I want to tell you about a man I'll call David.
The first time I met him, he was rude. Not mildly short — genuinely rude. He cut me off mid-sentence, dismissed everything I said, and made it very clear he didn't want me there. I remember driving home that afternoon and thinking: this is going to be a difficult one.
By our third visit, I had learned that David had lost his wife six months earlier. That he had been her full-time carer for four years. That the NDIS plan we were now discussing was the first time anyone had ever asked what he needed. That he had been so focused on keeping her comfortable in her final months that he hadn't slept properly in over a year.
He wasn't difficult. He was exhausted, grieving, and completely alone. And nobody had noticed — because on the surface, he just looked like a man who didn't want help.
We see people every day. But we don't know them. We have no idea what happened before they walked through that door.
This is something I come back to again and again in support work. We are so quick to form an opinion about someone based on a single interaction. A sharp tone. A cancelled appointment. A refusal to engage. A person who seems unmotivated, or ungrateful, or hard to reach.
And in that moment of judgement — even if it is just a flicker — we have already started to close a door.
Because the truth is, behaviour is almost never the whole story. Behaviour is usually the surface of something much deeper.
The battles we cannot see
In my years of support work, I have sat with people who were carrying things I never would have guessed from the outside.
A young woman who arrived to every appointment looking composed and capable — who was secretly sleeping in her car because her housing had fallen through and she was too ashamed to tell anyone.
A man who kept missing his support sessions — not because he didn't care, but because his anxiety had become so severe he couldn't make himself open the front door. Every missed appointment felt like another failure on top of a mountain of them.
A mother who seemed disengaged and distracted during our meetings — who was managing a child with complex needs at home, a relationship that was breaking down, and a diagnosis of her own she hadn't yet told anyone about.
None of these people looked like they were struggling. They looked like they were coping. And that is often the most dangerous place to be — because when you look like you're coping, people stop asking.
Some of the hidden battles people carry into every room:
Grief — for a person, a relationship, a version of themselves they have lost
Mental health challenges that are invisible to everyone around them
Financial stress that shapes every single decision they make
Trauma — old wounds that still shape how they respond to the world
Relationship breakdown, loneliness, or the quiet ache of feeling unseen
Physical pain that has gone unacknowledged or untreated for too long
Fear — of failing, of being judged, of hoping for something and losing it again
How judgement shuts people down
Judgement doesn't always look like cruelty. Sometimes it looks like impatience. A slightly clipped response when someone is late again. A subtle shift in tone when a person doesn't follow through on something. A quiet assumption that someone isn't trying hard enough.
People feel these things. They feel them even when nothing is said out loud.
And when someone already feels like a burden — when they already carry shame about needing support — even the smallest signal that they are being judged can be enough to make them pull back entirely. To cancel the next appointment. To stop answering calls. To decide that asking for help wasn't worth it after all.
Judgement closes doors. And once a door closes, it can take a very long time to open again.
Compassion, on the other hand, creates safety. And safety is where people begin to open up, take risks, and slowly start to trust that things might actually be different this time.
What it means to give people the benefit of the doubt
In support work, giving someone the benefit of the doubt is not naivety. It is a professional skill — and one of the most important ones we have.
It means choosing curiosity over conclusion. When someone behaves in a way that is difficult or confusing, instead of deciding what it means, we ask: what might be going on for this person right now? What am I not seeing? What has their experience of services and support been before they arrived here?
Many of the people I work with have had years of being let down. Years of services that didn't follow through, workers who came and went, systems that made them feel like a number rather than a person. When someone like that is guarded or resistant, they are not being difficult. They are being sensible. They are protecting themselves from being hurt again.
Our job is to be the experience that is different. To show up consistently. To listen without an agenda. To hold space for someone even when they are not yet ready to step into it.
That takes patience. It takes humility. And it takes a genuine willingness to set aside our own assumptions about what someone should be doing or feeling or saying — and simply be present with where they actually are.
Compassion is not the same as having no boundaries
I want to be clear about something, because I think it is often misunderstood.
Choosing compassion does not mean accepting behaviour that is harmful or unsafe. It does not mean abandoning professional boundaries. It does not mean carrying someone else's pain as if it were your own.
Compassion means understanding that behaviour has a context — and responding to the person, not just the behaviour. It means holding firm boundaries with warmth rather than coldness. It means being honest with someone in a way that still communicates respect.
You can say a hard thing with a kind heart. In fact, the kindest thing we can sometimes do is say the hard thing — because we believe in someone enough to be honest with them.
A small practice that changes everything
I have a small practice I try to bring into every interaction. Before I walk into a meeting, before I pick up the phone, before I respond to a message that has frustrated me — I pause and ask myself one question.
What don't I know about this person's day?
It sounds simple. But it genuinely shifts something. It reminds me that I am only ever seeing a small slice of someone's life. That the person in front of me might have received terrible news this morning. That they might be running on no sleep. That they might be holding themselves together by a thread and this appointment is the one thing they managed to get to today.
When I remember that, I show up differently. I listen more carefully. I speak more gently. I leave more room for silence. I stop trying to fix and start trying to understand.
And more often than not, that is exactly what the person needed.
David — the man I told you about at the beginning — eventually became one of the most engaged people I have ever supported. Not because I did anything extraordinary. But because I kept showing up. I kept asking. I kept treating him like someone worth knowing.
One day he said to me: "You're the first person who didn't give up on me when I was being an idiot." I told him he was never being an idiot. He was just carrying something heavy, and nobody had offered to help him put it down.
Everyone is fighting a battle you cannot see. The least we can do — the very least — is try not to make it harder.
— Tracy Young