortable space between being seen and being understood.

Bias isn’t bad, it’s human, but it’s dangerous when we don’t see or understand it.

I recently gave a presentation on negativity bias, and it reminded me how much our brains are wired to notice what’s wrong. Add confirmation bias, and we’re all walking around searching for proof that our first assumptions were right. That’s how prejudice works. and that’s how stigma thrives.

During the recent editing of our Co-Alc documentary, we were contemplating what footage to use or cut and discussed how people are quick to judge if “they took drugs - they must have deserved what happened”. That’s confirmation bias in action. It’s the reason our work matters so much. We’re trying to dismantle those instant conclusions, those moral shortcuts that dehumanise people. When we label someone “a druggie” or “an addict,” we stop seeing the son, the father, the friend, the boy who once had dreams. You don’t know a fraction of their story or their circumstances and that’s now my responsibility to tell.

Listening without judgement

My Samaritans training taught me one of the most radical skills in life there is: listening: Not to fix. Not to advise. Not to compare. Just to hear. We live in a world addicted to outrage. People will tell you what’s wrong with you before they’ve even asked who you are. I learned that the moment someone feels genuinely listened to, something shifts. It’s the first step toward healing. It's mindblowingly simple actually.

That’s why I’m so protective of people’s right to speak. Even when what they say makes others uncomfortable. Obviously I do not tolerate actual 'hate speech' but there is a HUGE different between inciting hatred and violence and asserting an option. Understanding doesn’t come from silence. It comes from space. A quote I used recently has been on my mind a lot lately is what Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote in her famous paraphrase of Voltaire:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

I know right, he mentioned the T word!

I’ve worked with Cullan Mais for a few years now. He’s been integral to the making of our documentary: brave, creative, deeply human. And yet, I’ve seen him vilified and shamed because of who he chose to talk to, or what people think his opinions might be. I’ve also taken some flack too, guilty by association, perhaps? But I will always stand by him, because I’ve listened to him, his harrowing experiences, and his journey for redemption, his underlying illness, and not the projection of his media bias. He listens to people that others won’t even make eye contact with: those who use drugs, those who’ve been written off, those who live on the margins of 'accepted society'. He has that rare quality: he actually really does care. Oh, it’s very easy to support someone when they’re universally liked, but it’s so much harder, and far more important, in my humble opinion, to stand beside them when the crowd turns away.

The Kindness Paradox

Everywhere I look online, people are posting quotes like, “Be kind”, and yet, the same people are often the first to attack, mock, or cancel someone the moment it becomes fashionable to do so. Kindness has become a slogan or a filter, not a practice. We saw it with Caroline Flack. The media and the public tore her apart, and after her death, everyone reposted #BeKind as if it were an exorcism. Kindness after the fact isn’t kindness, it’s guilt dressed up for social media. Real kindness shows up when it’s messy, inconvenient, and uncomfortable. It’s being gentle with people you don’t understand, not just the ones who make you feel good.

It’s easy to be kind to people we agree with -`the real test is staying kind when we don’t.

Sometimes bias isn’t about politics or ideology, it’s about everyday judgement. Over the last year alone, I’ve been benefit-shamed for needing support, consumer-shamed for buying from China based platforms, food-shamed for using butter, body-shamed for not exercising enough, moral-shamed for using AI to make my life easier, and accused of political leanings I don’t even hold. Fuck me, shamed for shames sake I think! It’s fucking exhausting. It’s as if every personal choice is a referendum, and everyone else gets a vote. But guess what, I’m not looking for anyone’s approval, I’m hoping for understanding and that’s the difference. People say “be kind”, but when kindness requires tolerance, it disappears. It’s easier to curate empathy online than to practise it in real life.

The Right to Speak, The Need to Listen

My only agenda,  if I have one, is defending the right to tell and to hear the vast array of  lived experience voices. How can we possibly learn what someone’s been through if we don’t give them the space to explain? Listening doesn’t mean agreeing. It means respecting another person’s reality enough to let it breathe. Maybe that’s why we’re not making real progress in suicide prevention, because we’ve replaced empathy with judgement. We’ve made people too afraid to speak honestly. Every cruel comment, every pile-on, every throwaway remark adds to the noise in someone’s head (negativity bias, is how our negative thoughts affect our thinking). And what if one of those random comments becomes the voice that pushes someone over the edge? Would it still feel righteous then?

That’s why I will always defend people’s right to speak, even when it’s raw or imperfect. If we can’t hold space for imperfection, we don’t deserve transformation. I’m always learning from other’s voices; I recently watched an interview on Andrew Gold's aptly named podcast Heretics with Clive Stafford Smith. He's a human rights lawyer who defends people on death row, even the guilty ones (I know shock, horror!). He said he doesn’t believe in prisons as they exist now, because punishment without understanding changes nothing. It reminded me of my Samaritans training again: those times when you’re listening to someone in despair, and the line between “good” and “bad” dissolves. You realise that behaviour, even the most destructive kind, always comes from somewhere.

During my Graphic Communication Masters course, I studied John Berger’s Ways of Seeing.; how art can’t be understood without context. The same is true of people.Every decision has a story. Every life has a context. Bias blinds us to both. And when people say that someone “deserved” to die because they used drugs, or because they were shot for defending their right to keep a gun, I hear the same blindness. The same refusal to see the human being behind the behaviour. Stigma doesn’t protect lives — it ends them.

“It’s no good when you’re misunderstood

But why should I care

What the world thinks of me?”

(Madonna, Nobody Knows Me (2003)

Sometimes art articulates what life keeps trying to teach us. For me, this song isn’t about fame; it’s about freedom. Freedom from perception, from projection, from the need to please. Ultimately that is what I’m learning to reclaim. The truth is, I don’t need everyone to know me, but I do need people to listen; not to reply, not to correct, just to hear. Because that’s where change begins. Not in policies or press releases, but in the private moment where one human being sees another clearly. So, I’ll keep writing, speaking, and defending people’s right to tell their stories. Not because I want to be liked, but because I want us to wake up. In a world shouting opinions, I choose listening. Nobody really knows ME. And maybe that’s exactly why I’m here, to remind others that knowing starts with kindness.

And yes, thanks to my Neurodivergent Brain. I make no apologises to co-authoring this post with Chat GPT. But these are MY words, thoughts and assembly that without it’s help probably would have probably taken me several days to write and I've got a documentary to bloody finish!